August 10th, 1943 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: London: The award of a George Cross to Wing-Cdr John Samuel Rowlands (b.1915) is gazetted for his great bravery in his two years of bomb and weapon-disposal work.
Destroyer HMS Gravelines laid down. Light cruiser HMS Spartan
launched.
GERMANY: In a vast RAF
raid on Nuremburg 3,444 tons of bombs are dropped.
U-348
launched.
U.S.S.R.:
Soviet troops take Khotinets, east of Orel. The skilful German defence does not seem to impede the speed of the Soviet advance.Submarine Upas laid down.
ITALY: Sant' Agata, SICILY: Doctors
and nurses at a US military hospital looked on in amazement today as a general slapped two
soldiers, threatening to shoot one of them. Lt-Gen George S Patton Jr, the volatile
commander of the 7th Army, was making an unscheduled visit to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital
when he saw the soldiers.
The first had malaria. Patton slapped him three times. When Patton asked the second man
what the problem was, he replied: "It's my nerves. I can't stand the shelling any
more." Patton slapped the man, shouting: "Shut up that Goddamned crying. I won't
have brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard crying." He struck the
soldier again and ordered the medical officer not to admit him.
Patton then turned to the man and said: "You're going back to the front lines and you
may get shot and killed, but you're going to fight. If you don't, I'll stand you up
against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose." The general reached for
his pistol. "I ought to shoot you myself, you Goddamned whimpering coward," he
yelled. This was the second such incident in a week and will anger General Eisenhower.
From "PATTON: Ordeal and Triumph" by Ladislas Farago, concerning the first soldier slapped by Patton. I haven't found it noted in other sources.
" Kuhl was picked up by a group of corpsmen attracted to the scene by the noise. They took him to a ward, where he was found to have a temperature of 102.2. It also developed that he had been suffering from chronic diarrhoea ever since he joined the 1st Division at the front. A blood test showed that he had malaria."
Skip Guidry
SOLOMON ISLANDS: USAAF Thirteenth Air Force P-40s
and P-39Airacobras turn back about 40 A6M "Zeke" fighters attacking US
construction troops working on Munda Airfield on New Georgia Island.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: P-38 Lightnings,
P-40s, A-24 Dauntlesses, B-24s and B-25 Mitchells of the USAAF's Eleventh Air Force bomb
and strafe various targets on Kiska Island; direct hits are scored on revetments west of
the Wheat Grove and on gun emplacements, as well as on buildings on Little Kiska Island.
CANADA: HMC ML 104 commissioned.
Frigate HMCS La Hulloise laid down
Montreal, Province of Quebec.
Ville Class steel tugs ordered for RCN
HMCS Streetsville, Blissville, Eckville,
Mannville, Shawville, Roseville, Colville, Luceville.
U.S.A.: Destroyers USS Shields, Metcalf, Hart and Wiley laid down. Destroyer escort USS Cloues launched.