March 19th, 1943 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: ASW trawler HMS Sapper commissioned.
Submarines HMS Tireless and Token launched.
BALTIC SEA Sea: U-5 is sunk in a diving accident west of Pillau. There are 6 survivors but 21 crew are lost. (Alex Gordon)
U.S.S.R.: German troops of the Gross Deutschland division reach Bielgorod, but are still battling with Soviet resistance in these northern approaches to Kharkov.
LIBYA: Tripoli: Chief Officer George Preston Stronach (b.1914) evacuated the fuel and ammunition-laden SS OCEAN VOYAGER after it was bombed, and braved flames to save four men. (George Cross)
Whilst at anchor
in port at Tripoli destroyer HMS Derwent is hit by a Motobomba (circling
torpedo) launched by an Italian aircraft She is beached with her engine room
flooded, and although salvaged and returned to England she is never repaired.
(Alex Gordon)(108)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: The first aerial mine-laying mission in the South Pacific occurs on the night of 19/20 March. Forty-two Grumman TBF Avengers of a Marine and three Navy squadrons drop 42 mines in the Buin-Tonolei area of Bougainville. The mines are dropped by parachute from an altitude of 800 to 1,300 feet (244 to 396 meters). The effectiveness of the mines is difficult to access but it is known that a destroyer and a cargo ship are damaged and a 6,400-ton merchant vessel is sunk on 18 April.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: The XI Bomber Command is activated on Adak Island, Aleutian Islands. This new command, assigned to the Eleventh Air Force, controls all USAAF bomber units in Alaska but at this time, the only subordinate unit is the 28th Bombardment Group (Composite).
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Chebogue laid down Esquimalt, British Columbia.
U.S.A.:
Destroyers USS Halligan and Haraden launched.
Frigate USS Long Beach laid down.
Escort carrier USS Solomons laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-384 is sunk southwest of Iceland at position 54.18N 26.15W by depth charges dropped from a Coastal Command Flying Fortress of 206/B Squadron. All 47 crew are lost. (Alex Gordon)
The steamer SS Matthew Luckenbach in Convoy HX-229 torpedoed by U-527 and then by U-523. HMCS Columbia salvaged the Matthew Luckenbach and took her into port after she had twice been abandoned.
British Steamer Svend Foyne was a victim of an iceberg collision off the southern tip of Greenland. The U.S. Coast Guard and other craft rescued One hundred forty-five persons. International Ice Patrol was suspended during this period (1942-1945).