October 22nd, 1943 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Major General Sir Robert Laycock becomes the British Chief of Combined Operations.
NETHERLANDS: During the night of 22/23 October, RAF Bomber Command sends 17 aircraft to lay mines: eight lay mines in the Frisian Islands and seven drop off Texel Island.
FRANCE: About 60 USAAF Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders bomb Fauville Airfield at Evreux; 140+ others abort missions against other airfields because of bad weather.
GERMANY: Devastating air raids on Kassel, Ludwigshafen, and Mannheim. (Glenn Stenberg)
During the night of 22/23 October, RAF Bomber Command sends 569 aircraft, 322 Lancasters and 247 Halifaxes, to Kassel; 486 aircraft bomb the city. The German controllers are again successful in assessing the target and 43 aircraft, 25 Halifaxes and 18 Lancasters, are lost, 7.6 per cent of the force. The initial "blind" H2S marking overshot the target but eight out of the nine "visual" markers correctly identified the centre of Kassel and place their markers accurately. Although German decoy markers may have drawn off part of the bomber force, the main raid is exceptionally accurate and concentrated. The result is the most devastating attack on a German city since the firestorm raid on Hamburg in July and the results at Kassel would not be exceeded again until well into 1944. The fires are so concentrated that there is a firestorm, although not as extensive as the Hamburg one. Thirty three Lancasters and Mosquitos carry out a diversionary raid to Frankfurt-am-Main The bombing is scattered and one Lancaster is lost. Nine Oboe Mosquitos attack the Knapsack power-station at Cologne and one attacks Dortmund.
It is on this night that an RAF ground radio station in England, probably the one at Kingsdown in Kent, started its broadcasts with the intention of interrupting and confusing the German controllers' orders to their night fighters. The Bomber Command Official History describes how, at one stage, the German controller broke into vigorous swearing, whereupon the RAF voice remarked, "The Englishman is now swearing." To this, the German retorted, "It is not the Englishman who is swearing, it is me."
U-1229 launched.
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The Russians have cut the railway which provides the Germans with their main escape route from their stronghold of Dnepropetrovsk in the Dnieper Bend. General Malinovsky's men are now advancing on Krivoi Rog and are threatening to encircle almost a million Germans in the sweep of the river.
The Germans are well aware of the danger facing them. The Berlin correspondent of the Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau reports that the situation is "extremely serious" and that the Germans would be "compelled to retreat to avoid further encirclement."
German officials quoted by the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet say that "catastrophe threatens the whole German front in South Russia." But while the Germans appreciate the threat of the Russian advance there seems to be little that they can do about it except retreat and keep on retreating.
They had confidently expected to hold the Dnieper line. They scattered leaflets telling the Russian soldiers: "Germany has clad the west bank of the Dnieper in concrete and shod it with iron."
"We have created an Eastern Rampart there, impregnable as is our Western Rampart on the Atlantic Coast. You are being sent to your deaths. Death awaits you at the Dnieper. Stop before it is too late." But the Russians did not stop. Many of them died, but they crossed the Dnieper.
ITALY: The British 8th Army crosses the Trigno River.
In the U.S. Fifth Army's VI Corps area, the 133d Infantry Regiment of the 34th Infantry Division takes a road junction south of St. Angelo d'Alife, from which the German rear guards have withdrawn, and prepares to attack the town.
In preparation for a general advance on Rome (the line Pasture-Evasion-Rome), the 78th Division of British Eighth Army’s V Corps crosses a battalion over the Trigno River during the night of 22/23 October.
USAAF XII Bomber Command B-26 Marauders bomb railroad bridges north and southeast of Omvieto and B-25 Mitchells hit a railroad bridge south of Grosseto. The XII Air Support Command, along with other elements of the Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF), hit town areas, highways, vehicles, gun positions, railroad communications, strongpoints, and targets of opportunity at or near San Salvo Teano, Venafro, Cantalupo el Sannio, Isernia, Cassino, Montenero, and Boiano. Aquino Airfield southeast of Rome is also bombed.
During the night of 22/23 October, 47 bombers of the RAF No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group bomb the railroad bridge at Guilianova.
USAAF bombers use Italian airfields for the first time to launch attacks on targets in Austria.
GREECE: Whilst engaged in diversionary tactics associated with the landing of stores on Leros Island, Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea, the Greek escort destroyer RHS Adrias (L 67, ex-HMS Border) strikes a mine laid by the German minelayer Drache. The destroyer loses her entire bow and when the British escort destroyer HMS Hurworth (L 28) comes to her aid, Hurworth strikes a mine and is sunk about 54 nautical miles (101 kilometers) east of Kalimnos on Kalimnos Island, Dodecanese Islands in position 36.59N, 27.06E. Eighty survivors come ashore in Turkey and are soon repatriated. RHS Adrias is declared a constructive total loss and is scrapped in 1945. (Alex Gordon)(108)
USAAF XII Bomber Command B-25 Mitchells bomb Eleusis Airfield, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Athens.
BURMA: A USAAF Tenth Air Force B-25 Mitchell strike against a railroad bridge on the Ye-u branch line over the Mu River between Ywataung and Monywa fails to damage the structure. This raid marks the final assault of the year on this bridge.
NEW GUINEA: In Northeast New Guinea, 20+ USAAF Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells carry out a low-level attack in the Wewak area, sinking two small freighters, and strafing barges and airplanes while Madang is strafed by four P-39 Airacobras and two Australian
Boomerangs.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Forty six Australian (P-40) Kittyhawks hit Gasmata Airfield on New Britain Island.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: The I Marine Amphibious Corps directs the 2d Parachute Battalion of the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, Fleet Marine Force, to land at Voza on Choiseul Island during the night of 27 October, to conduct a diversionary raid and, if feasible, establish a permanent base there.
On southern Bougainville Island, Kahili Airfield and the surrounding areas are attacked by 22 USAAF Thirteenth Air Force B-24 Liberators, 30+ P-39 Airacobras and P-40s and about 160 USN fighters and dive bombers; other USN aircraft bomb Kara Airfield. Eighteen B-24s and USN airplanes hit targets in the Choiseul Island area and a single B-24 claims hits on an aircraft carrier northwest of Buka Island.
PACIFIC OCEAN: 0400 hours: USS Grayback (SS-208) sinks an armed merchant cruiser at 26-30 N, 125-05E. (Skip Guidry)
CANADA: In Labrador, the German submarine U-537 arrives at Martin Bay, tasked with setting up an automatic weather station. The weather station consisted of various measuring instruments, a 150-watt transmitter and ten canisters containing batteries weighing 220 pounds (99.79 kg). For the next day, the crew of the submarine manhandles the equipment ashore via rubber boats and the station is set up 400 yards (366 meters) inland on a 170-foot (52 meter) hill.
The submarine departs by 1740 hours local the next day and the weather station begins operating normally. However, a few days later, the frequency used by the weather station was apparently jammed although nobody has claimed credit for it and there is no evidence that the Allies knew about the station.
Frigate HMCS Matane commissioned.
Minesweeper HMCS Portage commissioned.
U.S.A.: The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) approve the plan, submitted by General Henry H "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General U.S. Army Air Forces, and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), to create a new Air Force (the Fifteenth) in Italy from part of the Twelfth Air Force to be used in strategic bombing against Germany as well as in support of ground operations.
The USN escort aircraft carrier Keweenaw (CVE-44) is transferred to the British under Lend-Lease as HMS Patroller (D 07); she is the 26th escort aircraft carrier transferred to the Royal Navy. The ship is returned to the USN on 13 December 1946.
Minesweeper USS Incessant launched.
Destroyer escort USS Foreman commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-68 sank SS Litiopa.