December 31st, 1943 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Civilian casualties from German air raids in the last three months are 247 killed and 561 wounded.
Frigates HMS Caicos and Thornborough commissioned.
Corvette HMS Flint Castle commissioned.
NETHERLANDS: During the night of 31 December/1 January, two RAF Bomber Command Stirlings lay mines off Texel Island.
FRANCE: Resistants carry out a simultaneous bombing of rail depots and junctions.
The USAAF Eighth Air Force's VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 171: various targets in France are hit; 19 B-17 Flying Fortresses and six B-24 Liberators are lost. The targets are (numbers in parenthesis indicate number of aircraft bombing and number lost, e.g., 97-1):
- Airfields: Chateaubernard Airfield at Cognac (257-23); St. Jean D'Angely (68-1) and Landes de Bussac (19-0).
- Ball bearing factories: Bois-Colombes (57-1) and Ivry (63-0) in Paris.
The total bomb tonnage dropped by the Eighth Air Force in December 1943, 13,142 tons (14,486 metric tonnes), for the first time exceeds that dropped by the RAF Bomber Command.
About 200 USAAF Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders bomb V-1 weapon sites in the French coastal area.
POLAND: Karpiowka: The Germans burn 59 villagers to death for helping partisans.
ITALY: The US 5th and British 8th Armies are now battering fruitlessly against the German defences. In the U.S. Fifth Army's VI Corps area, the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division, attempts in vain to clear more hills east of Acquafondata.
Civilian casualties from Allied air raids in the last three months are 6,500 dead and 11,000 wounded.
Whilst on
passage from La Maddalena to Bastia in company with LST.411, minesweeper HMS
Clacton strikes a mine and immediately sinks. 43 survivors are rescued by HMS
Polruan. (Alex Gordon)(108)
USAAF Twelfth Air Force P-40s and Spitfires of the USAAF, RAF, RAAF, and SAAF, strike infantry and heavy artillery around Tollo, Orsogna, Miglianico, Ripa, and Teatina in support of the British Eighth Army. A-36 Apaches bomb the town of Formia and hit gun positions.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Due to illness among the crew, U-81 broke off her patrol in the Mediterranean for two days and rested on the bottom.
USSR: Zhitomir is recaptured by the Soviets. To the north they cut the road to Orsha and have Vitebsk essentially surrounded.
Destroyers HMCS Haida, Huron and Iroquois departed Kola Inlet with Convoy RA-55B for Loch Ewe.
Soviet Navy records two submarine losses during the month that are not listed by day - D-4 Black Sea Fleet Kalamitski zaliv (sunk by German submarine chasers off Yevpatoria); S-55 Northern Fleet off coast of Norway (lost off Norwegian coast, former M-91)
EUROPE: With the opening of five new gas-chamber and crematorium complexes this year, the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau has become the centre of the plan to exterminate the Jewish people. It has become the final destination for Jews from Poland, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
Himmler's order this summer for all Polish and Russian ghettoes to be liquidated has mainly been carried out. The remnant of Polish Jews still alive are in hard labour camps, where few will survive. Yet this was also the year when the Jews started to fight back, assaulting guards, destroying camp buildings and property and setting up armed resistance to German troops in the ghettoes. Polish Jews have killed themselves in the transports, defying the Nazi death machine waiting at the end of the line.
Towards the end of this year, there has been a lull in the extermination process which has nevertheless killed one million people since 1 January. But resistance in the face of such a determined and well-armed enemy will always be crushed in the end.
CHINA: Twenty five USAAF Fourteenth Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb the Lampang railroad yards, causing several big fires and many secondary explosions. Six B-25 Mitchells hit Yangtze River shipping in the Anking and Lu-Kuan areas, claiming three cargo vessels and a troop carrier sunk; and two others on a sea sweep damage a passenger vessel in the Hainan Straits.
JAPAN: Four USN PBY-5A Catalinas from Attu, Aleutian Islands, bomb Shimushu and Kashiwabara, in the Kurile Islands.
NEW GUINEA: On the Huon Peninsula, the Australian 2/15th Battalion, 20th Brigade, 9th Division, accompanied by tanks, move through Kanomi and resume the advance until halting at the last creek before Nanda. The 20th Brigade has advanced 17 miles (27 kilometres) in ten days.
In Northeast New Guinea, almost 150 USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators and medium bombers attack the Madang, Alexishafen, and Bogadjim areas.
D'ENTRECASTEAUX ISLANDS: Task Force MICHAELMAS sails from Goodenough Island. for Saidor, Northeast New Guinea.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Island, USAAF Fifth Air Force A-20 Havocs hit troop concentrations in the Cape Gloucester area; nearly 50 P-40s and P-47 Thunderbolts intercept a small force of airplanes attacking the Arawe beachhead area and 12 aircraft are claimed shot down.
CANADA: The RCAF is at its peak, with 215,000 men and women and 78 squadrons, including 35 overseas and six heading there. Canadian industry has produced 11,000 aircraft so far.
Corvette HMCS Port Arthur completed refit Liverpool NS and commenced workups.
U.S.A.: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average finished the year at 135.89 13.81%The motion picture "Destination Tokyo" opens at the Strand Theatre in New York City. Directed by Delmer Daves, this action drama about U.S. submarines stars Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Dane Clark and Warner Anderson. On stage is Charlie Barnet and his Orchestra.
During WW II, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) produced numerous documents, most commonly known are the Intelligence Bulletins. The Military Intelligence Special Series continues with "Japanese Infantry Weapons." (William L. Howard)
Lend-lease agreements signed with United States - Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, French Committee of National Liberation, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, United Kingdom, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
The city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, bans the sale of alcohol to service personnel. (Pat Holscher)
The escort aircraft carrier St. Simon (CVE-51) is transferred to the British under Lend Lease and is renamed HMS Arbiter (D31). This is the 33rd escort aircraft carrier transferred to the British under Lend Lease. The ship is returned to the USN on 3 March 1946.
Destroyer USS Watts launched.
Destroyer USS Cassin Young commissioned.
Minesweeper USS Spear commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
An engine fire on U-425 necessitated two days of repairs to make the boat ready for battle again.
Global: An onlooker from another planet could be forgiven for describing the vicious conflict in which the people of earth are engaged as a mindless, endless cycle of production and destruction. The faster aircraft are shot out of the sky or ships are sent to the bottom of the oceans, the faster new planes and vessels are manufactured to replace them.
Production of military aircraft worldwide has soared since last year. The Russians have built 34,900 as compared with last year's figure of 25,436, while the US churned out a staggering total of 85,898, nearly doubling last year's figure of 47,836. Britain has made the smallest increase - from 23,672 to 26,263 - but the total production is still ahead of Germany's 24,807, itself a significant increase on last year's 15,409. The Japanese built 16,693 military aircraft this year, a huge leap from last year's 8,861.
The world's biggest wartime production boom is undoubtedly taking place in the US. Early last year it took 260 days to produce one "Liberty Ship" - now it takes a mere 40 days. Defence spending has risen during 1943 from just over $50bn to some $85bn.
In Britain the war has not stopped the worker's demanding their rights: 1.8 million days were lost to strikes this year.