April 5th, 1943 (MONDAY)
BELGIUM: Antwerp: A US Eighth Army Air Force daylight bombing raid targeted on a Luftwaffe repair factory at Antwerp has gone disastrously wrong, and 936 Belgian civilians, including 209 school children, are reported to have been killed. The Germans took over the Minerva motor works when they occupied Belgium in 1940, and 3,000 people are employed there repairing damaged German planes. The Americans sent 200 B-17s and B-24s across the Channel, initially escorted by Spitfires. When these withdrew at the limit of their endurance, the Germans struck, breaking up the US formations. Bombs fell more than a mile from the target.
The VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 50: 104 B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched against industrial targets in the Antwerp area. The main force is directed at the Erla aircraft factory and Erla engine works. 82 B-17's drop 245.5 tons of bombs at 1530 hours local. They claim 23-8-4 Luftwaffe aircraft; 4 B-17s are lost to strong Luftwaffe fighter opposition.
GERMANY: Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer is arrested for anti-Nazi activities and sent to Flossenburg concentration camp. Colonel Hans Oster is dismissed as deputy chief of the Abwehr.
LITHUANIA: Ponar: SS men shoot 4,000 Jews dead.
ITALY: SICILY: During the night of 4/5 April, Northwest African Air Force Wellingtons bomb the Trapani docks and shipping. During the day, B-17s bomb the airfields at Boccadifalco and Milo.
TUNISIA: Northwest African Air Force (NAAF) B-17s bomb airfields at Sidi Ahmed and Tunis. B-25s hit the airfield at Bo Rizzo and attack a convoy off Cap Bon. P-38s fly several fighter sweeps over the Straits of Sicily. One force of fighters claims 16 airplanes destroyed. A-20 Havocs hit the Airfield at El Djem and La Fauconnerie. Fighters attack E-boats off Pont-du-Fahs and vehicles south of Bou Hamran, and fly sweeps, reconnaissance, and patrol over the battle area in Tunisia. Western Desert Air Force and NAAF aircraft hit motor transport west of Cekhira, bomb Djebel Zitouna Airfield, and strike shipping in the Straits of Sicily. During the day NAAF aircraft claim destruction of nearly 50 aircraft in aerial combat. Today starts Operations FLAX (5-22 April) which is designed to destroy, in the air and on the ground, enemy air transports and escorts employed in ferrying personnel and supplies to Tunisia.
As Allied troops prepared for the final push on Tunis and Bizerta, British and American aircraft launched their greatest ever assault on Axis targets in the Mediterranean today. More than a thousand sorties were flown, a record in the North African campaign.
Allied Fortresses and Mitchells saturated three airfields - Borizza, Boca de Felso and Milo - on the Italian mainland. More than 250 grounded aircraft were destroyed.
Vital Axis supply routes took a terrible punishment. Fourteen Junkers Ju52s, loaded with petrol, were shot down by Lightnings off the Tunisian coast, and bombers set fire to three supply ships, blowing up a destroyer escort in the process. Liberators hit the city of Naples in a mass raid at dusk, damaging port facilities and putting an airport out of operation.
As the daylight bombers returned to their bases, RAF Wellingtons hammered targets behind the battle lines, destroying railway stations, barracks and factories near Sfax. Docks and shipping in Sicilian ports were also hit by the night bombers.
Subadar Lalbahadur Thapa (1906-68), 2nd Gurkha Rifles, led two sections which overcame Axis outposts, machine-gun posts and heavy fire in seizing a hill. (Victoria Cross)
BURMA: The Japanese overrun British brigade headquarters on the Mayu peninsula.
17 Tenth Air Force B-25s bomb railroad targets at Mandalay; 2 others hit Ngamya. Three B-24s bomb the Prome railroad yards; 5 hit the Mahlwagon yards and roundhouse. 12 P-40s and a B-25 support ground forces in northern Burma. 12 Fourteenth Air Force P-40s on Armored reconnaissance strafe 15 horse-drawn wagons at Wanling.
MALAYA: The Imperial Japanese Army forces on the Malay Peninsula begin advancing North-West toward India.
NEW GUINEA: Individual Fifth Air Force B-17s attack occupied areas at several points along the Huon Gulf coast, hit Finschhafen on the Huon Peninsula, bomb Madang and other points on the north coast.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Individual Fifth Air Force B-17s bomb Cape Gloucester on New Britain Island.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: USN destroyer USS O'Bannon (DD-450) sinks Japanese submarine RO 34 near Russell Island.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIANS: Aerial reconnaissance by Eleventh Air Force aircraft covers all islands west of Kiska with negative results. 16 B-24 Liberators and 6 B-25 Mitchells bomb the Attu runway and Kiska's Main Camp and runway. 4 P-38 Lightnings fly top cover. Later, 3 B-25s, 16 P-40s and 16 P-38s bomb Kiska again.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: German submarine U-563 sinks an armed U.S. tanker, the Sunoil, a straggler from convoy HX 231. All hands on the tanker, 69-men, are lost. Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Gretton, one of the most noted Royal Navy commanders, commanded the escort force for this convoy and wrote a book on it called "Crisis Convoy."