September 2nd, 1943 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The US Eighth Air
Force in England dispatches both the VIII Air Support Command and the VIII
Bomber Command to attack targets in France.
- The VIII Air Support Command flies Missions 41 and 42: 216 B-26B Marauders are
dispatched to 5 targets in France (36 per target); the missions to a power
station at Rouen and Poix/Nord and Lille/Nord Airfields are aborted due to
weather; 35 B-26s hit a power station at Mazingarbe and 69 hit a fuel dump at
Hesden; 1 B-26 is lost.
- The VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 89 against airfields
in France but because of unfavorable cloud conditions only part of one force is
able to attack a target.
(1) B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched to airfields in northwestern France
but the mission is abandoned at the French coast due to heavy clouds.
(2) 34 of 86 B-17s dispatched to Mardyck and Denain/Prouvy Airfields hit the
target at 1922 and 1905 hours respectively. 182 P-47 Thunderbolts are dispatched
to escort the bombers but they carry out fighter sweeps; 3 P-47's are lost.
Frigates HMS Ballinderry and Odzani commissioned.
GERMANY: German doctors are allegedly turning the Hippocratic Oath on its head, using healthy prisoners as human guinea pigs for gruesome, often futile, medical experiments.
The experiments are performed at the Ravensbruck concentration camp, near Mecklenburg, according to the Polish interior ministry in exile. Today it published claims of abdominal surgery, the removal of bones and tissue from limbs and the deliberate infection of patients with tetanus and tuberculosis. In this way Professor Julius Gepphard has killed and crippled many.
Meanwhile, at Dachau, a camp near Munich, the Czech surgeon Dr. Franz Blaha has become expert in stripping skin from prisoners' corpses; it is then cured and dried until it becomes like leather. In the camp workshops, the skin becomes purses, handbags, gloves, slippers, lampshades and riding breeches. Items of human skin - especially bearing tattoos - are prized by SS men as gifts for their wives.
Should the workshops, manned by prisoners who were previously craftsmen and leatherworkers, run out of material, the senior doctor, Sigismund Rascher, picks out 20 or so healthy-skinned young people and has them shot - in the neck, so as to not spoil their skins.
Ilse Koch, at Buchenwald camp, near Weimar, runs another of Hitler's "tanneries."
GERMANY: Hitler appoints Albert Speer, the minister of armaments and munitions, to the new post of Reich minister for arms and war production.
U-243,
U-244,
U-1195 and
U-1196 launched.
U-861 and
U-994 commissioned.
POLAND: At Treblinka Concentration Camp, a group of 13 Jewish slave laborers kill their SS guard with a crowbar while working outside the camp. Their leader, 18-year-old Seweryn Klajnman, puts on the guard's uniform, and then "marches off" his fellow prisoners. All escape their pursuers and evade capture.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet government announces the liberation of Lisichansk, Kommunarsk and other cities in the Donets basin.
ITALY: As the Northwest African Air Force completes the preinvasion attacks in preparation for Operation BAYTOWN (the British invasion of Italy on the Calabrian coast), having intensified them against Calabria during the past week, virtually all airfields in southern Italy except Foggia and its satellites have been neutralized. U.S. bombers, during the period from 18 August to today, have flown almost 3,000 sorties against communication targets. Small B-17 Flying Fortress attacks on the Brenner Pass temporarily interdicts the pass, the shortest route between Germany and Italy. Allied planes open intensive preinvasion attacks in support of Operation AVALANCHE (the invasion of Italy at Salerno), pounding airfields within range of Salerno day and night.
The Italian mainland defenses near Reggio were shelled by British battleships HMS Valiant (02) and Warspite (03). (John Nicholas)
USAAF Twelfth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses visually bomb five targets: (1) 76 bomb the marshalling yard at Bologna; (2) 21 bomb the marshalling yard at Bolzano; (3) 20 bomb the marshalling yard at Trento; and individual aircraft bomb targets of opportunity at Ora and Zambana. Only one aircraft was lost. Other missions flown by the Twelfth Air Force include B-25 Mitchells bombing marshalling yards at Bologna, Trento, Bolzano, and Cancello Arnone with fighters escorting the B-25s claiming 28 enemy airplanes shot down; and tactical aircraft, including RAF and USAAF Ninth Air Force airplanes, hit gun positions and other targets on the Italian toe, bomb rail communications at Bova Marina, Locri, Marina di Monasterace, Siderno Marina, Lamezia, and Catanzaro, and attack barges in the Golfo di Sant' Eufemia and an ammunition dump at Saptri.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The Italian mainland defenses near Reggio are shelled by British battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Warspite.
HONG KONG: 10 US Fourteenth Air Force B-25s and 5 P-40s bomb Hong Kong hitting the Kowloon area and attack shipping off Stonecutter's Island and in the Lai Chi Kok area.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Two USN submarine sink
Japanese ships. USS Seawolf (SS-197) sinks an army cargo ship in the East China
Sea in position 31.28N, 127.24E, and USS Snapper (SS-185) sinks an escort
vessel, 85 miles (137 kilometres) north-northwest of Truk, Caroline Islands, in
position 08.40N, 151.31E.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The USN submarine USS Bowfin
(SS-287) delivers supplies and evacuates certain people from Binuni Point,
Mindanao.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 24 US Thirteenth Air Force B-25s and 60+ USMC aircraft pound Vila on Kolombangara Island, hitting AA and artillery positions and the area east of Ringa Cove on New Georgia Island. 18 B-24s, 20+ P-40s and P-39Airacobras, and 60+ USMC planes attack Kahili on Bougainville Island; shore installations, the airfield, and bridges north of the strip are hit.
NEW GUINEA: US Fifth Air Force B-25s, with 40 P-38 escorts, attack shipping at Wewak harbour, sinking 2 transports and damaging a third and shooting down 9 aircraft; barrage balloons offer some protection to the enemy ships. This is first USAAF observation of Japanese use of such balloons in the Southwest Pacific Area.
CANADA: Minesweeper
HMS Moon (ex-HMCS Mimico) launched
Toronto. Ontario.
Along with destroyers HMCS Algonquin
(ex-HMS Valentine) and HMS Wessex.