1943

Events

January

• January 1
• * WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured.
• * Disney released anti Nazi and Axis propaganda short animated movie of Der Fuehrer's Face featured by Donald Duck which later won Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
• January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani.
• January 10 - WWII: Guadalcanal campaign: American forces of the 2nd Marine Division and the 25th Infantry Division begin their assaults on the Galloping Horse and Sea Horse on Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, the Japanese 17th Army makes plans to abandon the island and after fierce resistance withdraws to the west coast of Guadalcanal.
• January 11
• * The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China.
• * Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City.
• January 12 – WWII: Landing at Amchitka: American forces make an unopposed landing on Amchitka, an island of the Aleutian Islands, southwest of Alaska. The destroyer USS Worden moves into Constantine Harbor and disembarks a detachment of Alaska Scouts. During a maneuver, a strong current sweeps Worden onto a pinnacle rock that tears up the hull beneath the engine room – leaving the destroyer powerless. Later, Worden gets the order to abandon the ship and suffers the death of 14 Americans before the crew is rescued. After the island is cleared of Japanese, transports land some 2,100 men by the end of the day.
• January 13 – Anti-Nazi protests in Sofia result in 200 arrests and 36 executions.
• January 14–24 – WWII: Casablanca Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States; Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud of the Free French forces meet secretly at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next stage of the war.
• January 15 – WWII: Guadalcanal campaign – Operation Ke: Japanese forces begin to withdraw from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
• January 16 – Iraq declares war on the Axis powers.
• January 18
• * WWII: Soviet officials announce that the Red Army has broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad as part of Operation Iskra, opening a narrow land corridor to the city. Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.
• * The first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins: several day's engagements with the Germans limits the number of Jews deported at this time.
• January 21 – WWII: Pan Am Flight 1104 – Pan American Airways Martin M-130 flying boat crashes about southwest of Ukiah, California. All 10 passengers and 9 crew aboard are killed, including Admiral Robert H. English.
• January 22
• * WWII: Battle of Buna–Gona: American and Australian forces secure control of the territory of Papua.
• * The Holocaust: Round up of Marseille begins – Over 4,000 Jews are arrested in Nazi-occupied Marseille as part of "Action Tiger", before being transported to extermination camps in Poland.
• January 23
• * WWII: British forces capture Tripoli from the Italians.
• * American critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack, during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio round-table program People's Platform.
• January 27 – WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany: Wilhelmshaven is the target.
• January 29
• * WWII: Operation Gallop: Russian forces of the Southwestern Front under General Nikolai Vatutin begin an offensive in the Donbas and break through the weak-defended German lines to the west of Voroshilovgrad.
• * Nazi German police arrest alleged necrophiliac and serial killer Bruno Lüdke.
• * The United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve is created.
• January 29–30 – WWII: Battle of Rennell Island – The Imperial Japanese Navy resists the United States Navy's attempt to interrupt the withdrawal of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, in the last major naval battle of the Guadalcanal campaign.
• January 29–31 – WWII: Battle of Wau – Australian forces, with United States support, resist a Japanese advance in the New Guinea campaign.
• January 30 – WWII: German General Friedrich Paulus is promoted to the rank of Field Marshal and instructed to fight to the death in Stalingrad, while Karl Dönitz is promoted to Commander in Chief of the German Navy, replacing Erich Raeder.

  February

• February 2 – WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end, with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
• February 3 – WWII: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are among those drowned when their ship,, is struck by a German torpedo in the North Atlantic.
• February 5 – Lt. General Frank M. Andrews is selected to command the U.S. armies in Europe, while General Dwight D. Eisenhower is assigned command in North Africa. Andrews will serve only 3 months, before dying in an airplane crash.
• February 6 – WWII: RCN corvette HMCS Louisburg is bombed and sunk off Oran, Algeria by Italian aircraft.
• February 7 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 118 is attacked by U-boats, who sink 8 ships.
• February 9
• * WWII: The Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands ends with United States forces in command of Guadalcanal, the evacuation of Japanese forces in Operation Ke having been completed two days earlier.
• * The Holocaust: Rue Sainte-Catherine Roundup – The Gestapo arrested 86 Jews in Lyon, 83 of whom were then sent to extermination camps.
• February 10–March 3 – Mohandas Gandhi keeps a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment.
• February 13 – WWII: Operation Longcloth: Chindit forces of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier General Orde Wingate cross the Chindwin River and proceed into Burma.
• February 14 – WWII: Rostov-on-Don and Voroshilovgrad in Russia are liberated.
• February 14–17 – WWII: Battle of Sidi Bou Zid: In the Tunisia Campaign, German Panzer divisions commanded by Hans-Jürgen von Arnim are victorious over the United States Army.
• February 16 – WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkiv, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• February 18
• * In a Sportpalast speech in Berlin, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declares a "total war" against the Allies, tacitly admitting that Nazi Germany faces serious dangers.
• * The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose German Resistance movement.
• February 19–24 – WWII: Battle of Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps and other Axis forces launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war. On February 22, an Anglo-American force halts the German advance near Thala, forcing the Germans to retreat; US bombers harass the retreating Panzers.
• February 20
• * American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
• * The Parícutin volcano begins to appear in a cornfield in Mexico.
• February 21 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy ON 166 is attacked by U-boats, which sink eleven ships.
• February 22
• *WWII: RCN corvette HMCS Weyburn sinks east of Gibraltar, after being mined.
• *Members of the White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• February 23–24 – Cavan Orphanage Fire: 35 girls and a cook from St Joseph's Orphanage, an industrial school at Cavan, Ireland, are killed in a fire in their dormitories. A subsequent inquiry absolves the Poor Clares of blame.
• February 24 – WWII: First major protest march in Athens against rumours of forced mobilization of Greek workers for work in Germany, resulting in clashes with the Axis occupation forces and collaborationist police. Demonstrators attack the Labour Ministry and burn its files.
• February 28
• * WWII: The funeral of Greece's national poet, Kostis Palamas, turns into a demonstration against the Axis occupation of Greece.
• * WWII: Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians, led by Joachim Rønneberg, successfully attack the heavy water plant at Vemork.

  March

• March – Exiled French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's self-illustrated children's novella, The Little Prince, is published in New York City, the all-time best-selling book originating in French.
• March–December – History of computing hardware: British prototype Mark I Colossus computer is constructed to assist in cryptanalysis of German signals at Bletchley Park.
• March 1 – Heinz Guderian becomes Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
• March 1–2 – WWII: Koriukivka massacre – 6,700 inhabitants of Koriukivka are murdered in Ukraine, by a German SS unit.
• March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships, then strafe survivors in the water.
• March 3 – 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green, London.
• March 4
• * As part of The Holocaust in Bulgarian-occupied Greece, almost all Jews in the region are rounded up to be taken to Treblinka extermination camp.
• * The 15th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. Mrs. Miniver wins the Best Picture Award.
• March 4–6 – WWII: Battle of Fardykambos – Greek partisans and armed civilians force the surrender of an Italian army battalion.
• March 5
• * WWII: General strike and protest march in Athens against rumours of forced mobilization of Greek workers for work in Germany, resulting in clashes with the Axis occupation forces and collaborationist police. The decree is withdrawn on the next day.
• * The Gloster Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, makes its first flight, in England.
• March 9–10 – WWII: North Atlantic convoy SC 121 is attacked by U-boats sinking seven ships.
• March 9 – Şükrü Saracoğlu forms the new government of Turkey.
• March 10 – Banco Bradesco is founded in Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.
• March 12
• * WWII: Italian occupation of Greece: The Italian occupying forces abandon the town of Karditsa to the partisans. On the same day, an Italian motorized column razes the village of Tsaritsani, burning 360 of its 600 houses and shooting 40 civilians.
• * Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
• March 13 – The Holocaust: Nazi German forces liquidate the Jews of the Kraków Ghetto, in occupied Poland.
• March 14 – WWII: British submarine HMS Thunderbolt is sunk off Sicily by an Italian corvette, the second time this vessel has been lost with all hands.
• March 15 – WWII:
• * Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci sinks Canadian Pacific liner RMS Empress of Canada off Sierra Leone. Nearly half of the 392 fatalities are Italian prisoners of war.
• * German forces recapture Kharkiv after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkiv.
• March 16 – WWII: Battle of the Mareth Line: Allied forces of the British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery launch an offensive against the Mareth Line held by the Italo-German 1st Army.
• March 16–19 – WWII: 22 ships from Convoys HX 229/SC 122 and one U-boat are sunk in the largest North Atlantic U-boat "wolfpack" attack of the war.
• March 17 – Éamon de Valera, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, makes the speech "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of", commonly called the "comely maidens" speech, in Dublin Castle.
• March 22 – WWII: Khatyn massacre – The entire population of Khatyn, Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
• March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are first produced in Germany.
• March 26 – WWII: Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands, the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese troops attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. During the engagement, heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City is severely damaged by Japanese cruiser gunfire. Lasting for three and a half hours, it will be the longest continuous gunnery duel in modern naval history.
• March 27 – WWII: British Royal Navy escort carrier is destroyed by an accidental explosion in the Firth of Clyde, killing 379 of the crew of 528.
• March 28 – In Italy the transport Caterina Costa, full of weapons and ammunition, explodes in the port of Naples, killing 600.