19 May 1943

UNITED KINGDOM: The USAAF VIII Bomber Command in England flies Mission Number 59: 123 B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched against the U-boat yards at Kiel, Germany; 103 bomb the target at 1329-1333 hours local and claim 48-7-21 Luftwaffe aircraft; six B-17s are lost. A smaller force, 64 B-17s, is dispatched against the naval yards at Flensburg, Germany; 55 attack the target at 1325-1328 hours local and claim 12-4-14 Luftwaffe aircraft; no B-17s are lost. An uneventful diversion is flown by 24 B-17s.

Frigate HMS Bentinck commissioned.

Destroyer HMS Talybont commissioned.

Frigates HMS Dacres, Domett, Foley, Garlkies, Odzani launched.

Minesweeping trawler HMS St Agnes launched.

Destroyer HMS Urania launched.

U.S.S.R.: Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: BP "ChF-6 "Pervansh"" - by shnellboat, in Gelenjik-Sochi area (Sergey Anisimov)(69)

ITALY: 2nd Lt. Louis Curdes, USAAF, 82nd FG, 95th FS shoots down two Me-109s near Villacidro, Sardinia. (Stuart Kohn)

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: On Attu Island in the Aleutians, the Southern Landing Force tries to advance against Japanese opposition at Point Able on the eastern shore of Holtz Bay.

Six B-24 Liberators and eleven B-25 Mitchells of the USAAF fly three air-ground support missions bombing Sarana Valley. Four P-40s fly two reconnaissance missions to Kiska Island.

U.S.A.: Washington: In a speech to a joint session of Congress today, Winston Churchill gave a defiant and optimistic account of the progress of the war and the high strategy of the Alliance, and proclaimed that all war plans must be "pervaded and even dominated by the supreme object to get to grips with the enemy."

Mr. Churchill, who first addresses a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives in December 1941, was greeted by cheering lasting for a minute and a half before he spoke. His 50-minute speech was heard clearly in London by radio. The first cheers during it came when the British prime minister said "our partnership has not done badly". He was cheered again when he promised his government's determination to fight the Japanese in Burma. But he went on to say that in January 1942, when Britain and the United States made a division of labour, the US undertook the main responsibility for fighting Japan while "we took the main burden in the Atlantic." He and President Roosevelt agreed, Mr. Churchill said, that "while the defeat of Japan would not mean the defeat of Germany, the defeat of Germany would infallibly mean the defeat of Japan."

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-954 sunk in the North Atlantic SE of Cape Farewell, Greenland in position 54.54N, 34.19W, by depth charges from corvettes HMS Jed and Sennen escorting convoy SC-130. Among the crew of 47 who perished was Admiral Dönitz' younger son, Peter.

U-273 sunk SW of Iceland, in position 59.25N, 24.33W, by depth charges from an RAF 269 Sqn Hudson. 46 dead (all hands lost).

At 1130, the Canadian-flagged barquentine Angelus was stopped by U-161 north of Bermuda and sunk by gunfire after the crew of ten men abandoned ship in a lifeboat. When USS Turner found the boat after five days; only two of them were still alive, the others had died from exposure. The survivors were landed at Portland ME on 27 May 1943.