August 23rd, 1943 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Minesweeper HMS Antares commissioned.
Submarine HMS Storm commissioned.
Frigate HMS Duff commissioned.
GERMANY:
Bomber Command opens "The Battle of Berlin" by dispatching 335 Lancasters, 251 Halifaxes, 124 Stirlings and nine Mosquitoes to the city. Total force dispatched: 719 aircraft.
Together with the aircraft involved in route marking, mine-laying and leaflet dropping, 788 Bomber Command aircraft were committed. In addition 26 Mosquitoes and ten Beaufighters of Fighter Command were dispatched to fly as intruders over German night-fighter fields and along the bombers route. Bomb tonnage carried was 1,812 tons, 53% high explosive, the remainder incendiaries. Thirty Blind Marker aircraft crews were handed a complicated plan which did not work. Their strike photographs showed that the dropped markers were centred four miles south-west of the Aiming Point and it was around that point that the ensuing raid developed. The problem was due to the inadequate H2S radar sets not because of any inadequacy on the part of the Marker crews.
In Berlin 2,611 properties were hit, 854 persons were killed and 83 more were missing. Despite this, the raid was not a success. In order to destroy Berlin Bomber Command would have to knock down and open buildings with HE so that the later incendiaries could start fires. Cities were not destroyed with HE but with fire. Many incendiaries fell on roofs and rolled off and burned in the streets. The fire had to be concentrated in one sector of the city and so intense that it overwhelmed the fire services. Bomber Command would learn.
Aircraft lost were:
Lancasters: 335 dispatched, 20 lost (6.0%)
Halifaxes: 251 dispatched, 25 lost (10.0%)
Stirlings: 124 dispatched, 17 lost (13.7%). (Jay Stone)
BALTIC SEA: Soviet motor torpedo boat TK 94 sinks Finnish minelayer Riilahti. 24 men, including commander, Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, Lt.-Cdr Osmo Kivilinna are lost.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: A massive 224-gun salute by the Red Army thundered out in Moscow tonight in celebration of the recapture of Kharkov, the principal city of the Ukraine. Troops of General Konev's Steppe front took the city yesterday after Field Marshal von Manstein pulled his XI Corps out in defiance of Hitler's orders that Kharkov had to be held at all costs.
Von Manstein had no alternative. His
soldiers were about to be cut off by immensely superior Russian forces sweeping
round the city, and he knew that the men of XI Corps were of more value to him
than the shattered ruins of Kharkov. In the south, General Tolbhukin has broken
the German line at the river Mius and is driving for the Donets basin with the
aim of recovering the area's mineral riches and cutting off the German forces
still in the Crimea and the Kuban bridgehead. The Germans admit that a
"Soviet spring flood" is pouring through a gap smashed in their lines
at Mius.
ITALY: US Ninth Air Force B-24 Liberators hit a marshalling yard at Bari and Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) B-26 Marauders bomb the Battipaglia marshalling yard.
BURMA: USAAF Tenth Air Force B-25 Mitchells fly a low-level strike against Myitnge bridge, knocking out a centre span and badly damaging 2 others.
During the night of 23/24 August, RAF Liberators of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group visually bomb four targets: 78 aircraft bomb the marshalling yard at Bagnoli, one bombs Ischia Island, and one bombs Villa Literno. Two aircraft also drop leaflets over Genoa.
CHINA: The Japanese bomb Chungking for the first time since 1941.
JAPAN: The Japanese General Staff decides to abandon
the central Solomons and concentrate its forces in the northern islands of the
archipelago, notably Bougainville.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The US submarine USS Grayling (SS-209) lands 2 tons of supplies and equipment near Libertad, Panay for the Filipino guerrillas.
NEW GUINEA:
Tonight 4 US destroyers will bombard Finschhafen, New Guinea.
PACIFIC OCEAN: USN submarine USS Paddle (SS-263) sinks
Italian merchant passenger/cargo ship SS Ada off Hamamatsu, Japan, in position
34.37N, 137.53E.
CANADA:
Quebec: The "Quadrant" conference between Mr. Churchill, President
Roosevelt and the Canadian prime minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, and their staffs
has ended with a decision to press for a "second front" against
Germany in France. This invasion, to be codenamed "Overlord", would be
the top priority.
The communiqué issued here today said that "the whole field of world operations" had been surveyed, and the "necessary decisions have been taken to provide for the forward action" of Allied forces. Mr. Churchill had favoured a number of operations, against Norway and in southern Europe by continuing the offensive in Italy; the Americans wanted a frontal assault in France. A study is to be made of a landing in southern France.
There were also strategic differences over the conduct of the war in South-east Asia, where the US generals want to invade Burma, while Mr. Churchill wants to attack Sumatra. Again the Americans won the argument, although the new South-east Asia Command (SEAC) to direct operations in Burma seems likely to be headed by a Briton. Preparations for a new offensive in Burma will now proceed, along with a second campaign behind Japanese lines by Brigadier Wingate's Chindits. Britain also approved US plans for the next stages of the Pacific War.
Destroyer escorts USS Keppler, Lloyd Thomas, Milton Lewis, Strickland, Sutton laid down.
Tug HMCS Dispatch II assigned to Sydney , Nova Scotia.
HMC ML 109 commissioned.
U.S.A.:
Submarines USS Trumpetfish and Tusk laid down.
Destroyer escorts USS Jordan and Thomason launched.
Destroyer escort USS Snowden commissioned.
Minesweeper USS Sage commissioned.
Destroyers USS Colahan and Cowell commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The 40th Escort Group, consisting of sloops HMS Landguard, Bideford, Hastings and frigates HMS Exe, Moyola and Waveney were deployed on a U-boat hunt off Cape Ortegal. Light cruiser HMS Bermuda covered the whole operation. On the 25th, the Canadian 5th Support Group, consisting of frigates HMS Nene, Tweed and corvettes HMCS Calgary, Edmundston and Snowberry were deployed to relieve the 40th Escort Group. While this was in progress the ships were attacked at 1415 by 14 Dornier Do-217's and 7 Ju-88's with the new German weapon, the Henschel Glider Bombs, (the "Hs293 A-1"). Designed by the German Professor Herbert Wagner. HMS Landguard and Bideford were the first of the Allied and RN ships to be attacked and damaged by them. Several sailors were injured on Bideford and one sailor was killed. On the 27th the Canadian 5th Support group was relieved by the 1st Support group consisting of the sloops HMS Pelican, and the frigates HMS Jed, Rother, Spey and Evenlode. Destroyers HMCS Athabaskan and HMS Grenville relieved covering cruiser HMS Bermuda. The Germans also attacked these ships. This time with 18 Dornier Do-217’s also carrying Henschel Glider Bombs. HMCS Athabaskan was heavily damaged and HMS Egret was sunk with the loss of 194 of her crew. After this loss the U-boat hunt was cancelled. According to Peter C. Smith, Ship Strike: The History of Air-to-Sea Weapon Systems (Airlife, 1998; ISBN 1-85310-773-5), pp. 100-102, the operation on 8/27/43 was "a deliberate decoy sweep" to learn about the new German weapons. "The sloop Egret, which had British scientists embarked with a special radio set to monitor the wavelength the Germans were using to control the missile, was hit in an attack just after noon that day, immediately blowing up and capsizing." According to Arnold Hague, Sloops 1926-1946 (World Ship Society, 1993; ISBN 0-95061-767-3), pp. 68-69, "5 officers and 30 ratings [from Egret] survived the attack and were picked up by the Canadian destroyer Athabaskan, herself damaged during the same attack".
U-380 damaged SS Pierre Soule.
An attack by an aircraft killed 2 and wounded 3 on U-406.