March 13th, 1943 (SATURDAY)
GERMANY: Hitler escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb failed to explode on his airplane. (Michael Ballard)
Back in the summer of 1941, Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, a member of Gen. Fedor von Bock's Army Group Center, was the leader of one of many conspiracies against Adolf Hitler. Along with his staff officer, Lt. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, and two other conspirators, both of old German families who also believed Hitler was leading Germany to humiliation, Tresckow had planned to arrest the Fuhrer when he visited the Army Group's headquarters at Borisov, in the Soviet Union. But their naivete in such matters became evident when Hitler showed up-surrounded by SS bodyguards and driven in one of a fleet of cars.
They never got near him.
Tresckow would try again today in a plot called Operation Flash.
This time, Tresckow, Schlabrendorff, et al., were stationed in Smolensk, still in the USSR. Hitler was planning to fly back to Rastenburg, Germany, from Vinnitsa, in the USSR. A stopover was planned at Smolensk, during which the Fuhrer was to be handed a parcel bomb by an unwitting officer thinking it was a gift of liquor for two senior officers at Rastenburg. All went according to plan and Hitler's plane took off--the bomb was set to go off somewhere over Minsk. At that point, co-conspirators in Berlin were ready to take control of the central government at the mention of the code word "Flash."
Unfortunately, the bomb never went off at all-the detonator was defective.
POLAND: SS troops start to dismantle the ghetto at Krakow, dispersing 14,000 Jews.
FINLAND: Finnish Air Force receives the first 16 Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2 fighters purchased from Germany. They are a considerable improvement to the Air Force fighter plane -inventory.
U.S.S.R.: Smolensk: German army officers plotting the assassination of Hitler planted a bomb made from British plastic explosive aboard his plane when he left Smolensk after a military conference. The bomb should have gone off as the plane passed over Minsk, but two hours later Hitler landed safely at his Rastenburg HQ.
Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a junior officer in the plotters' circle, retrieved the bomb from the plane and discovered that the corrosive chemical had worked, eating away a wire which had then released a striker. The striker had duly hit the detonator - which had proved to be a dud.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Japanese forces ended their attack on American troops on Hill 700, Bougainvillea. (Michael Ballard)
U.S.A.: Henri Rene And His Orchestra's record of "Tap The Barrel Dry" makes it to the Billboard Pop Singles chart. This is their first single to make the charts and it stays there for 1 week reaching Number 16.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 2322, SS Keystone was torpedoed by U-172 about 450 miles west of the Azores. The ship had been in Convoy UGS-6, but straggled on 12 March about 15 miles behind the convoy due to engine problems and an destroyer remained with the freighter all night, but left the next morning to rejoin the convoy. The U-boat reported the vessel under her former name Sage Brush. One torpedo struck on the port side aft of the #5 hatch. The explosion blew a hole in the hull between #5 hold and the poop deck, destroyed the steering engine and steering gear, buckled the deck, disabled the 4in stern gun, flooded the shaft alley and killed one armed guard and a fireman on watch below. Five minutes after the hit a fire started and one of the aircraft carried on deck caught fire. The engines were secured and most of the eight officers, 35 crewmen, 27 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in and nine 20mm guns) and two passengers (US Army) abandoned ship in good order in four lifeboats. After the crew cleared the vessel, a coup de grâce was fired at 2355 hours, which struck at the #3 hold and broke the ship in two. Both parts sunk until 00.27 hours on 14 March. The survivors were picked up after seven hours by the Portuguese steam merchant Sines and landed at Horta in the Azores on 16 March.
At 0458, U-68 attacked Convoy GAT-49 about 200 miles NW of Curaçao and torpedoed the Cities Service Missouri. 30 minutes later two torpedoes struck the Ceres, the first under the bridge and the second under #5 hatch, causing the ship to sink fast. The crew and the passengers immediately abandoned ship and were picked up by an escort vessel. Cities Service Missouri in station #23 was the last ship in the second column and was struck by one torpedo at the stem on the starboard side. The explosion ripped a ten-foot hole in the side and vented upward, damaging the bridge and wheelhouse. The vessel stopped to determine the damage and the master thought she could be saved if they shift the ballast. At 0610 a second torpedo struck the port side in the engine room and demolished the engines, just as they had brought the tanker on even keel. U-68 surfaced about 1300 yards from the tanker and the armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in and two .50cal guns) fired three rounds on her but all missed. By this time, water had risen to the base of the gun and 30 minutes later the master ordered the ship abandoned. All eight officers, 35 crewmen and 11 armed guards left the tanker in three lifeboats and one raft. At 07.40 hours the ship plunged stern first with her bow straight in the air. Three hours later, destroyer USS Biddle picked up the survivors. A boatswain drowned trying to get on the destroyer and a machinist died of wounds and burns on board. The survivors were later brought to Curaçao.
At 0530, U-107 attacked Convoy OS-44 190 miles west of Cape Finisher and reported hits on three ships. In fact, four ships were sunk, Clan Alpine, Marcella, Oporto and Sembilangan. Clan Alpine was later scuttled by sloop HMS Scarborough with depth charges. The master, 59 crewmembers and nine gunners were picked up by the sloop, transferred to the British SS Pendeen and landed at Gibraltar. The master, 34 crewmembers and nine gunners from Marcella were lost. The master, 35 crewmembers and seven gunners from the Oporto were lost. Four crewmembers were picked up by HMS Spiraea and transferred to HMS Gentian and landed at Gibraltar. A torpedo hit the Sembilangan and the ammunition exploded. The 4th engineer was thrown overboard and was the only survivor when he was later picked up by an escort vessel.
Canadian-owned, British registered passenger liner SS Empress of Canada was sunk. For the first three and a half years of the war she had escaped enemy destruction so successfully that the Germans referred to her as "The Phantom". Her trooping duties had taken her all over the world. In Aug 41, she took part in a raid on the Norwegian Island of Spitzbergen, and travelled as far north as Archangel on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. At the time of her loss, she was en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi, on the Gold Coast of West Africa, with 1,346 passengers. The passengers were a very mixed group that included Italian POW's, military personnel from the German-occupied countries of Poland, Norway, and Greece, plus a small number of British government officials. Just before midnight on the 13th, the Italian submarine Leonardo Da Vinci torpedoed the ship. The liner started to sink quickly, and her master, Capt George Goold, gave the order to abandon ship. A second torpedo hit the ship during the evacuation. The survivors were rescued by HMS Boreas, Crocus and Petunia, which arrived from Freetown, Sierra Leone, on the evening of the 15th. HMS Corinthian followed them the next morning. Attacks by barracuda and sharks took large toll on the people in the water. A total of 392 people, 44 of them crewmembers, were lost.
Corvettes HMCS Napanee and Prescott sank U-163 Kkpt Kurt-Eduard Engelmann CO, Bay of Biscay, of U-163's crew of 57 there were no survivors. U-163 was en route from Lorient to a rendezvous SW of Iceland with the German blockade- runner Regensberg when she encountered the Gibraltar to UK convoy MKS 9. At 2149, Prescott was stationed five miles on the convoy's starboard bow when she obtained a contact at a range of 3700 yards on her new 271 radar. She closed the contact to 1500 yards and saw a U-Boat submerging. Prescott continued to close and obtained an Asdic contact at 1200 yards but at the same instant, saw what she presumed to be a second submarine surface close on her port bow and making for the convoy. She reversed course and engaged the submarine with her gun. When the range had closed to 700 yards the submarine submerged. Prescott attacked with depth charges but lost contact. Napanee joined and the ships began a systematic search of the area. At 2319, Prescott gained Asdic contact and re-attacked with depth charges. This time contact was lost again and could not be regained. Post-war record reconstruction established that U-163, which was the only submarine in the area, was destroyed in Prescott's second attack.