Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, August 5, 1943. WASPs.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, August 5, 1943. WASPs.: 

Thursday, August 5, 1943. WASPs.

While by this point, this story is now confusing because of predecessor organizations, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were officially formed.

WASP wings.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 27, 1943. Storms.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 27, 1943. Storms.: 

Tuesday, July 27, 1943. Storms.

Major Joseph Duckworth, together with Lt. Ralph O'Hair, of the U.S. Army Air Force flew an AT-6 into the eye of a hurricane, becoming the first people to do so on purpose.

Duckworth was an advocate for training on instruments.  He had been an Army Air Corps flyer, originally starting in 1927, and recalled to service during World War Two.

The hurricane bore the name The Surprise Hurricane due to weather censoring during World War Two, which the storm would end due to killing 19 people and causing $17,000,000 in damage.

Croatia became a republic, for a time, after Prince Aimone, the Duke of Astsoria, who had been made king of Croatia by Mussolini, resigned, deciding that desertion was the better part of valor.

The Fascist Grand Council and the Fascist Party were abolished.

Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—July 27, 1943: Flight nurse Lt. Ruth Gardiner (805th MAETS) is killed in a plane crash in Naknek, Alaska; the first US Army nurse to die in WWII.

She also notes the horrific Hamburg firestorm of the night of July 27, 1943, which resulted from the RAF's Operation Gomorrah bombing raid that evening.

Unloading a P-47 at Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Some Gave All: The Crew of the B-17F, "The Casper Kid".

Some Gave All: The Crew of the B-17F, "The Casper Kid".:   

The Crew of the B-17F, "The Casper Kid".

 

This is a new memorial in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, dedicated to the crew of the "Casper Kid", a B-17F that went down in what would have been an incredibly remote lonely spot on February 25, 1943.

In recent years, there's been a dedicated effort in Central Wyoming to memorialize the crews who did in aviation accidents during the Second World War. This is the second such memorial I'm aware of (there may be more) which is dedicated to the crew of an airplane that was flying out of the Casper Air Base, which is now the Natrona County International Airport. Both accidents memorialized so far were winter accidents which resulted in the loss of an aircraft in remote country.

We don't tend to think of those lost in training accidents as war dead, but they were.  And there are a lot of them.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 18, 1943. Blimp attack.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 18, 1943. Alexander appointed governo...: The U.S. airship K-74 depth charged the German U-134, which returned fire with its 20mm deck guns. The K-74 was shot down.  The unsuccessful attack was the only such instance of an airship attacking a submarine during World War Two.

K class airship.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, June 28, 1943. The bombing of Cologne.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, June 28, 1943. The bombing of Cologne.: 

Monday, June 28, 1943. The bombing of Cologne.

Today in World War II History—June 28, 1943: Royal Air Force bombs Cologne, Germany, heavily damaging the cathedral and ending the Battle of the Ruhr—total of 872 British bombers have been lost.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.  Other sources would regard the battle as going on through July 31, which is how I would place it.

On this raid, 608 aircraft, including participated of various types, of which 50 were lost. 4,377 Germans, which of course would have been mostly civilians, were killed, about 10,000 injured.  230,000 people were made homeless. Forty-three industrial, six German Army and about 15,000 other buildings were destroyed.

The Germans, on the same day, began construction of rocket launching complexes along the English Channel.  At the Peenemünde Army Research Center, it successfully launched a V2 rocket as Adolf Hitler watched and unsuccessfully launched one which crashed nearby.

The United States Army Air Force changed its aircraft insignia.  It had been:

This insignia had been adopted on May 15, 1942, in order to omit the red ball in the center of the star, which was a feature of the insignia thath predated it. There were fears the red ball could have been mistaken for the Japanese insignia.  A special variant of this insignia had been modified for Operation Torch, which was:

By NiD.29 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19785085

Research had since shown that shapes, rather than colors, were more important for aircraft identification, so on this date, the following insignia was adopted:

In the Pacific, the red border was omitted by some units.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 25, 1943. Murder in Ukraine, tragedy in Nova Scotia, race riot in UK.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 25, 1943. Murder in Ukraine, tragedy...: 

Friday, June 25, 1943. Murder in Ukraine, tragedy in Nova Scotia, race riot in UK.

The Germans completed the eradication of the Jewish population of Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk) in Ukraine.

The "Battle of Bamber Bridge" occurred in the UK when white Military Police intervened in a pub which had stretched out drinking hours for black US troops and then attempted to cite one for improper uniform.  Shots were ultimately fired and one of the soldiers was killed.

The Smith-Connoally Act was passed, which allowed the government to seize industries threated by strikes.  It went into law over President Roosevelt's veto.

 No. 21 Squadron RAF Ventura attacking IJmuiden, February 1943.

A Ventura AJ186 crashed in Summerville, Nova Scotia, killing P/O John C. Loucks, air gunner, Bracebridge, Ont., P/O George W. Cowie, pilot, Wellington, New Zealand., P/O Clifford A. Griffiths, navigator, Auckland, New Zealand., Sgt. Arthur Cornelius Mulcahy, wireless air gunner, Sydney, Australia.

The men were undergoing training.  A memorial service will be held for them today in Summerville.

Classified as a medium bomber, the Ventura is one of the numerous Allied warbirds that are now basically forgotten, in spite of having received widespread use.  It was an adaptation of a civilian airliner.

Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 25, 1943: 80 Years Ago—June 25, 1943: Bob Hope begins his first major USO tour; he will spend 11 weeks touring England, North Africa, and Sicily.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, June 24, 1943. Heroic jump.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, June 24, 1943. Heroic jump.: 

Wednesday, June 24, 1943. Heroic jump.

Col. W. Randolph Lovelace, M.D. bailed out of a B-17 at 40,200 feet in a medical experiment which would lead to flight crews being instructed to delay opening parachutes until they reached a lower altitude, so as to not pass out from the shock of the parachute's opening at high altitude.

Dr. Lovelace at age 52, showing how, really, this generation took on the appearance of aging much more rapidly than current ones do.

Dr. Lovelace and his wife died in a December 1965 private plan crash near Aspen, Colorado.  The pilot, 27 year old Milton Brown, also died of injuries at the site, but not before he placed their bodies next to each other and covered them with a coat.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank:

Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

The Pointblank Directive was issued by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff directing the implementation of Operation Pointblank, the round the clock Allied bomber offensive over Europe.  The order prioritized targets for the combined Allied air forces, starting with the German aircraft industry.

The order met with passive resistance from RAF's fighter command, which refused to provide escorts to the U.S. Army Air Force during the daylight, citing the inability to convert fighters for long ranges.  This would lead the US to study the conversion of P-51 Mustangs to that use.  It would also lead to considerable tension between the US and the UK on the topic of daylight escorts.

Sarah Sundin noted Pointblank on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 10, 1943: US & UK begin Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany; priorities for bombing targets are submarine yards, aircraft & ball bearings factories, and oil targets

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Famous Navy Crewman, A-36

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Cro...:

Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.

Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind.  He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.

Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:

Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.

We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51.  The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open.  Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.

A-36 in Italy.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 22, 1943. ME 262 and Escort Carriers.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.: 

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, May 16, 1943. Dam Busters

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, May 16, 1943. Warsaw Ghetto falls, Dam Bu...: 

The RAF destoryed the Möhne and Edersee dams with a mere nineteen bombers in the famous "Dam Busters" raid.  At the time it was regarded as a success by the Germans, who were puzzled why the destruction of the hydroelectric dams by bouncing bombs was not followed up upon, while the RAF's Bomber Harris regarded it as a failure that wasted resources.

While the raids caused civilian loss of life, German civilians regarded the destruction of the hydroelectric generating dams as legitimate.  German authorities accurately reported the resulting loss of civilian lives.  Albert Speer wrote of the attack; "employing just a few bombers, the British came close to a success which would have been greater than anything they had achieved hitherto with a commitment of thousands of bombers. But they made a single mistake which puzzles me to this day: They divided their forces and that same night destroyed the Eder Valley dam, although it had nothing whatsoever to do with the supply of water to the Ruhr."

While enormously celebrated as a British success by the population, perhaps the reaction of Harris, who seems to have had a particularly cold view of the destruction of Germany from the air, isn't too surprising. In reality, however, the raid demonstrated a very clever deployment of British resources with a real understanding of how industrial infrastructure worked.

The raid did cause the British to switch aerial munitions, going thereafter for massive "Earthquake Bombs" which caused a seismic effect when detonated.

Eight of the British aircraft were lost in the raid.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claim...: 

Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews, for whom Andrews Air Force Base is named, died in the crash of the B-24 Hot Stuff in Iceland, when it went down in bad weather.

He had been on an inspection tour in the United Kingdom.

Only the plane's tail gunner, SSgt George A. Eisel, survived the crash.  Eisel had survived a previous B-24 crash in North Africa.  He'd live until 1964 when he died at age 64.  Married prior to the war, he and his wife never had any children.

Hot Stuff was the first B-24D to complete 25 missions, well before, it might be noted, the B-17 Memphis Belle did the same.  Hardly anyone recalls Hot Stuff, as the Army went on to emphasize the Memphis Belle following the crash of Hot Stuff and the death of all but one of its crew.  Of note, Hot Suff, predictably, had a much more salacious example of nose art than Memphis Belle, and it's interesting to speculate how the Army would have handled that had the plane been popularized.  At any rate, the story that Memphis Belle was the first US bomber to complete 25 missions is a complete myth.

Andrews was the CO of the ETO at the time of this death.  A West Point Graduate from the class of 1906, he had been in the cavalry branch from 1906 to 1917, when he was assigned to aviation over the objection of his commander.  A prior objection had prevented his reassignment in 1914.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.: 

Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.

Today in World War II History—April 4, 1943: Mrs. Thomas Sullivan christens destroyer USS The Sullivans in honor of her five sons killed in the sinking of light cruiser USS Juneau in November 1942.

So reports Sarah Sundin, who also notes that the US II Corps took Hill 369 near El Guettar and that POWs escaped from the Japanese penal colony on Davoa point.  Their escape would break the news of the Bataan Death March, particularly through POW William Dyess.

William Dyess.

Dyess was returned to flying status but would suffer a mechanically stricken aircraft over California, while taking off, that following December and chose to ride the plane down as it was over a populated area.  He died in the crash.

On the tragic aircraft loss theme, I guess, a B-25 went down over Lake Murray, South Carolina on this day, but the entire crew survived.  The nearly intact B-25 was raised in 2005 in excellent condition.

1Lt. W.J. Hatton, pilot; 2Lt. R.F. Toner, copilot; 2Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator; 2Lt. J.S. Woravka, bombardier; TSgt. H.J. Ripslinger, engineer; TSgt. R.E. LaMotte, radio operator; SSgt. G.E. Shelly, gunner; SSgt. V.L. Moore, gunner; and SSgt. S.E. Adams, gunner.  Crew of the Lady Be Good.

Not so fortunate was the crew of Lady Be Good, a B-24.  It disappeared on its return from a bombing raid on Italy, having taken off from an airbase in Libya, which is interesting to consider as North Africa was still subject to fighting on the ground.

The plane grossly overshot its base and was found in 1958 by a British Petroleum crew some 400 plus miles inland.  The bodies were recovered, save for one, two years later after a search.  The crew clearly bailed out once they realized, far too late, they were deeply lost and that the plane would go down. They appear to have survived the parachute descent but died in the desert. The one remaining crewman was likely found by a British patrol over the borderline with Libya in 1953, but was unaware of whom the crewman was, as the plane had been thought to have crashed over the Mediterranean.

A minor incident, it's recalled simply because of the mystery of what occurred to the crew.  Worth recalling as part of that, and contrary to how this is often portrayed in film, many American aircrews were extremely green early on in the war, as in fact this crew was.  This contributed to an extremely high accident rate.

German radio announced that Former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Léon Blum, and former French Army commander in chief, General Maurice Gamelin, had turned over to the Germans by French authorities.  They would spend the rest of the war in Buchewald.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, February 13, 1943. Corsairs deploy,

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, February 13, 1943. Corsairs deploy, Wom...: 

Saturday, February 13, 1943. Corsairs deploy, Women Marines.

F4U Corsairs arrived at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, their first combat deployment.  The first actual combat would take place two days later.

While a carrier plane, the Corsair was at first deployed from land airstrips out of concerns that the high angle at which it sat when on its tail would make carrier operations difficult.  This was rapidly proven a false fear, as the Royal Navy put their Corsairs to carrier operations immediately.

Sunday, January 21, 1943 (and 1973). Lost flights

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, January 21, 1943 (and 1973). Lost flights: 

Sunday, January 21, 1943 (and 1973). Lost flights

Today in World War II History—January 21, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Jan. 21, 1943: Stalingrad airlift ends when Soviets take Gumrak Airfield, the last Luftwaffe field in the city.

On Sarah Sundin's blog.

Obviously, by this point, the German 6th Army, or what was left of it, was doomed.   

FWIW, other sources report this as occurring on January 22.

Pan Am Flight 1104 crashed into a hillside in Mendocino County, California, due to bad weather and low visibility, killing all on board, including Rear Admiral Robert H. English, the commander of the the US submarine fleet in the Pacific.  The clipper had been en route from Hawaii.

The Civil Aeronautics Board determined:

Failure of the captain to determine his position accurately before descending to a dangerously low altitude under extremely poor weather conditions during the hours of darkness.

It took ten days to find the wreckage.

On this day in 1973, Aeroflot Flight 6263, crashed at Perm, killing four in the impact. Thirty-five survivors would freeze to death awaiting rescue.

Areoflot ranks number 1 in airline fatalities, with the rankings as of mid summer 2023 being as follows:

Areoflot - 11,270 fatalities

Air France - 1,756 fatalities

Pan Am - 1,652

American Airlines - 1,453 fatalities

United Airlines - 1,217 fatalities

Avianca - 992 fatalitie

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, September 10, 1942. WAFS founded.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, September 10, 1942. WAFS founded.: 

Thursday, September 10, 1942. WAFS founded.

WAFS, 1943.

Today in World War II History—September 10, 1942: US forms WAFS (Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) under Nancy Harkness Love for already-licensed pilots, a precursor to the WASP program.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The WAFS were civilians by regulation, not military pilots, and operated under ninety day contracts. They had to be licensed pilots with 200 hours of experience when they hired on, and while they wore uniforms, they had to buy them, although that was required of Army officers as well. Unlike officers, however, they had to pay for their own room and board as well.  There were only forty at the height of the program.

While they were required to have 200 hours of flight time, in reality the average for those signing on was 1,400 and a commercial pilots license. This made the WAFS not only quite experienced as pilots, in context, but unusual for female pilots.

Betty H. Gillies.

Betty H. Gillies was the first member, in that she was the first to report for training. She was an experienced pilot of fourteen years and married to the vice president of Grumman.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, September 1, 1942. Casper Air Base gets the thumbs up.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, September 1, 1942. Miscarriages of Justice.: According to the Wyoming State Historical Association, on this day in 1942 official approval was given to commence use of the Casper Air Base, which had been constructed in an incredibly small amount of time.  The existing county airport was Wardwell Field, the Casper area's second airport (the first was in what is now Evansville).  Today, what was Casper Air Base is the Natrona County International Airport, which actually uses at least one fewer runway than was constructed by the Army in 1942.  Wardwell Field's runways, in contrast, are city streets in the Town of Bar Nunn.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, January 13, 1942. Things that fly.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, January 13, 1942. Things that fly.:   

Tuesday, January 13, 1942. Things that fly.

 

On this day in 1942, a German test pilot became the first individual to deploy an ejection seat.

You can read more about that here:

13 January 1942

On the same day, the Sikorsky R4 flew for the first time.

The helicopter was produced through 1944, with 131 examples being made.  One was used for the first combat rescue of wounded men, in Burma, in 1944.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The Fall of Wake Island.: 

The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.

23 December 1941

Lots of the civilian variants, the DC3, were already in military service, but it wasn't until this date that the first example of the dedicated military version was delivered.  The civilian airliner had been introduced in 1935.

Over 10,000 C47s were built, or over 16,000 if the Li-2 Soviet produced version is considered, and amazingly they remain in service with the Columbian, El Salvadorian and South African air forces.  They were preeminently important as an Allied cargo plane during the Second World War, and they were used by every Allied power including the Soviet Union, which built 6,000 of them under license in addition to the ones that were supplied to the USSR via lend lease, making the Soviet Union the second-largest producer of the aircraft.

The role of the C47 in Allied airpower could hardly be understated.  It and the DC3 are one of the greatest aircraft ever produced.  Some DC3s remain in commercial use today (I've seen one in United Airlines colors as late as 2004) and they're actually being remanufactured as the Basler BT-67 for current use.

Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1941. Birth of the Civil Air Patrol.

Lex Anteinternet: December 1, 1941. Birth of the Civil Air Patrol.: 

December 1, 1941. Birth of the Civil Air Patrol.

On this day in 1941, the Air Force auxiliary the United States Civil Air Defense Services, whose named was soon changed to the Civil Air Patrol, came into existence.

The organization came into being through Executive Order No. 9 issued by F. H. La, which provided:

December 1, 1941

Administrative Order No.9

Establishing Civil Air Patrol

By virtue of the authority vested in me through my appointment as United States Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, through the Executive Order of the President creating said Office, dated May 20, 1941. I have caused to be created and organized a branch of this Office of volunteers for the purpose of enlisting and training personnel to aid in the national defense of the United States, designated as the Civil Air Patrol.

In conformity with said organization, Major General John F. Curry, U.S.A. Air Corps has been assigned to this office by the U.S. Army and designated by me as its National Commander. Said organization shall be formed as outlined in the attached chart, which is made a part of this Order as if written herein in full. The Civil Air Patrol shall carry out such Orders and directives as are issued to it by the Director of Civilian Defense. It shall be the duty and responsibility of the National Commander to see that the objectives and purposes and orders issued in conformity with the policy of this office are carried out and that all activities are reported regularly to the Director through the Aviation Aide.

All enlistments and appointments in the Civil Air Patrol may be disapproved by the Director of the Office of Civilian Defense.

F. H. LaGuardia

U.S. Director of

Civilian Defense

The wartime status of the CAP is frankly a little murky.  Often noted that it was a "civilian" organization using private aircraft, it rapidly came to deploy light aircraft owned by the government. Moreover, as the war progressed, the aircraft became armed and the CAP conducted over 80 bombing and depth charge runs on German U-boats during the war, suppressing their activities but sinking none of them.  The members of the organization were commanded by an Army general during the war, and wore Army Air Corps uniforms.  Given all of that, the better argument is that they were in fact a combat organization.  It's role in the Second World War, in that sense, may be imperfectly analogous to the Coast Guard, somewhat, or the United States Health Service, both of which became wartime auxillaries of the U.S. Navy.

Lt. Willa Beatrice Brown. She later unsuccessfully ran for Congress.

As such, they're further notable in that they fielded some women pilots during the war, one of whom, Willa Beatrice Brown, was African American.  This would mean that the Civil Air Patrol, not any of the other branches of the military, was the first to deploy women officially to a combat service and the first branch of the Army to integrate, albeit to a very small extent.

The subsequent view of the CAP is, at least to some extent, confused by the later creation of the cadet branch, which came into being shortly after World War Two and which somewhat replicated, at that time, JrROTC, which was limited to the Army.

We've posted on the CAP a fair amount here before, with the longest World War Two themed one being the following two.

Mid Week At Work: The Civil Air Patrol. Bar Harbor, Maine, 1944.

The Civil Air Patrol is the official auxiliary of the United States Air Force.  Created during World War Two, it's original purpose was to harness the nations large fleet of small private aircraft for use in near shore anti submarine patrols.  The light aircraft, repainted in bright colors to allow for them to be easily spotted by other American aircraft, basically flew the Atlantic in patterns to look for surfaced submarines.  As submarines of that era operated on the surface routinely, this proved to be fairly effective and was greatly disruptive to the German naval effort off of the American coast.

The CAP also flew some patrols along the Mexican border during the same period, although I've forgotten what the exact purpose of them was. Early in the war, there was quite a bit of concern about Mexico, given its problematic history during World War One, and given that the Mexican government was both radical and occasionally hostile to the United States. These fears abated fairly rapidly.

The CAP still exists, with its post war mission having changed to search and rescue.  It also has a cadet branch that somewhat mirrors JrROTC.  Like JrROTC it has become considerably less martial over time, reflecting the views of boomer parents, who have generally wished, over time, to convert youthful organizations that were organized on military or quasi military lines into ones focusing on "citizenship" and "leadership"..

Mid Week at Work: The Civil Air Patrol.

Photographs of the Civil Air Patrol during World War Two. The CAP was made up of civilian volunteers organized into an axillary of the Army Air Corps for the purposes of patrolling the coasts.  They detected over 100 submarines during the war.  The organization exists today as an axillary of the USAF and performs search and rescue operations.

As those threads explain the CAP pretty well, we'll leave it at that.

Franklin Roosevelt cut short a vacation at Warm Springs, Georgia to deal with the mounting crisis of almost certain war with Japan.

Also on this day, the Japanese Navy suddenly changed its communications code, a significant event in that the US had cracked the prior one. This meant that the US was suddenly unable to eavesdrop on radio communications of the Japanese navy, although the Japanese had gone radio silent on their dispatched missions leading towards the events of December 7.

Yugoslavian partisans attacked Italian forces in Montenegro at Pljevilja.  They were predicatably put down, after which the local movement began to severely split, with sizable numbers joining pro Axis militias.

Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, feuding with Hitler after ordering a retreat against Hitler's orders following the German setbacks at Rostov, resigned.  In North Africa, the Afrika Corps fought with New Zealand and British troops at Belhamed Libya with inconclusive results.

Karl Jäger issued a report detailing with precision the murderous activites of Einsatzkommando in the Baltics.

Map from report.

Related Threads:

The Aerodrome: Civil Air Patrol Cessna 182T, Natrona County International Airport

Youth organizations. Their Rise and (near) Fall, or is that a myth? And, did you join?