December 1943

December 1, 1943 (Wednesday)

• The Cairo Declaration was released after the departure of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's President Chiang Kai-shek. For the first time, the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan, and pledged that the Japanese Empire would be "stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914", that "all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China" and that "in due course Korea shall become free and independent".
• The neutral Swedish "repatriation ship", the ocean liner MS Gripsholm, docked in the New York harbor with 1,223 American, 217 Canadians, and some Latin American nationals who had been captured by the Japanese during the early years of the war. The Gripsholm, which was allowed safe passage throughout the war by agreement of both the Axis and Allied powers, had brought the North American prisoners home from Mormugao in Portuguese India, where they had been taken by the Japanese exchange ship Teia Maru on October 16.
• Died: Prince Tisavarakumarn of Siam, 81, Minister of Education who founded the modern Thai educational system. As the Minister of the Interior, Prince Tisavarakumarn also reorganized the national bureaucracy.

  December 2, 1943 (Thursday)

• At least 83 people were killed by the release of gas from chemical weapons in the Italian port of Bari, and another 545 were injured, after a surprise air raid by 88 bombers from Germany's Luftwaffe. Unbeknownst to anyone except its commanding officers, the American merchant marine ship had been carrying a cargo of 2,000 M-47A1 mustard gas bombs. The ship was one of 17 Allied vessels that were sunk in the raid, but had stayed afloat until its deadly cargo had exploded. In that the only people who knew of the ship's cargo had been killed in the blast, physicians were uncertain of the cause of the blisters and burns of their patients until nine days later, when a British diver recovered a shell casing. Ironically, the Bari disaster would eventually converge with another research on cancer chemotherapy started in 1942, because of the findings that patients exposed to the sulfur mustard gas had reduced white blood cell counts; with the substitution of nitrogen for sulfur, the first compound that could fight cancer cells with minimal harm to healthy cells was created, with the derivation of the drug Mustine from nitrogen mustard compounds.
• U.K. Labour Minister Ernest Bevin announced that one out of every ten men called up between the ages of 18 and 25 would be ordered to work in British coal mines. These conscript miners would be known as "Bevin Boys".
• Born: William Wegman, American photographer, in Holyoke, Massachusetts

  December 3, 1943 (Friday)

• Edward R. Murrow delivered his famous "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio, describing a nighttime bombing raid on Berlin, by 619 Squadron, RAF, based at RAF Woodhall Spa. The night before, Murrow had been allowed to fly on board a 619 Sqn Avro Lancaster, codenamed "D for Dog", during the raid. Toward the close of his report, Murrow commented "Men die in the sky while others are roasted alive in their cellars. Berlin last night wasn't a pretty sight. In about 35 minutes it was hit with about three times the amount of stuff that ever came down on London in a night-long blitz."
• In Yugoslavia, the German 2nd Panzer Army launched the counter-insurgency operation Operation Kugelblitz.
• On the Belorussian front, Soviet forces captured Dovsk north of Gomel and moved towards Rogachev.
• Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis convened a meeting between National League and American League team owners, and publishers from eight African-American newspapers, at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York, to discuss the prospects of allowing black players to compete for jobs in the all-white "Organized Baseball". Three press representatives, John Sengstacke of the Chicago Defender, Ira F. Lewis of the Pittsburgh Courier, and Howard Murphy of the Baltimore Afro-American were allowed to address the owners, and asked them to admit black players. Landis declared at the end, "Each club is entirely free to employ Negro players to any and all extent it pleases," but added that it would be "solely for each club's decision", rather than a league-wide mandate.

  December 4, 1943 (Saturday)

• In Yugoslavia, the Partisan resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaimed a provisional democratic Yugoslav government-in-exile, with lawyer Ivan Ribar to serve as the head of government after the war's end.
• With unemployment figures falling fast due to war-related employment, President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the Works Progress Administration, bringing a symbolic end to the Great Depression in the United States.
• The Congress of Bolivia ratified the executive decree by President Enrique Peñaranda after a six-month debate, and declared war against the Axis Powers. In that 70 percent of the wholesale and large retail sellers in Bolivia were German-operated, Bolivian authorities sent supervisors to monitor their work, but elected not to close their operation. Peñaranda's decrees after the declaration of war, however, would lead to his overthrow later in the month. Bolivia became the 44th nation to join the Allies against the Axis nations. Nine independent nations— Afghanistan, Argentina, Ireland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey— remained neutral.
• The Moro River Campaign began in Italy.
• The Japanese escort carrier Chūyō was torpedoed and sunk in the Pacific Ocean by the American submarine Sailfish.

  December 5, 1943 (Sunday)

• The Allies began Operation Crossbow in an all-out effort to stop Germany's V-1 rocket program. The first "flying bomb" launch sites targeted were near Ligescourt in France, where U.S. Army Air Force B-26 bombers made an unsuccessful attempt to put a dent in the Nazi guided missile attacks.
• The Battle of Sio began in New Guinea.
• Italian Jews were interned for the first time at the Fossoli di Carpi concentration camp.
• The Indian city of Calcutta was attacked in a daylight aerial bombardment for the first time, as Japanese bombers made a brief raid. There had been seven previous bombings of Calcutta, but all had taken place at night. The British Indian government announced that 167 civilians and one soldier were killed.
• Singer Dinah Shore and film actor George Montgomery were married in Las Vegas, while Montgomery was on leave from his wartime service as an officer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
• Born: Eva Joly, Norwegian-born French magistrate, European Parliament member, and Green Party candidate for President of France in 2012; in Grünerløkka

  December 6, 1943 (Monday)

• The first Jews were shipped out of Italy, as a train took prisoners from Milan and Verona to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
• Between 19 and 29 inmates of the Jaworzno concentration camp were hanged in front of the other internees after their plans to build a tunnel were betrayed to the authorities.
• Soviet troops in the Ukrainian sector captured Znamianka and cut the rail line to Smela.

  December 7, 1943 (Tuesday)

• At Tunis, President Roosevelt personally informed U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower of a transfer from the command of forces in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations to the newly established Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London. According to witnesses at the scene, the President told General Eisenhower, "Well, Ike, you are going to command Overlord," the forthcoming Allied invasion of continental Europe.
• Chiara Lubich started the humanitarian Focolare Movement in Trento, Italy.
• The British Eighth Army in Italy captured the town of Poggiofiorito.

  December 8, 1943 (Wednesday)

• In Greece, German Major General Karl von Le Suire ordered the burning of the city of Kalavryta and the execution of its male population in reprisal for the execution of 80 German prisoners of war by Greek partisans. Major Hans Ebersberger, the commander of the battalion whose members had been taken prisoner in October, carried out General von Le Suire's order and began by killing 58 men and boys in Rogoi and 37 more in Kerpini as his soldiers marched to Kalavryta.
• The German 117th Jäger Division destroyed the monastery of Mega Spilaio in Greece and executed 22 monks and visitors as part of reprisals that culminated a few days later with the Massacre of Kalavryta.
• The Battle of San Pietro Infine began in the Italian Campaign. It marked the first battle in which Italian troops fought as part of the Allied troops in World War II, following years as enemies.
• President Roosevelt visited Malta and presented a scroll dedicated to its "people and defenders," expressing the admiration of the American people for Malta's contribution to democracy.
• The Allies won the Battle of Wareo.
• Born:
• * Jim Morrison, American rock musician for The Doors, in Melbourne, Florida
• * José Carbajal, Uruguayan singer, composer and guitarist, in Colonia Department

  December 9, 1943 (Thursday)

• Prime Minister Churchill informed Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of the Royal Navy's South East Asia Command, that the Allies had agreed to cancel "Operation Buccaneer", the planned British and Indian assault on the Japanese-occupied Andaman Islands.
• During the ongoing German counter-insurgency operation Kugelblitz, the 16th Muslim Brigade counter-attacked and captured Kladanj.
• The Battle of Kočevje began in the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral.
• Born: Rick Danko, bassist, singer, songwriter and member of The Band, in Blaynley, Norfolk County, Ontario, Canada
• Died:
• * Georges Dufrénoy, 73, French post-Impressionist painter
• * Edgar Allan Woolf, 62, screenwriter who co-wrote the script for The Wizard of Oz with Florence Ryerson; after fracturing his skull in a fall down the stairs of his Beverly Hills home