NAVY HISTORY - The Pacific War

1943


HMCS Courtenay was a Bangor-class minesweeper constructed for the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Entering service in 1942, Courtenay spent the entire war on the West Coast of Canada. The vessel was decommissioned in 1945 and sold for mercantile service in 1946. The fate of the vessel is uncertain.

The minesweeper was ordered as part of the 1940–41 construction programme. The ship's keel was laid down on 28 January 1941 by Prince Rupert Dry Dock & Shipyards Co. in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Courtenay was launched on 2 August 1941 and commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on 21 March 1942 at Prince Rupert.[3] Courtenay spent the entirety of the Second World War on the West Coast of Canada. Courtenay was among the eight minesweepers added to the force protecting the West Coast during the first five months of 1942 following the need to establish a larger force following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[5] Assigned to the patrol units Esquimalt Force (operating out of Esquimalt, British Columbia) or Prince Rupert Force, the main duty of Bangor-class minesweepers after commissioning on the West Coast would be to perform the Western Patrol. Patrolling the west coast of Vancouver Island, inspecting inlets and sounds and past the Scott Islands to Gordon Channel at the entrance to the Queen Charlotte Strait.[3][6] Following the end of the war, Courtenay was paid off at Esquimalt on 5 November 1945.[3] The minesweeper was sold to the Union Steamship Company for mercantile conversion on 3 April 1946.[3][7] However, the conversion never took place and the fate of the vessel remains unknown with Macpherson and Barrie tracking a purchase offer by a San Francisco firm in 1951 and the Miramar Ship Index claiming that the ship was broken up in 1946.

There has been only 1 vessel named Courtenay in the Royal Canadian Navy.

1943 January 1 German 1st Panzer Division withdraws from the Terek River area in southern Russia to prevent encirclement.[1]
1943 January 2 Americans and Australians recapture Buna, New Guinea.[1]
1943 January 7 Japanese land more troops at Lae, New Guinea.
1943 January 9 United States Western Task Force redesignated I Armored Corps.
1943 January 10 Soviet troops launch an all-out offensive attack on Stalingrad; they also renew attacks in the north (Leningrad) and in the Caucasus.
1943 January 14 The Casablanca Conference of Allied leaders begins. Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt discuss the eventual invasion of mainland Europe, the impending invasion of Sicily and Italy, and the wisdom of the principle of "unconditional surrender".
1943 January 15 The British start an offensive aimed at taking far-off Tripoli, Libya.
1943 January 16 Iraq declares war on the Axis powers.[1]
1943 January 16 The Royal Air Force begins a two-night bombing of Berlin.
1943 January 18 The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rise up for the first time, starting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 January 18 Besieged defenders of Leningrad link up with relieving forces.
1943 January 19 General Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal as the Stalingrad struggle grinds to a close.
1943 January 20 USS Silversides attacks a Japanese convoy 286 miles from Truk, Caroline Islands en route to the Solomon Islands, sinking transport Meiu Maru and damaging Surabaya Maru.[1]
1943 January 21 Last airfield at Stalingrad is taken by Red Army forces, ensuring that the Luftwaffe will be unable to supply German troops any further; Hitler demands that Friedrich Paulus continue fighting and promotes Paulus to Field Marshal in order to bolster morale. Shortly after, Paulus and his forces surrender to Soviet forces, the first time a German Field Marshal is lost to surrender and thus captured by the enemy.
1943 January 21 Red Army armies have more victories in the Caucasus.
1943 January 22 Field Marshal Paulus and his staff surrender in Stalingrad
1943 January 22 Allies liberate Sanananda, New Guinea.[1]
1943 January 23 British capture Tripoli, Libya.[1]
1943 January 23 Japanese continue their fight in western Guadalcanal; they now seem to have given up completely on the New Guinea campaign.
1943 January 23 Order in Council grants the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property the right to dispose of Japanese Canadian properties in his care without the owners' consent.
1943 January 24 The Casablanca Conference ends; Allies insist on unconditional surrender from Germany.[1]
1943 January 24 German forces in Stalingrad are in the last phases of collapse.
1943 January 25 United States XIV Corps arrives in Pacific Theater.
1943 January 26 Soviet troops retake Voronezh.[1]
1943 January 27 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany. Wilhelmshaven, the large naval base, is the primary target.
1943 January 28 A new conscription law in Germany: men between 16 and 65 and women between 17 and 50 are open to mobilization.[1]
1943 January 28 George Zhukov awarded the first Order of Suvorov 1st Class.
1943 January 29 The naval battle of Rennell Island, near Guadalcanal, begins. The Japanese beat the Americans and the USS Chicago is lost.
1943 January 29 Another two-day bombing of Berlin by the RAF.
1943 January 30  The last Japanese have cleared out of Guadalcanal by a brilliant evacuation plan undetected by the Americans.
1943 January 31 Friedrich Paulus (Generalfeldmarschall in command of the German 6th Army) and his staff surrender to Soviet troops in Stalingrad.[2][3]
1943 February 2 In the Soviet Union, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the official surrender of the German 6th Army. The German public is informed of this disaster, marking the first time the Nazi government has acknowledged a failure in the war effort.
1943 February 2 Rommel retreats farther into Tunisia, establishing his troops at the Mareth Line. Within two days, Allied troops move into Tunisia for the first time.
1943 February 5 The Allies now have all of Libya under their control.
1943 February 5 Essen is bombed, marking the beginning of a four-month attack on the Ruhr industrial area.
1943 February 7 In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in two days.
1943 February 8 The Chindits (a "long range penetration group") under British General Orde Wingate begin an incursion into Burma.
1943 February 8 Nuremberg is heavily bombed.
1943 February 8 United States' VI Corps arrives in North Africa.
1943 February 9 Guadalcanal is finally secured; it is the first major achievement of the American offensive in the Pacific war.
1943 February 9 Munich and Vienna are heavily bombed, along with Berlin.
1943 February 11 U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe.
1943 February 13 Rommel launches a counter-attack against the Americans in western Tunisia; he takes Sidi Bouzid and Gafsa. The Battle of the Kasserine Pass begins: inexperienced American troops are soon forced to retreat.
1943 February 14 Rostov-on-Don is liberated by the Red Army.
1943 February 16 Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov.
1943 February 16 Prime Minister of Vichy France Pierre Laval and Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélemy formally create the Service du travail obligatoire (STO)
1943 February 18 In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declares a "Total War" against the Allies; the Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement, an anti-Nazi youth group.
1943 February 18 Chindits under Wingate cut the railway line between Mandalay and Myitkyina.
1943 February 21 Americans take the Russell Islands, part of the Solomons chain.
1943 February 22 Hans and Sophie Scholl of the White Rose movement are executed.
1943 February 22 Japanese POWs refuse to work at Featherston prisoner of war camp; this escalates into a deadly clash between the inmates and the guards.
1943 February 26 Rommel retreats northward from the Mareth Line in Tunisia.
1943 February 28 Operation Gunnerside: six Norwegians led by Joachim Rønneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
1943 March 1 Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
1943 March 2 Battle of the Bismarck Sea. U.S. and Australian naval forces, over the course of three days, sink eight Japanese troop transports near New Guinea.
1943 March 2 Wingate's Chindits continue their localised strikes in Burma.
1943 March 5 German advances around Kharkov threaten earlier Red Army gains.
1943 March 5 Continued RAF bombing of the Ruhr valley, particularly Essen.
1943 March 6 Battle of Medenine, Tunisia. It is Rommel's last battle in Africa as he is forced to retreat.
1943 March 8 Continuing German counter-attacks around Kharkov.
1943 March 9 Members of the Calcutta Light Horse carry out a covert attack against a German merchantship, which had been transmitting Allied positions to U-boats from the Mormugao Harbour in neutral Portugal's protectorate, the Indian territory of Goa.
1943 March 10 The USAAF 14th Air Force is formed in China, under General Claire Lee Chennault, former head of the "Flying Tigers."
1943 March 10 The US House of Representatives votes to extend the Lend-Lease plan.
1943 March 11 The Germans enter Kharkov and the fierce struggle with the Red Army continues.
1943 March 11 Greek People's Liberation Army or ELAS
1943 March 12 Karditsa in Greece becomes the first city in Europe to be liberated from Nazi occupation, after a campaign fought by ELAS, the Greek People's Liberation Army.
1943 March 13 German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
1943 March 14 Germans recapture Kharkov.
1943 March 16 The first reports of the Katyn massacre in Poland seep to the West; reports say that more than 22,000 prisoners of war were killed by the NKVD, who eventually blame the massacre on the Germans.
1943 March 16 Stalin for the ninth time demands a "Second Front," accusing his allies of treachery.
1943 March 17 Devastating convoy losses in the Atlantic due to increased U-boat activity; the middle of the Atlantic is apparently not sufficiently covered by planes or ships.
1943 March 18 General George S. Patton leads his tanks of II Corps into Gafsa, Tunisia.
1943 March 20 Montgomery's forces begin a breakthrough in Tunisia, striking at the Mareth line.
1943 March 23 American tanks defeat the Germans at El Guettar, Tunisia.
1943 March 26 The British break through the Mareth line in southern Tunisia, threatening the whole German army. The Germans move north.
1943 March 26 Battle of the Komandorski Islands. In the Aleutian Islands United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. Poor leadership on both sides leads to a stalemate of sorts, and the Japanese withdraw without achieving their goal.
1943 April 1 Allies continue to squeeze the Germans into the corner of Tunisia.
1943 April 3 Racial tensions between American Marines and New Zealand troops of Māori origin result in the Battle of Manners Street, a small-scale riot in which no lives were lost.
1943 April 4 The only large-scale escape of Allied prisoners-of-war from the Japanese in the Pacific takes place when ten American POWs and two Filipino convicts break out of the Davao Penal Colony on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The escaped POWs were the first to break the news of the infamous Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by the Japanese to the world.[4]
1943 April 7 Hitler and Mussolini come together at Salzburg, mostly for the purpose of propping up Mussolini's fading morale.[1][3][5]
1943 April 7 Allied forces–the Americans from the West, the British from the East–link up near Gafsa in Tunisia.
1943 April 7 Bolivia declares war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.[1]
1943 April 10 The British 8th Army enters Sfax, Tunisia.[1][3]
1943 April 13  Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles purportedly killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
1943 April 15 Finland officially rejects Soviet terms for peace.[3]
1943 April 15 Heavy RAF raid on Stuttgart.
1943 April 18 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief architect of Japanese naval strategy, is killed when his plane is shot down by American P38's over Bougainville. He was on an inspection tour.[1]
1943 April 18 The "Palm Sunday massacre": large numbers of German troop-transport aircraft are shot down before reaching Tunisia, where they were to pick up the isolated German troops.
1943 April 19 The Bermuda Conference takes place in Hamilton, Bermuda. U.K. and U.S. leaders discuss the plight of the European Jews.[1]
1943 April 19 The Warsaw Ghetto uprising: On the Eve of Passover, Jews resist German attempts to deport the Jewish community.[1][3]
1943 April 19 In occupied Belgium, partisans attack the a railway convoy transporting Belgian Jews to Auschwitz. It is the largest attack on a Holocaust train of the war and 236 Jews escape.
1943 April 26 The British finally take "Longstop Hill" in Tunisia, a key position on the breakout road to Tunis.
1943 April 28 Allies attempt to close the mid-Atlantic gap in the war against the U-boats with long-range bombers.
1943 April 30 Operation Mincemeat: Lt. Jewell's crew release a body bearing false documents near the Spanish coast. Later, the body washes up on the Spanish coast and is discovered by a local fisherman. They will go on to mislead the Germans about the site and timing of the Allied invasion of France.
1943 May 1 Allies close in on the cornered Germans in the Tunis area.
1943 May 2 Japanese aircraft again bomb Darwin, Australia.
1943 May 7 Tunis captured by British First Army. Meanwhile the Americans take Bizerte.
1943 May 9 The Japanese begin a three-day massacre of civilians; about 30,000 Chinese are killed in the Changjiao massacre.[1]
1943 May 11 American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.[1][3]
1943 May 12 The Trident Conference begins in Washington, D.C. with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part. The discussions are mostly on future strategy.[1][3]
1943 May 13 Remaining German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces. The Allies take over 250,000 prisoners.[1][3]
1943 May 15 The French form a "Resistance Movement."
1943 May 16 The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends. The ghetto has been destroyed, with about 14,000 Jews killed and about another 40,000 sent to the death camps at Majdanek and Treblinka.[1][3][6]
1943 May 16 The Dambuster Raids are carried out by RAF 617 Squadron on two German dams, Mohne and Eder. The Ruhr war industries lose electrical power.[1][3]
1943 May 17  The Germans launch their fifth major offensive against Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia.[1][3]
1943 May 19 Winston Churchill addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He praises the partnership of the two Allies.[3]
1943 May 22 Allies bomb Sicily and Sardinia, both possible landing sites.
1943 May 24 Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the majority of U-boats to withdraw from the Atlantic because of heavy losses to new Allied anti-sub tactics. By the end of the month, 43 U-boats are lost, compared to 34 Allied ships sunk. This is referred to as "Black May".[1][3]
1943 May 24 Josef Mengele becomes Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz.[1]
1943 May 29 RAF bombs Wuppertal, causing heavy civilian losses.
1943 May 30 Attu Island is again under American control.[3]
1943 May 31 American B-17's bomb Naples.
1943 June 4 General Henri Giraud becomes Commander-in-Chief of the Free French forces.[3]
1943 June 8 Japanese forces begin to evacuate Kiska Island in the Aleutians, their last foothold in the Western hemisphere. The event is almost to the year of their landing.[3]
1943 June 11 British 1st Division takes the Italian island of Pantelleria, between Tunisia and Sicily, capturing 11,000 Italian troops.[3]
1943 June 12 The Italian island of Lampedusa, between Tunisia and Sicily, surrenders to the Allies.[3]
1943 June 13 Heavy US aircraft losses over Kiel.[3]
1943 June 17 Allies bomb Sicily and the Italian mainland, as signs increase of a forthcoming invasion.
1943 June 21 Operation Cartwheel opens with landings by the United States 4th Marine Raider Battalion at Segi Point on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, beginning the New Georgia Campaign. It will not be secured until August.[1][3]
1943 June 23 American troops land in the Trobriand Islands, close to New Guinea. The American strategy of driving up the Southwest Pacific by "Island Hopping" continues.
1943 June 24 Continuing attacks against the Ruhr industrial valley. One result is the evacuation of large numbers of German civilians from the area.
1943 June 30 American troops land on Rendova Island, New Georgia, another part of Operation Cartwheel.[1][3]
1943 July 4 Exiled Polish leader General Władysław Sikorski dies in an air crash in Gibraltar.[1][3]
1943 July 5 Operation Citadel (the Battle of Kursk) begins.[3][7]
1943 July 5 Conclusion of the National Bands Agreement in occupied Greece, which is to coordinate the actions of the Resistance movement in Greece.
1943 July 6 U.S. and Japanese ships fight the Battle of Kula Gulf in the Solomons.[1][3]
1943 July 7 Walter Dornberger briefs the V-2 rocket to Hitler, who approves the project for top priority.[1]
1943 July 10 Operation Husky (the Allied invasion of Sicily) begins.[1][3]
1943 July 11 Ukrainian Insurgent Army massacres Poles at Dominopol.
1943 July 12 The Japanese win a tactical victory at the Battle of Kolombangara.[1][3]
1943 July 12 The Battle of Prokhorovka begins;[1][3] the largest tank battle in human history and part of the Battle of Kursk, it is the pivotal battle of Operation Citadel.
1943 July 13 Hitler calls off the Kursk offensive, but the Soviets continue the battle.[1][3]
1943 July 19 The Allies bomb Rome for the first time.[1]
1943 July 21 The Operation Bellicose targeting of Friedrichshafen Würzburg radars is the first bombing of a V-2 rocket facility.
1943 July 22 U.S. forces under Patton capture Palermo, Sicily.[1][3]
1943 July 23  The USAAF orders the first 100 examples of the planned Convair B-36 six-engined intercontinental strategic bomber.[8]
1943 July 24 Hamburg, Germany, is heavily bombed in Operation Gomorrah,[1][3] which at the time is the heaviest assault in the history of aviation.
1943 July 25 Mussolini is arrested and relieved of his offices after a meeting with Italian King Victor Emmanuel III, who chooses Marshal Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.[1][3]
1943 August 1 Operation Tidal Wave: Oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania, are bombed by U.S. IX Bomber Command.[1][3]
1943 August 1  Japan declares independence for the State of Burma under Ba Maw.[3]
1943 August 2  2,897 Romani are gassed when their camp at Auschwitz is liquidated.[1]
1943 August 2  John F. Kennedy's PT-109 is rammed in two and sunk off the Solomon Islands.[1][3]
1943 August 3 The first of two "George S. Patton slapping incidents" occurs in Sicily.[1][3]
1943 August 5 Swedish government announces it will no longer allow German troops and war material to transit Swedish railways.[3]
1943 August 5 Russians recapture Orel[3] and Belgorod.[1][3]
1943 August 6 The U.S. wins the Battle of Vella Gulf off Kolombangara in the Solomons.[1][3]
1943 August 6 German troops start pouring in to take over Italy's defences.[3]
1943 August 11 German and Italian forces begin to evacuate Sicily.[3]
1943 August 15 The Land Battle of Vella Lavella island in the Solomons begins.[1][3]
1943 August 15 US and Canadian troops invade Kiska Island in the Aleutians, not knowing the Japanese have already evacuated.[1][3][9]
1943 August 16 Polish Jews begin a resistance with scant weaponry in Białystok.[1] The leaders commit suicide when they run out of ammo.
1943 August 16 U.S. troops enter Messina, Sicily.[1][3]
1943 August 17 All of Sicily now controlled by the Allies.[3]
1943 August 17 Heavy loss of Allied bombers in the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.[1][3]
1943 August 17 Operation Crossbow begins with Operation Hydra when the RAF bombs the Peenemünde V-2 rocket facility.[1][3]
1943 August 17 Portugal, referencing the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373, allows the Allies to use the Azores Islands for air and naval bases.[1][3]
1943 August 19  Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Quebec Agreement during the Quebec Conference.[10]
1943 August 23 Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev liberates Kharkov, Ukraine.[1][3] The Battle of Kursk has become the first successful major Soviet summer offensive of the war.
1943 August 29 During the Occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany, martial law replaced the Danish government.[1][3]
1943 August 31  The Northwest African Air Forces conducts an air raid against the Italian city of Pisa.
1943 September 1 22,750,000 British men and women are either in the services or Civil Defence or doing essential war work, according to the U.K. Ministry of Labour.[3]
1943 September 3 A secret Italian Armistice is signed and Italy drops out of the war. Mainland Italy is invaded when the British XXIII Corps lands at Reggio Calabria.[1][3]
1943 September 3 Nazi Germany begins the evacuation of civilians from Berlin.
1943 September 4 Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria.
1943 September 4 The 503rd Parachute Regiment under American General Douglas MacArthur lands and occupies Nadzab, just west of the port city of Lae in northeastern New Guinea. Lae falls into Australian hands and Australian troops take Salamaua.[1][3]
1943 September 8 Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies. The Germans enact Operation Achse, the disarmament of Italian armed forces.[1][3]
1943 September 8 The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone at Frascati.
1943 September 9 The Allies land at Salerno, Italy; meanwhile the British troops take Taranto in the heel of the Italian "boot".[1][3] Allied strategy aims at a "drive" up the "boot".
1943 September 9 Iran declares war on Germany.[3]
1943 September 10 German troops occupy Rome.[1][3] The Italian fleet meanwhile surrenders at Malta and other Mediterranean ports.
1943 September 11 British troops enter Bari in southeastern Italy.[1][3]
1943 September 12 Mussolini is rescued by aircraft from mountaintop captivity by German SS troops led by Otto Skorzeny.[3] Mussolini is then set up by Hitler, who remains loyal to his old friend, as the head of the puppet "Italian Social Republic."
1943 September 13 The Salerno beachhead is in jeopardy, as German counterattacks increase.
1943 September 14 German troops commence the Holocaust of Viannos in Crete that will continue for two more days.
1943 September 15 Chiang Kai-shek asks that General Stilwell, American military advisor/commander, be recalled for suggesting an alliance with the Communists.[3]
1943 September 16 British forces land on various Italian-held Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, beginning the Dodecanese Campaign.
1943 September 16  British and American troops link up near the Salerno beachhead.[3]
1943 September 19  German troops evacuate Sardinia.[1][3]
1943 September 21 The battle of the Solomons can now be considered at an unofficial end.
1943 September 21 The Massacre of the Acqui Division begins: After resisting for a week, the Italian Acqui division on the Greek island of Cephallonia surrenders to the Germans. During the next days, over 4,500 Italians are executed and a further 3,000 are lost during transport at sea.
1943 September 22  Australian forces land at Finschhafen, a small port in New Guinea.[3] The Japanese continue the battle well into October.
1943 September 22 British midget submarines attack the German battleship Tirpitz, at anchor in a Norwegian fjord, crippling her for six months.[1][3]
1943 September 25 The Red Army retakes Smolensk.[1][3]
1943 September 26 Germans assault the island of Leros, beginning the Battle of Leros.
1943 September 27  The Germans take over the island of Corfu from the Italians, the previous occupiers.[3]
1943 September 27 Sheng Shicai has Mao Zedong's brother Mao Zemin and Chen Tanqiu, a founder of the Communist Party of China, executed.[11]
1943 September 28 The people of Naples, sensing the approach of the Allies, rise up against the German occupiers.[3]
1943 September 30 With the Gestapo starting to round up Danish Jews, certain Danes are secretly sending their Jewish countrymen to Sweden by means of dangerous boat crossings.[1][3]
1943 October 1 Neapolitans complete their uprising and free Naples from German military occupation.
1943 October 3 Churchill appoints Lord Louis Mountbatten the commander of South East Asia Command.
1943 October 3 The Germans conquer the island of Kos.
1943 October 4 Corsica is liberated by Free French forces.[citation needed]
1943 October 5 The Allies cross Italy's Volturno Line.
1943 October 6 The Naval Battle of Vella Lavella completes the second phase of Operation Cartwheel.
1943 October 7 98 American civilian prisoners were executed on Wake Island.
1943 October 9  United States VII Corps arrives in European Theater.
1943 October 10 Chiang Kai-shek takes the oath of office as chairman of Nationalist Government (China).[12]
1943 October 12 Operation Cartwheel begins a bombing campaign against Rabaul.
1943 October 13  Italy declares war on Germany.
1943 October 14 229 of 292 B-17s reached the target in the Second Raid on Schweinfurt. Losses are so heavy that the long range daylight bombing campaign is suspended until the bombers can be escorted by P-51 fighters.
1943 October 14 Members of the Sobibor extermination camp underground, led by Polish-Jewish prisoner Leon Feldhendler and Soviet-Jewish POW Alexander Pechersky, succeeded in covertly killing eleven German SS officers and a number of camp guards. Although their plan was to kill all the SS and walk out of the main gate of the camp, the killings were discovered and the inmates ran for their lives under fire. About 300 out of the 600 prisoners in the camp escaped into the forests.
1943 October 18 The Third Moscow Conference convened.
1943 October 19 The German War Office contracts the Mittelwerk to produce 12,000 V-2 rockets.
1943 October 22 An air raid on Kassel causes a seven-day firestorm.
1943 October 23 Cruiser HMS Charybdis sunk, and destroyer HMS Limbourne damaged, by German torpedo boats off the North coast of Brittany with large loss of life. Bodies of 21 sailors and marines washed up on the Island of Guernsey. Buried with full military honours by the German Occupation authorities, allowing around 5,000 Islanders to attend and lay some 900 wreaths.
1943 October 25 The Red Army takes Dnipropetrovsk.[citation needed]:29: Troops replace striking London dockworkers.[citation needed]
1943 October 31 Heavy rains in Italy slow the Allied advance south of Rome.[citation needed]
1943 October   This month: Ruzagayura famine starts (until December 1944) in the Belgian African colony of Ruanda-Urundi.
1943 November 1 In Operation Goodtime, United States Marines land on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The fighting on this island will continue to the end of the war.
1943 November 2 In the early morning hours, American and Japanese ships fight the inconclusive Battle of Empress Augusta Bay off Bougainville, but the Japanese are unable to land reinforcements.
1943 November 2 British troops, in Italy, reach the Garigliano River.
1943 November 3 Some 43,000 Jews were shot at three camps in Poland in Aktion Erntefest in a two-day "Harvest Festival".
1943 November 5 The Italians bomb the Vatican in a failed attempt to knock out the Vatican radio.
1943 November 6 The Red Army liberates the city of Kiev. This is an anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917.
1943 November 6 Allies take Castiglione, Italy.
1943 November 9 General De Gaulle becomes President of the French Committee of National Liberation.
1943 November 9 Members of the Belgian Resistance publish a fake issue of the collaborationist newspaper Le Soir, mocking the German strategic situation.
1943 November 11 American air power continues to hit Rabaul.
1943 November 12 Germans overrun British forces on the Dodecanese islands, off Turkey.
1943 November 14 Heavy bombers hit Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific.
1943 November 15 Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of Europe is officially formed.
1943 November 15 German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
1943 November 16 Anti-German resistance in Italy increases; there are explosions in Milan.
1943 November 16 The Battle of Leros ends with the surrender of the British and Italian forces to the Germans.
1943 November 16 160 American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
1943 November 16  Japanese submarine sinks surfaced submarine USS Corvina near Truk.
1943 November 18  440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lose nine aircraft and 53 aviators.
1943 November 19 Prisoners of the Janowska concentration camp stage a mass escape/uprising when they are ordered to cover up evidence of a mass-murder. Most are rounded up and killed.
1943 November 20 Operation Galvanic begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa and United States Army forces assault Makin atoll in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from Japanese shore guns. The American public is shocked by the heavy losses of life on Tarawa.
1943 November 20 British troops under Montgomery continue their slow advances on the eastern side of Italy.
1943 November 22 The Cairo Conference: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC leader Chiang Kai-shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.
1943 November 23 Heavy damage from Allied bombing of Berlin. Notably, the Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg is destroyed.
1943 November 24 Heavy bombing of Berlin continues.
1943 November 25 Americans and Japanese fight the naval Battle of Cape St. George between Buka and New Ireland. Admiral Arleigh Burke's destroyers distinguish themselves.
1943 November 25 Rangoon is bombed by American heavy bombers.
1943 November 26 The Red Army offensive in the Ukraine continues.
1943 November 26 The Cairo Conference ("Sextant") ends; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek complete the Cairo Declaration, which deals with the overall strategic plan against Japan.
1943 November 27  Huge civilian losses in Berlin as heavy bombing raids continue.
1943 November 28 The Tehran conference (28 November 1943): Left to right: General Secretary of the Communist Party Joseph Stalin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom
1943 November 28  The Tehran Conference . US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran to discuss war strategy; (on 30 November they establish an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord). Stalin at last has the promise he has been waiting for.
1943 November 29 Second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, determining the post-war order of the country.
1943 November 30 In Malaya, Japanese introduce the GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION No. 41 to encourage families to grow their own food crops and vegetables. Families who are successful will be awarded prizes while families who fail to comply with this notification or leave their vacant lands unplanted will be punished. This notification was written by Itami Masakichi (Penang Shu Chokan) on 25 November 2603/1943.
1943 December 2  The Germans conduct a highly successful Air Raid on Bari, Italy. One of the German bombs hits an Allied cargo ship carrying mustard gas, releasing the chemical which killed 83 Allied soldiers. Over 1000 other soldiers died in the raid.
1943 December 3 Edward R. Murrow delivers his classic "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio describing a Royal Air Force nighttime bombing raid on Berlin.
1943 December 4 Bolivia declares war on all Axis powers.
1943 December 4 In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.
1943 December 12  Rommel is appointed head of "Fortress Europa", chief planner against the expected Allied offensive.
1943 December 13 German soldiers carry out the Massacre of Kalavryta in southern Greece.
1943 December 13 United States VIII Corps arrives in European Theater.
1943 December 14 United States XV Corps arrives in European Theater.
1943 December 16 Kalinin is retaken in a large Red Army offensive.
1943 December 24 US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
1943 December 26 German battleship Scharnhorst is sunk off North Cape (in the Arctic) by a British force led by the battleship HMS Duke of York.
1943 December 26 American Marines land on Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
1943 December 27 General Eisenhower is officially named head of Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.
1943 December 28  In Burma, Chinese troops have some success against the Japanese.
1943 December 29 Control of the Andaman Islands is handed over to Azad Hind by the Japanese
1943 December 30 US Marines secure crucial airfield at Cape Gloucester, New Britain in the Solomons.
Placeholder image         Placeholder image
1943

The Year in Pictures

Placeholder image

Corvette

Placeholder image

Attu Alaska

Placeholder image

Tarawa

Placeholder image

Picture 4

Placeholder image

Picture 5

Placeholder image

HMCS Uganda

1940

Sources

Cite Article : Reference: www.navyhistory/sections/Ships/Minesweepers/HMCS_Courtenay.html

Source: NA