August 22nd, 1943 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The US VIII Air
Support Command in England flies Missions 30A and 30B against 2 Luftwaffe airfields in
France.
(1) 35 B-26B Marauders attack Beaumont-le-Roger Airfield at 2110 hours; 1 B-26 is lost.
(2) 36 B-26's are dispatched to Nord Airfield at Poix; they all return early when they are
unable to contact the escort fighters, RAF Spitfires.
ÉIRE: Short S.25 Sunderland Mk. III, s/n DD848 assigned to No. 201 Squadron based at Castle Archdale, County Fermanagh, Ireland, crashes on the lower slopes of Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry at 0530 hours. This aircraft had taken off at 0330 hours in a flight of four Sunderlands to fly ASW patrols in the South Atlantic. The aircraft was flying off course, below the minimum safety altitude and in low clouds when it crashed. Three of the 11 crewmen aboard survive.
GERMANY: U-768 launched.
BALTIC SEA: A prototype V1 rocket lands on the Danish island of Bornholm, where an Allied agent photographs it before it is recovered.
U-24 sank Soviet landing craft DB-36 and DB-37.
U.S.S.R.: The Germans begin a general retreat from Kharkov. Manstein has persuaded Hitler to relax his "stand firm" policy.
ITALY: Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) B-26s, with an escort of Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF) A-36 Apaches, bomb the marshalling yard at Salerno, Italy; they claim 26 enemy fighters destroyed.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The German submarine U-458 is sunk southeast of Pantelleria, Italy, in position 36.25N, 12.39E, by depth charges from the RN destroyer HMS Easton and the Greek destroyer HHMS Pindos. 39 of the 47 U-boat crewmen survive.
NORTH AFRICA: All fighter and medium bomber groups of the US Ninth Air Force are transferred to the US Twelfth Air Force.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: US Thirteenth Air Force B-25 Mitchells and USMC SBD Dauntlesses, escorted by fighter aircraft, bomb barge centres on the west coast of Vella Lavella Island.
ELLICE ISLANDS: These islands are occupied beginning today through the 28th by US forces. Work begins immediately on constructing airfields.
NEW GUINEA: As a result of the air offensive against Wewak and satellite airfields, Japanese airpower on New Guinea is sufficiently neutralized for 4 Allied destroyers to proceed along the coast from Milne Bay to Finschhafen; after bombarding Finschhafen during the night of 22/23 August, the warships return to Milne Bay.
U.S.A.: Andrei A. Gromyko replaces Maxim Litvinov as Soviet ambassador to the U.S.
Submarine USS Flounder launched.
Destroyer escort USS Micka launched.
Destroyer escort USS Reybold launched.
Frigate USS Machias is launched.