March 23rd, 1943 (TUESDAY)
TUNISIA: El Guettar: The US 1st Armoured Division avenges its defeat at the Kasserine Pass by beating off the 10th Panzer Division, destroying 32 tanks.
DENMARK: In the first, and so far only, free elections to be held in Nazi-occupied Europe, the national coalition Government Party wins 143 seats, with the remaining five going to the Danish Nazis and the Pro-Nazi Peasant Party.
German-occupied Denmark holds its regularly scheduled parliamentary election, for both Folketinget and Landstinget today. "Dansk Samling" (Danish Gathering), an anti-German party, took part and got 4 seats in government. The DNSAP, the Danish nazi-party, expanded its vote from 31,000 to 43,000 but remained at 4 seats. The nazi-controlled German minority party "Slesvigsk Parti" abstained from taking part because, as they said: "We are too busy fighting". The pro-nazi "Frie Folkeparti Bondepartiet" (Free Peoples Party - Farmers Party) had its vote halved from 51,000 to 25,000.
The nazis had campaigned vigorously, and had counted on expanding their number of seats to maybe 10. As it was, they increased the vote by 50%, but didn't get any more seats, and subsequently the party fragmented. Just before the election a section in all but name of the Germanic SS had been set up in Denmark, and now it was rapidly expanded by the Germans at the cost of the DNSAP. (Henrik Krog)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA:Luftwaffe attackers sink the British troopship WINDSOR CASTLE off Algeria.
ITALY: Maddelina: Cdr. John Wallace Linton, RN (b.1905, died). He had sunk over 100,000 tons (31 ships, including a cruiser) as a submarine commander from the outbreak of war. (Victoria Cross)
GERMANY: Berlin: Himmler's statistician, Dr Richard Korherr, reports that 1,419,467 European Jews have been killed since the outbreak of the war.
Scharnhorst carries out exercises with Tirpitz, and Lützow in Altenfiord until July. (Navy News)
U.S.A.: Cornelia Fort, an instructor in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, joined the WAFS. Today the BT-13 (Vultee Valiant) she is ferrying collides with another aeroplane and she becomes the first American woman pilot killed in the line of duty.