June 21st, 1943 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The first production Hawker Tempest fighter, a MK V (JN 729) makes its maiden flight. (22)
Corvettes HMCS Arnprior (ex-HMS Rising Castle) and Petrolia (ex-HMS Sherborne Castle) laid down Harland and Wolff Ltd Belfast.
Submarine HMS Stratagem launched.
Corvettes HMS Hadleigh and Porchester Castle launched.
MAC ship SS Empire MacRae launched.
FRANCE: Jean Moulin of the Council of National Resistance arrested by the Germans. (Glenn Steinberg) Moulin, who escaped to England in 1941 in order to meet the Free French leader de Gaulle, agreed to be parachuted back into his native country on 1 January last year, charged with the mission of co-ordinating the many rival resistance groups operating there. Today he was to bring his task to fruition at a top-secret meeting in Lyons with Resistance leaders from across France. Instead he and several others discovered too late that they had been betrayed, when the hated German secret police raided the house and took them all into captivity.
GERMANY: There is a devastating Allied air raid on Wuppertal. (Glenn Steinberg)
Berlin: Himmler orders Jewish ghettoes in occupied Russia to be liquidated.
U-1056, U-1057, U-1274 laid down.
FRENCH MOROCCO: The USAAF 480th Antisubmarine Group is activated at Port Lyautey, it is equipped with four squadrons of B-24s.
NEW GUINEA: 10 Japanese military police are ambushed by the Australians Capt. Howlett and WO2 Ryan of ANGAU at Chivasing, west of Lae. (Michael Alexander)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: The US 4th Marine Raider Btn lands at Segi Point the undefended southern end of New Georgia.TERRITORY OF ALASKA: A fighter strip is completed at Shemya in the Aleutian Islands. All missions are cancelled due to weather for tenth straight day. (Edward S. Miller)
U.S.A.:
Submarine USS Piranha laid down.
Submarine USS Cod commissioned.
Destroyer USS Luce commissioned.
Destroyer escorts USS Booth and Carroll launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Milk-cow U-462 suffered one dead and 4 wounded during an attack from RAF 151 and 456 Sqn Mosquitoes. [Matrosengefreiter Ferdinand Brunnbaur].