May 14th, 1943 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The intelligence service confirms the success of Operation Mincemeat, in which a corpse was floated ashore off Spain bearing papers aimed at fooling the Germans into thinking that the Allies plan to invade Greece.
London: The Public Relations department of the Free French, led by Jacques Soustelle, announces the creation of the CNR, Comité National de la Résistance. CNR is an organization created to allow the union of various French partisan groups. (Yannis Kadari)
The USAAF VIII Bomber Command in England flies Mission Number 56: A maximum force, 154 B-17s, 21 B-24s and 12 B-26s, is dispatched against four targets. This is first time more than 200 US bombers are dispatched.
- The principal attack is against submarine yards and naval installations at Kiel, Germany; 136 B-17s and 21 B-24s are dispatched with 126 B-17s and 17 B-24s hitting the target at 1200-1203 hours local and destroying three U-boats; they claim 62-24-27 Luftwaffe aircraft and lose 5 B-24s and 3 B-17s.
- 42 B-17s are dispatched against the former Ford and General Motors plants at Antwerp, Belgium; 38 hit the target at 1320 hours local; they claim 5-1-4 Luftwaffe aircraft; one B-17 is lost. The bombers are escorted by 118 P-47 which claim 4-6-11 Luftwaffe aircraft; 3 P-47s are lost.
- 39 B-17s are dispatched against Courtrai Airfield, France; 34 hit the target and claim 0-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft; two B-17s are lost.
- 12 B-26's are dispatched against the Velsen power station at Ijmuiden, The Netherlands; 11 hit the target at 1100 hours without loss.
Frigate HMS Cuckmere commissioned.
GERMANY: U-237 sunk at Germaniawerft Kiel, by US bombs. Raised, repaired, and returned to service on 8 Oct 1943.
U.S.S.R.: Polar Fleet and White Sea Flotilla: Submarine "M-122" - sunk by aviation, close to cape Zip-Navolok. (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The Allies' Mediterranean Air Command orders a sea and air blockade of Pantelleria.
INDIA: New Delhi: The first Allied offensive in Burma has ended in total failure. After six months' campaigning, the British Army is back where it started.
The much-heralded offensive from India began last December. The 14th Indian Division advanced down the long narrow Mayu peninsula, on the Bay of Bengal, with the limited objectives of clearing the peninsula and seizing the strategically important island Akyab Island. Possession of Akyab would put Allied air forces within easy striking distance of Rangoon.
At first all went well. The port of Maungdaw and the town of Buthidaung fell with little opposition. However, early in January, an unfortunate delay occurred when the offensive became bogged down in the inhospitable terrain of the peninsula. The Japanese blocked the division five miles short of Donbaik. Frontal attacks, gallantly pressed against the strong Japanese bunker defences, were repulsed. Failures at Donbaik and Rathedaung gave the enemy time to rush reinforcements forward and take the offensive with its well-trained veteran 55th Division. Winston Churchill, convinced that another retreat would be disastrous to army morale, would not countenance a withdrawal. Tanks were sent in, but they were knocked out almost at once. More frontal attacks were made. But gallantry was not enough. In March Lieutenant-General William Slim was sent to report on the situation. He found that morale was ebbing as a result of repeated failures. Further desperate attempts to dislodge the enemy were met by heavy fire and driven back.
The commander of the 14th Division was replaced
by Maj-Gen C. Lomax, and Slim was again sent to the front where he found the
situation "fantastically" bad. A brigade had disintegrated, and small
starving parties were struggling over the hills. Things had gone terribly wrong,
and on 8 April, Churchill wrote: "We are being completely out-fought and
out-manoeuvred by the Japanese."
By early May the Japanese had re-occupied Maungdaw and the fighting stopped with
the monsoon. The Allies were back at their starting point.
AUSTRALIA: The MS Centaur, an Australian Hospital ship is sunk off the coast of Queensland by IJN submarine I-177.
The MS Centaur, 2/3rd Australian Hospital Ship, was a motor passenger ship converted in early 1943 for use as a hospital ship. In November 1941 it had rescued survivors of the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran after it had sunk and been sunk by HMAS Sydney.
On 12 May 1943 the Centaur sailed unescorted from Sydney at 0945 hours carrying her crew and normal staff, as well as stores and equipment of the 2/12th Field Ambulance but no patients. It was sunk without warning by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine on 14 May 1943 at approximately 0400 hours, its position being approximately 27°17' S, 153°58' E about 50 miles east north-east of Brisbane. The wreck was discovered in 1995.
Of the 332 persons on board, only 64 survived. These survivors spent 35 hours on rafts before being rescued. Sister Ellen Savage, the only one of twelve nursing sisters on board to survive, though injured herself, gave great help to the other survivors and was awarded the George Medal for this work.
The ship had been appropriately lit and marked to indicate that it was a hospital ship and its sinking was regarded as an atrocity. The Australian Government delivered an official protest to Japan over the incident. The Japanese did not acknowledge responsibility for the incident for many years and the War Crimes Tribunal could not identify the responsible submarine. However, the Japanese official war makes clear that it was submarine 1-177, under the command of Lt Commander Nakagawa who had sunk the Centaur. Lt Commander Nakagawa was convicted as a war criminal for firing on survivors of the British Chivalry which his ship had sunk in the Indian Ocean. More...
(Daniel Ross)
CANADA: Lake Erie: LAC Kenneth Gerald Spooner (b.1922), RCAF, was killed trying to land an aircraft after the pilot fainted. The pilot also perished. (George Cross)
Tugs HMCS Heatherton and Beaverton ordered.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA:
On Attu Island in the Aleutians, an attempt to capture Jarmin Pass is made by a combined attack of the Northern and Southern Landing Forces. The Southern Force will attempt to inch forward up Massacre Valley while the Northern Force will attempt to drive the Japanese off the reverse slope of Hill X, continue on to seize Moore Ridge and then take Jarmin Pass from the rear.
Each attack quickly bogs down. In the north, the Provisional Scout Battalion which has been pinned down since landing in Austin Cove on D-Day, remains pinned down. The second arm of the Northern Force also is unable to move forward because the 3d Battalion, 32d Infantry Regiment does not reach its assault position in time. Major General Albert E. Brown, Commanding General 7th Infantry Division, calls off the attack and in a report to higher headquarters that evening, states that "progress through passes will, unless we are extremely lucky, be slow and costly, and will require troops in excess to those now available to my command."
USAAF support is hampered by poor weather. The air-ground liaison B-24 flies reconnaissance and photo reconnaissance over Attu throughout the day while another B-24, carrying supplies for the ground forces, hits a mountain side 10 miles (16 km) west of the drop zone. Ground support missions over Attu are flown by six B-24s and five B-25s while two P-40s bomb Kiska Island through the overcast.
The USN continues gunfire support for the American troops.
U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Oracle commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: USS Hunt (DD-194), commissioned as HMS Broadway (H-90) on 8 Oct. 1940 as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal. Broadway having a part in the attack on U-110 on 9 May 1941, today locates and sinks U-89. (Ron Babuka)
U-640 sunk in the North Atlantic east of Cape Farewell, Greenland in position 60.32N, 31.05W by depth charges from a USN VP-84 Catalina. 49 dead (all hands lost).