August 27th, 1943 (FRIDAY)
ÉIRE: An RAF Coastal Command Liberator Mk. V, RAF s/n BZ802, aircraft "V" of No. 86 Squadron based at Aldergrove, County Antrim, Ireland, crashes at Kilmacown, County Cork. Seven crewmen are killed.
UNITED KINGDOM: The US Eighth Air Force's VIII Air Support Command and VIII Bomber Command both fly missions.
- The VIII Air Support Command flies Missions 36A and 36B
against targets in FRANCE:
(1) 35 B-26Bs bomb Nord Airfield at Poix at 0826 hours.
(2) 21 B-26Bs are dispatched to the Rouen Power Station but the mission is
aborted because of bad weather and extremely heavy enemy fighter opposition.
- The VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 87: 187 B-17s bomb the German rocket-launching site construction at Watten, France between 1846 and 1941 hours; they claim 7-0-6 Luftwaffe aircraft; 4 B-17s are lost. The mission escort consists of 173 P-47 Thunderbolts; they claim 8-1-2 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1 P-47 is lost. This is the first of the Eighth Air Force's missions against V-weapon sites (later designated NOBALL targets).
The last Westland Wallace (K 4344) biplane target-tug is 'struck off charge' by the RAF. (22)
FRANCE: Ex French president Lebrun is arrested by the Gestapo. Lebrun deferred to the National Assembly's 10 July 1940 vote approving Marshal Henri Petain as head of state and then he retired to Vizille in the Italian zone of occupation. He was arrested after the Germans moved in and deported to Austria from 1943 to 1945. He survived the war and met with de Gaulle shortly after the war ended to acknowledge the General's leadership.
Whilst on A/S
duties in the Bay of Biscay sloop HMS Egret is attacked by 13 Dornier aircraft
one of which released an Hs.293 glider bomb. When the smoke of the initial
explosion cleared, all that could be seen of Egret was her upside down bow
section. Egret was thus the first ship to be sunk by a guided missile. (Alex
Gordon)(108)
GERMANY: Field Marshal von Manstein tells Adolf Hitler that his Army Group South can't hold off the Soviet offensives in southern Russia and Ukraine. He urges falling back to the Dnieper, the largest river in the western Soviet Union. Hitler insists the Donets area must be held.
U-367 commissioned.
POLAND: The rising tide of Jewish resistance and the growth of the Jewish Fighting Organization has failed to stop the mass murder of the Jews. The 25,000 survivors in the Bialystok ghetto have been deported to the extermination camps at Treblinka and Majdanek.
The entire population was herded into Jurowiecka Square, where an attempted rising was swiftly crushed. A few hundred resisters are defending their hiding places in the city's sewers and makeshift bunkers, but the SS is slowly and surely rooting them out for deportation. Only the Lodz ghetto now remains to face Hitler's "final solution" for Poland's Jews.
Bialystok Jews were the last to arrive at Treblinka, the scene of an armed rebellion earlier this month. A team of Jews who lives have been extended by a few weeks is busy pulling down the huts. A final trainload of clothes taken from the dead has left for Germany.
ITALY: A British reconnaissance
group lands at Bova Marina and finds the toe of the Italian boot has been deserted by German and Italian
forces and is open for invasion.
The Badoglio government secretly moves former dictator
Benito Mussolini to a mountaintop resort in the Apennine mountains 70 miles
(112.7 kilometres) east of Rome. For the past month, Mussolini's guards have
moved him from place to place to foil German rescue schemes.
While being escorted by 150 P-38 Lightnings, 69 Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb two targets in Sulmona, 52 bomb the marshalling yard, losing one aircraft, and 17 hit armaments; meanwhile, NASAF medium bombers hit the Benevento and Caserta marshalling yards. Northwest African Tactical Air Force B-25 Mitchells, B-26 Marauders and A-20 Havocs, and fighters attack targets in southern Italy, including Cantanzaro rail and road junction, guns near Reggio di Calabria, Sibari rail junctions, Cetraro marshalling yard, barracks at Tarsia, train and repair shops at Paola, and a barge at Diamante.
During the night of 27/28 August, 45 RAF Liberators of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group bomb the marshalling yard at Salerno without loss.
SLOVENIA: German and Croatian troops attack the Italian garrison at Ljubljana.
U.S.S.R.: Kotleva is captured by Vatutin's troops and Sevsk by Rokossovsky's Central Front.
Moscow: The USSR and China give limited recognition to the French Committee of National Liberation.
MANCHURIA: Mukden: British PoW
camp commander, Major Robert Peaty, asks the Japanese for permission to contact
the International Committee of the red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. Permission is
denied, according to an entry in Peaty's diary. (151)(Linda
Goetz Holmes)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: The U.S. 172d
Infantry Regiment of the 43d Infantry Division lands on Arundel Island off the
northwest tip of New Georgia Island. The regiment meets determined opposition by
the Japanese.
Ten USAAF Thirteenth Air Force B-24 Snoopers, i.e.,
B-24s Liberators equipped with radar devices that permit blind bombing, begin
operations from Carney Field, Guadalcanal. Twelve B-25s, 8 P-40s, and 8 USMC F4U
Corsairs strafe barges and shoreline targets at Kakasa on Choiseul Island; and
P-39Airacobras strafe barges and shore targets at Ringa Cove on New Georgia
Island.
The USN's Fighting Squadron Thirty Three (VF-33),
equipped with F6F-3 Hellcats, lands on Guadalcanal for shore-based duty. These
are the first F6Fs deployed to the war zone.
U.S.A.: Two motion pictures are released today.
* "Phantom of the Opera," a horror thriller based on the novel by Gaston Leroux and directed by Arthur Lubin, stars Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Leo Carrillo and Hume Cronyn. The plot involves a ghost who haunts the Paris Opera House. The film is nominated for four technical Academy Awards and wins two.
* "Watch on the Rhine," a drama based on the Lillian Hellman play, is directed by Herman Shumlin and stars Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lucile Watson, Beulah Bondi and Donald Woods. German Lukas and his American wife Davis return to Washington where it is discovered that he is part of the German underground. He is forced to shoot a German count and then flee where he is pursued by German agents. The film is nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Lukas) and Best Supporting Actress (Watson). Lukas wins the Best Actor Award.
Escort carrier USS Anzio (ex Coral Sea) commissioned.
Destroyer escort USS Eldridge commissioned.
Minesweeper USS Jubilant commissioned.
Destroyer escort USS Varian laid down.
Frigate USS Barbados launched.
BRAZIL: A Junkers Ju.52/3m, msn 5459, registered PP-SPD to the Brazilian airline VASP (Viacao Aerea Sao Paulo S.A.), strikes a building and crashes at Rio de Janeiro; 3 of the 21 aboard the aircraft survive.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: USN Composite Squadron One (VC-1) in the escort aircraft carrier USS Card (CVE-11) has a busy day with German submarines. TBF Avengers and F4F Wildcats attack U-508 but the sub escapes. Later, they sink U-847 in the Sargasso Sea, in position 28.19N, 37.58W, by air-launched (Fido) torpedoes. All hands, 62 men, on the U-boat are lost.
U-354 damaged SS Petrovskij.
Bay of Biscay: The British sloop HMS EGRET and the Canadian destroyer HMCS ATHABASKAN are hit by German radio-controlled glider bombs, HS293s, nicknamed "chase-me-charlies".
Sloop HMS Egret, HMCS Athabaskan, a Tribal-class destroyer, Capt. G.R. Miles, OBE, RCN, in company with three other British warships, was attacked in the Bay of Biscay by 16 German Dornier Do-217 bombers, each carrying one HS-293 radio-controlled bomb. HMS Egret, the name ship of her class of sloops, was hit and sunk, the first kill by the HS-293 weapon. Three missiles were launched at Athabaskan. Two were near misses - one missed astern and the other skimmed over the bridge and landed to starboard. The third hit the port side abaft ‘B-turret’, flew straight through the wheelhouse and the CPO’s Mess, exited the starboard side and exploded after hitting the water. There was extensive damage from the missile, exploding cordite in the gun house, and shrapnel. Amazingly, only four men were killed and another 36 were wounded. Athabaskan was dead in the water for about two hours. She was transferred the survivors from Egret and detached for Plymouth, which she reached under her own power on 30 August after a very difficult voyage. Two German Do-217s were shot down and another was damaged in this engagement. Athabaskan was under repair until 01 Jan 44. HM ships Grenville, the flotilla leader for the U-class fleet destroyers, Rother and Jed, both River-class frigates, were undamaged in the engagement.