This day in the war in Europe 65 years ago

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14 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: RAF Coastal Command began daily patrols over the Bay of Biscay by aircraft equipped with new detection devices to locate and destroy German U-boats leaving and entering their bases on the French coast. 'U-564' (Type VIIC) was sunk at 1730 hrs northwest of Cape Ortegal, Spain by depth charges from a British Whitley aircraft (10 OTU/G).

When an RAF No. 547 Sqdn Wellington attacked 'U-155' in the Bay of Biscay, one man died. [Bootsmaat Heinz Wilke]. Four RAF No. 307 Polish Sqdn Mosquitos then attacked wounding 5 men. 'U-155' shot down one of the Mosquitos. A Mosquito attacked 'U-68' killing 1 and wounding 3 more. 'U-68' later was given the doctor onboard of 'U-155' for some medical treatment.

'U-334' (Type VIIC) was sunk in the North Atlantic southwest of Iceland by depth charges from the British frigate HMS 'Jed' and the sloop 'Pelican'.

EASTERN FRONT: A German report showed that 100,000 cases of typhus were reported on the Russian front during 1942, with a fatality rate of 15%.

GERMANY: 197 Lancasters and 6 Mosquitoes attacked Oberhausen, 17 Lancasters lost. This target was cloud covered but once again the Oboe sky-marking was accurate. The report from Oberhausen said that the Germans noted the markers right over the top of the Altstadt. 267 buildings were destroyed and 584 severely damaged. 85 people were killed and 258 were injured.

2 Mosquitoes went to Cologne and 29 aircraft went minelaying off Brittany and in the River Gironde. 1 Stirling minelayer was lost.

UNITED KINGDOM: The 349th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 100th Bombardment Group (Heavy) arrived at Thorpe Abbots, England from the US with B-17s. The squadron would fly it's first mission on 25 Jun.

The creation of the Allied Tactical Air Force in the UK was announced. Following an assessment of 'Exercise Spartan', Tactical Air Forces (TAFs) were created as replacements for RAF Army Co-operation Command. The exercise tested the efficiency of Army co-operation squadrons under mobile conditions, and was effectively a rehearsal for the invasion and liberation of Northwest Europe.

A Hurricane crashed at 12.25 on Milfield Hill Farm, Northumberland, it crashed almost on take-off. The pilot, seriously injured, was taken to the airfield hospital, were he died later that day. The aircraft was damaged.

MEDITERRANEAN: During the night Northwest African Strategic Air Force(NASAF) Wellingtons bombed Messina, Italy.

The Italian island of Lampedusa surrendered to the British.

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15 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: German U-boats hit a convoy in the Atlantic but failed to cause major damage after a running battle of 5-days.

EASTERN FRONT: SS Colonel Paul Blobel began work on the mass graves outside Lvov, Poland. Himmler, seeing that Hitler's hold on power was waning decided to eradicate the evidence of the mass murders to be destroyed. Blobel was ordered to dig up the graves and burn the bodies. Concentration camp laborers were forced to dig up the decaying bodies, extract gold teeth from the corpses and burn the remains before reburying.

MS "T-411" of the Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla was sunk by a U-boat in the Sukhumi area. At 14:19, 'U-24' fired a spread of two torpedoes at the BTShCh-411 'Zashchitnik' (No 26), which had been spotted at 13:54 and observed one hit in the stern after 1 minute 30 seconds. The vessel broke in two and sank about 20 miles west of Suchumi. The survivors were picked up by the Soviet patrol craft SKA-0101 and SKA-0138.

German General Heinz Guderian told Adolf Hitler that the new Panther tanks were not ready for battle.

The rising experte of 9./JG 54, Lt. Walter Nowotny, scored his 100th victory. But the ace this day was Ofw. Herbert Strassl of III./JG 51 who destroyed 15 Russian aircraft during 4 sorties throughout the day.

GERMANY: The Arado Ar-234, the world's first jet bomber aircraft, had its first test flight at Munster, piloted by Flugkapitän Selle. The Ar 234V-1 had no landing gear so it took off from a 3 wheeled trolley and landed on retractable skids. All went well with the flight but the five braking parachutes failed to open and the landing trolley was destroyed. The Ar 234 was originally concieved in early 1941 by an engineering team under Professor Walter Blume, director of the Arado aircraft company. The design project was code-named 'E-370" and was in response to a German requirement for a fast recon aircraft. Arado projected a speed of 780 kph, an operating altitude of almost 11,000 meters and a maximum range of 2,000 meters. The range was alittle less than the Air Ministry wanted but they liked the design anyway and ordered 2 prototypes. The 2 prototypes, designated Ar 234V-1 and Ar 234V-2 were largely complete before the end of 1941. However the Jumo 004 engines weren't ready and wouldn't be ready for over a year. In February 1943, Arado finally got a pair of Jumo 004As. However, these engines were only cleared for static and taxi tests. At the time, Messerschmitt had priority for engine deliveries for their Me 262 fighter and Arado had to accept what they could. Flight qualified engines were finally delivered that spring and the Ar 234V-1 was flown.

An Fw 190A-5 of 1./JG 2 was damaged in a forced landing at Bernay airfield after combat and the pilot Uffz. Karl-Heinz Kurth was wounded.

6 Mosquitoes carried out a nuisance raid on Berlin without loss.

MEDITERRANEAN: During the night Northwest African Strategic Air Force(NASAF) Wellingtons bombed the airfields at Milo, Sciacca, Castelvetrano, and Boccadifalco, Sicily. B-17s, B-25s, B-26s, and P-38s followed during the morning hours with raids on the same targets and hit the airfield at Bo Rizzo and radio stations near Marsala, Sicily. The US 448th BS took off with 36 planes to bomb the landing ground at Sciacca, Sicily. Hits were made on some planes on ground N of the field and others among barracks S of field. 12 Bf 109s and 6 MA-202s came up from the deck and were attacked by the escorts. The escorts shot down 1 Bf 109. 2 planes were hit by flak and 1 crash landed at Mateur.

A detachment of the 12th Reconnaissance Squadron (Fighter), 67th Reconnaissance Group began operating from Malta with F-5s.

Submarine HMS 'Umbra' torpedoed and sank the Italian heavy cruiser 'Trento'. 'Trento' was already damaged by a torpedo from an RAF No. 217 Sqn Beaufort from Malta. Submarine HMS 'Ultor' sankthe Italian auxiliary minesweeper 'Tullio'/No.92.

A Ju 88D-1 belonging to 2(F)./122 failed to return from a recce to Malta. Suspected engine failure was the cause and Oblt. Heinrich Fennel (observer), Lt Josef Träger and Fw Michael Feiersinger all MIA.

At 14:30, the 'Athelmonarch', escorted by the Greek destroyer 'Aetos', was torpedoed and sunk by 'U-97' NW of Jaffa, Palestine. Four crewmembers were lost. The master, 35 crewmembers and eleven gunners were picked up by the destroyer and landed at Beirut.

A meeting was held this evening by the 447th BS and the officers and enlisted men asked to vote on whether they would like to contribute more money each month in order to continue to get fresh vegetables and meat. The enlisted men voted to contribute five dollars each for the month of June and the officers voted to contribute ten dollars each.

NORTH AMERICA: President Roosevelt approved a ceiling of 31,447 useful aircraft for the USN.

NORTHERN FRONT: Theo Weissenberger was appointed Staffelkapitaen of 7./JG 5.

UNITED KINGDOM: Additional modifications of YB-40 escort bombers were completed in the United Kingdom. It was now hoped that these B-17s converted to heavily armored aircraft with great firepower would solve the problem of long-range escort for bombers

The 565th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 389th Bombardment Group (Heavy) arrived at Hethel, England from the US with B-24s.

RAF Squadron 101, Radio Counter Measures (RCM), was based at Ludford Magna, near Louth in Lincolnshire, as part of No. 1 Group, Bomber Command. At Ludford a dangerous task was assigned the squadron. Many Allied bombers were falling victim to German night-fighters guided by ground controllers scrutinizing radar screens. An Allied counter-measure named 'Window' partially upset this, but the Luftwaffe responded by coordinating the commentaries of several controllers at different locations, and delegating overall command to a single master controller who guided the night-fighters towards the Allied aircraft. The British Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Malvern developed a response to this that was tested by 101 Squadron. It was called 'Airborne Cigar', or ABC, a battlefield version of 'Ground Cigar', and its original code name was 'Jostle'. Using a receiver and three 50-watt T.3160-type transmitters, the German VHF frequency – and language - was identified and then jammed. The jamming caused a loud and constantly varying note running up and down the scale of the relevant speech channel. For this purpose, a German-speaking eighth crew member was included in the crew of especially fitted Lancaster bombers. He was known as the Special Duty Operator, 'Spec. Op.', or SO. All were volunteers from various aircrew trades. Since the enemy often gave phoney instructions to divert the jammers, it was essential that they know German reasonably well. In addition, if the Germans changed frequencies the SO would have to be skillful enough to do likewise. The SO had to recognize German codewords – such as Kapelle, for 'target altitude' - and log any German transmissions for passing on to Intelligence at the post-flight debriefing. Jewish veteran Flight Sergeant Leslie Temple recalls the Germans trying to distract the SOs by using screaming female voices or martial music. Some sources allege that the SOs were trained in 'verbal jamming', that is giving false information in German, but this was very little used. see: Jewish RAF Special Operators in Radio Counter Measures with 101 Squadron

WESTERN FRONT: 3(F)./122's official 2000th Feindflug took place on this day - the crew involved were Ofw. Von Zabiensky, Obfw. Tonne, Fw. Knortz and Oblt. Salecker.

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16 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: British Bomber Command aircraft began dropping sea mines from 6000 feet, instead of 2000-3000 feet.

Corvette HMCS "Arvida" arrived Iceland for repair of depth charge damage.

An aircraft from RAF No. 547 Sqdn attacked 'U-600', killing one crewman. The aircraft was shot down.

The first convoys for the Invasion of Sicily, Operation 'Husky', sail from the US.

GERMANY: 202 Lancasters and 10 Halifaxes attacked Cologne, 14 Lancasters lost. The marking for this raid was not by Oboe but by 16 heavy bombers of the Pathfinders fitted with H2S. The target was cloud-covered but some of the Pathfinder aircraft had trouble with their H2S sets. The sky-marking was late and sparse and the bombing of the all-Lancaster Main Force was thus scattered. The local report believed that several hundred planes approached Cologne but, because of bad weather, only the first hundred bombed, the remainder turning back. Most of the damage in Cologne was to housing areas; 401 houses were destroyed and nearly 13,000 suffered varying degrees of damage. 16 industrial premises were hit including the Kalk Chemical Works which, according to RAF photographic reconnaissance, was burnt out. Other buildings destroyed or damaged included 9 railway stations, 2 railway stores, 1 telephone exchange, 2 district town halls (at Ehrenfeld and Spanischer Bau), 5 churches, 5 hospitals, 3 cinemas and 2 schools. 147 people were killed and 213 were injured.

5 Mosquitoes went to Berlin.

MEDITERRANEAN: Wave after wave of Allied bombers flew unmolested over Sicily today, dropping thousands of tons of high explosive on ports, airfields and other military targets. The island was being "softened up" for an invasion - although Rome radio was still talking of Sardinia as a possible target. An announcer described the country's present situation as "the gravest in the whole of her modern history."

Four British battleships were on station in Gibraltar, and intensive training was under way both in North Africa and in Scotland, where a beach near Troon was being used for commando "rehearsals", although few knew the actual destination. Two more Italian islands have surrendered. White flags fluttered over tiny Linosa on 13 June as soon as the British destroyer HMS 'Nubian' appeared. Closer to Africa, Lampedusa was pounded heavily from the sea and air before surrendering on 12 June. A British fighter pilot, Sergeant Jack Cohen, force-landed on the island with engine trouble in the middle of the bombardment. Italians came running up to his aircraft waving white flags and shouting: "Can't you stop this?" Cohen was forced to shelter from Allied bombs and shells for two hours. Italian engineers helped him to men his aircraft, and he flew off to tell the navy that Lampedusa was surrendering. The capture of Pantelleria and the other islands has virtually closed the Sicilian narrows to German and Italian shipping.

'U-97' (Type VIIC) was sunk in Mediterranean, west of Haifa by depth charges from an Australian Hudson aircraft (Sqdn 459/T). 27 men died when 'U-97' was lost and 21 men survived.

UNITED KINGDOM: The 566th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 389th Bombardment Group (Heavy) arrived at Hethel, England from the US with B-24s.

British military intelligence received its first report from an agent about a "bomb with wings" (V-1) being developed in Germany.

WESTERN FRONT: Britain invoked the treaty of Windsor (established in 1386, binding Britain and Portugal to mutual assistance), and requested of Portugal that Britain be allowed to use airfields on the Azores islands.
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A Ju 88C-6 belonging to 11./NJG 3 experienced an engine failure on the left engine during a calibration flight and tried to make it back to Fliegerhorst Grove. At 00:15 Hours the Ju 88 crashed near what is today known as Stadionvej road 93 near Karup. The tail of the JU 88 ended up 20 metres from the house, but luckily no fire started. In the morning personnel from Fliegerhorst Grove arrived and retrieved the crew from the wreckage. Pilot Uffz. Franz Henneke, Wop Uffz. Günther Thiele and Engineer Gefr. Josef Deppish had all died and were placed underneath a parachute about 20 metres from the wreck. The Luftwaffe personnel worked all day to remove the wreckage and not until late afternoon were the bodies removed.

While flying target on a calibration flight for a radar station a Ju 88C-6 belonging to 10./NJG 3 was apparently flying with its position lights on. Mosquito UP-R of RAF No. 605 Squadron piloted by F/O R. R. Smart and navigated by F/O J. K. Sutcliffe were orbiting Aalborg at 100 feet when they sighted the Ju 88 and climbed to 2000 feet for a stern attack. Smart opened fire at 00:45 hours with a 2-3 seconds burst. Strikes were seen on starboard engine and fuselage and the port engine caught fire. The Ju 88 fell to the ground with fire spreading to the fuselage and crashed just south of Sønderøkse about 7 miles west of Fliegerhorst Aalborg West. It blew up on impact. All were killed. One of the crewmen had managed to bail out, but at too low an altitude and he was found dead with a broken skull near Nørre Skovhus not far from the wreckage.

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17 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: HMT 'Yoma' sunk by 'U-81'. On 13 Nov, 1941 the boat, under the command of Guggenberger, sank the famous British aircraft carrier HMS 'Ark Royal' in the Mediterranean.

An RAF No. 206 Sqdn Fortress damaged 'U-338', killing one and wounding three. The 'U-338' was nicknamed the 'Wild Onager' in reference to an incident that occurred when it was first launched. Apparently, the U-boat broke its moorings on the day of launch and sank a small tug boat.

EASTERN FRONT: A Ju 88D-1 from 4(F)./122 failed to return from a mission to the Krymskaya-Armavir-Tikhoretsk-Krasnodar area.

GERMANY: 7 Mosquitoes, 4 to Berlin and 3 to Cologne and the Ruhr. No losses.

MEDITERRANEAN: United States naval vessels LST 6 and LST 326, were damaged by collision in the North African area.

B-24s attacked airfields at Biscariy and Comiso, Sicily. During the night Wellingtons bombed docks and a marshalling yard at Naples, Italy.

Preparations for the Allied invasion of Sicily continued as the British battleships 'Valiant' and 'Warspit' were transferred from the Scapa Flow in the North Sea to North Africa.

WESTERN FRONT: RAF No. 186 Squadron flying the Hawker Hurricane MK IID made the first rocket attacks against targets at Flushing in the Netherlands.

The BBC warned civilians in occupied Europe to evacuate the vicinity of all factories working for the German war effort.

18 June 1943

EASTERN FRONT: Oblt. Mietusch of 7./JG 26 had a 5-in-one day near Leningrad. In the morning, the staffel took off from Siverskaya airfield to patrol the Leningrad front. Soon engaging Russian fighters, he downed a Soviet LaGG-3 near Kinderovo and 7 minutes later another LaGG-3 near Podborvye. Obfw. Heinz Kemethmueller destroyed a Yak-1 in the same engagement. In the afternoon Oblt. Mietusch destroyed 2 more Russian LaGG-3s in 3 minutes. He ended the day with the destruction of a Soviet Yak-7 over Lake Ladoga bringing his score to 42 kills. But 7./JG 26 lost a promising pilot. Engaging lend-lease P-40s, Fw. Erich Jauer shot down 2 of the American-built fighters but was then caught by the Russians and shot down behind enemy lines. Captured, he spent the rest of the war as a POW having destroyed 13 enemy aircraft during his short combat career.

MEDITERRANEAN: The Allies "soften" Sicily with a pre-invasion bombing campaign. B-17s struck the Messina, Italy ferry slip and railroad yards while P-38s bombed the airfield at Milo, Sicily. B-26s and B-25s, with P-38 escort, hit docks and shipping at Olbia, Sardinia and shipping at Golfo Aranci, Italy. Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF) and Northwest African Coastal Air Force (NACAF) airplanes maintained patrol and reconnaissance flights. Northwest African Air Force (NAAF) aircraft claimed over 40 aircraft destroyed.

UNITED KINGDOM: Dr. R.V. Jones studied aerial reconnaissance photos of Peenemünde from June 12, and discovered what he concluded was a rocket, about 35 feet long, with five-foot diameter.

The British "RDF" or "radiolocation" technology was renamed "radar".

HMCS 'Athabaskan', a Tribal-class destroyer, Capt. George "Gus" Ralph Miles, OBE, RCN, CO, was damaged in a collision with boom defense vessel HMS 'Bargate' at Scapa Flow. This resulted in the destroyer being under repairs at Devonport for a month. 'Athabaskan' was dubbed "The Unlucky Lady" as the result of her many unfortunate escapades. In Apr 43, she was heavily damaged by weather and had to undergo major repairs. After her collision in June, she was hit by a German radio-controlled glider bomb on 27 Aug 43, which also required a lengthy period in a repair yard. 'Athabaskan' was sunk in action on 29 Apr 44 with heavy loss of life.

NORTHERN FRONT: While attacking shipping targets off Cap Pogan, 2 Fw 190A-3s of 14(Jabo)./JG 5 were lost. Flying "Black 9", Fw Hunlein struck the mast of the vessel he was attacking and crashed to his death. Uffz. Pohl was hit by AA fire in "Black 8" and died when he crashed west of Cap Pogan.

Njaco said:

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....HMCS 'Athabaskan', a Tribal-class destroyer, Capt. George "Gus" Ralph Miles, OBE, RCN, CO, was damaged in a collision with boom defense vessel HMS 'Bargate' at Scapa Flow. This resulted in the destroyer being under repairs at Devonport for a month. 'Athabaskan' was dubbed "The Unlucky Lady" as the result of her many unfortunate escapades. In Apr 43, she was heavily damaged by weather and had to undergo major repairs. After her collision in June, she was hit by a German radio-controlled glider bomb on 27 Aug 43, which also required a lengthy period in a repair yard. 'Athabaskan' was sunk in action on 29 Apr 44 with heavy loss of life.

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Click to expand...

They found her in the English Channel a few years ago and determined she was sunk by friendly fire (torpedoed)from a RN MTB

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19 June 1943

GERMANY: 9./KG 101 based at Lechfeld, became 13./KG 2. The remainder of III./KG 101 disbanded in August 1943.

6 Mosquitoes went to Cologne, Duisburg and Dusseldorf. 12 Lancasters of 3 Group laid mines in the River Gironde, 1 Lancaster was lost.

MEDITERRANEAN: During the night Northwest African Strategic Air Force(NASAF) Wellingtons bombed Syracuse, Sicily. An evacuation of civilians from Sicily and Naples was ordered by the Italian government.

In Italy, B-24s attacked ferry and railroad yards at Villa San Giovanni, ferries in the Straits of Messina, and the harbor of Reggio di Calabria.

NORTH AFRICA: The British sapper was the victim of a German booby trap. He was bleeding badly. The explosion had almost severed his leg. A razor-sharp piece of shrapnel had penetrated his skull. When medical orderlies reached him, his life was in the balance. Only a miracle or skilled surgery could save him. The miracle - and the surgery - came in the form of a Dakota aircraft, complete with a surgeon, nursing orderlies and an operating theatre. Within an hour of the explosion, the fight to save Sapper X was taking place in mid-air. The shattered leg was amputated, the head wound prepared for more complex surgery in a hospital ship in Algiers. In any previous war, the victim would have stood little chance. But now, the RAF's "flying ambulance" service was playing a vital life-saving role on the battlefield. Nearly 3,000 lives are known to have been saved by the service in the desert campaigns. Only one-tenth of head-wound cases failed to survive. Major-General Freyberg, the New Zealand VC, owed his life to a flying ambulance after being picked up from a desert airstrip with severe neck wounds. It was a risky business for the personnel, flying in unarmed planes, often over Axis territory. One orderly received two bullets in the legs, but continued working until the patient was safely down - then collapsed from lack of blood.

A Ju 88D-1trop of 1(F)./122 was dispatched on a sortie to the Algerian Coast between Cap Bougaron and Oran. It failed to return and was believed to have been shot down by a fighter.

UNITED KINGDOM: During the month of June, the 40th Bombardment Wing arrived at Brampton Grange, England from the US.

WESTERN FRONT: 181 Halifaxes, 107 Stirlings and 2 Lancasters went to bomb the Scneider armaments factory and the Breuil steelworks at Le Creusot, 2 Halifaxes lost. The tactics for this raid were that the Pathfinders would only drop flares and that each crew of the Main Fore was to identify their part of the target by the light of these flares. The Main Force crews were then to make two runs over the target area, dropping a short stick of bombs on each run from altitudes between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. By this stage of the war, however, Main Force crews were used to bombing target indicators and many had difficulty in making a visual identification of their target. Lingering smoke from the large number of flares was blamed for most of the difficulty. Bombing photographs showed that all crews bombed within 3 miles of the centre of the target but only about one-fifth managed to hit the factories. Many bombs fell on nearby residential property but no report could be obtained from France to give details of casualties.

26 of the H2S equipped Pathfinders who had released flares at Le Creusot were intended to fly on to drop flares over the electrical transformer station at Montchanin. By the light of these flares a further 26 Lancasters of 8 Group were to attack this second target. Most of the attacking crews, however, mistook a small metal factory for the transformer station and bombed that target instead. A few aircraft did identify the correct target but their bombs scored no hits on it.

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20 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: The British announced a five-day U-boat attack on the Atlantic convoys and claimed that 97% of the ships survived.

A US Navy PBY-5A of Patrol Squadron Eighty Four (VP-84) based at Fleet Air Base Reykjavik, Iceland sank the German submarine 'U-388' (Type VIIC) south south-west of Iceland and south-east of Cape Farewell, Greenland. This was the first use of the Navy's homing torpedo (FIDO).

GERMANY: Operation Bellicose: First shuttle-bombing raid by Bomber Command. Sixty Avro Lancasters of the RAF's 57 and 97 Squadrons, No. 5 Group attacked the old German Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen. Aircraft landed at Algiers and attacked Spezia on the return journey to UK. This factory made Wurzburg radar sets which were an important part of the German fighter interception boxes through which Bomber Command had to fly every time they attacked a target in Germany. In early June 1943, a Central Interpretation Unit photo interpreter (Claude Wavell) at RAF Medmenham identified a stack of ribbed baskets (Würzburg radar reflectors) at the Zeppelin Works. After Winston Churchill viewed the photos at RAF Medmenham on 14 June, No. 5 Group RAF received the surprise orders on 16 June to attack Friedrichshafen during the next full moon. This was a special raid with interesting and novel tactics. Like the recent Dams Raid, the attack was to be 'controlled' by the pilot of one of the Lancasters. This feature would be later known as the 'Master Bomber' technique. The plan was formulated by 5 Group which provided the Master Bomber - Group Captain L.C. Slee - and nearly all of the aircraft involved. Strangely enough, the German night-fighters did not put in an appearance, despite a brilliant moon. The Pathfinders sent 4 Lancasters of 97 Squadron. Group Captain Slee's aircraft developed engine trouble and he handed over to his deputy, Wing Commander G.L. Gomm of 467 Squadron. The attack, like the recent raid on Le Creusot, was intended to be carried out from 5,000 to 10,000 feet in bright moonlight but the flak and the searchlight defences were very active and Wing Commander Gomm ordered the bombing force to climb a further 5,000 feet. Unfortunately the wind at the new height was stronger than anticipated and this caused difficulties. The bombing was in 2 parts. The first bombs were aimed at target indicators dropped by one of the Pathfinder aircraft. The second phase was a 'time-and distance' bombing run from a point on the shores of the lake to the estimated position of the factory. This was a technique which 5 Group was developing. Photographic reconnaissance showed that nearly 10% of the bombs hit the small factory and that much damage was caused there. Nearby factories were also hit. 44 people are known to have been killed in Friedrichshafen. While the intended target for the attack was the radar facilities and fabrication plants, unknown to the Allies, a production line for making V-2 rockets was being built nearby. Damage to this facility forced the line to be abandoned. Hence, although Operation 'Bellicose' was effectively the first Operation 'Crossbow' mission that attacked a long-range weapon facility, Operation 'Bellicose' was not planned for that objective and countermeasures against long-range missiles would not start until Operation Hydra in August 1943, after which Germany centralized V-2 production at the Mittelwerk. The bomber force confused the German night fighters waiting for the return over France by flying on in the first shuttle raid to North Africa.

4 Mosquitoes went to Berlin and 1 to Dusseldorf. 15 aircraft went minelaying off La Pallice and in the River Gironde without loss.

Hptm. Erwin Clausen took over duties of Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 11 from Major Walter Spies.

MEDITERRANEAN: Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) Wellingtons bombed Messina, Sicily during the night. The following morning B-26s bombed the airfields at Milo, Castelvetrano, and Bo Rizzo, Sicily.

The 'Santa Maria' (Master Robert John Twaddell) struck a mine laid on 7 June by 'U-214' five miles west of Dakar. The explosion occurred in the vicinity of the #1 hatch and caused the forward magazine to explode that completely destroyed the bow forward of the bulkhead between #1 and #2 holds. Two armed guards manning the gun on the bow were blown overboard, one of them was never found and the other was rescued and hospitalized in Dakar. The most of the nine officers, 48 crewmen and 30 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) on board abandoned ship in two lifeboats and stayed near the ship for two hours until two French Naval tugs arrived. 46 survivors were taken ashore, the rest reboarded the vessel and helped the tugs to tow the ship into the harbour of Dakar, where the ship was dry docked and repaired. On 14 December, she left for New York and arrived after a voyage of 13 days.

Lt. Karl-Freidrich Liedtke of 4./JG 77 (5 victories) went missing in action after combat with a P-38 and a B-26 over Castrel Vetrano and Sciacca.

NORTH AMERICA: Howard Hughes pilots the Hughes XA-37. Constructed by the Duramold process, developed and patented by Co. Virginius E Clark, the Army's chief aeronautical engineer during WWI; it involved moulding resin--impregnated plywood into desired shapes and contours under high heat and pressure. It is 43 feet long, wing span of 60 feet 5 inches gross weight of 28,110 pounds Two Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp 2000 hp engines. Est. top speed of 433 mph, but Hughes was the only test pilot.

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21 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Milk-cow 'U-462' suffered one dead and 4 wounded during an attack from RAF 151 and 456 Sqn Mosquitoes. The boat had to abort patrol and return to port.

EASTERN FRONT: Adolf Hitler ordered Unternehmen 'Zitadel' was to commence 3 July.

Himmler ordered Jewish ghettoes in occupied Russia to be liquidated. In Lvov, 20,000 Jews would be murdered over the course of the next week.

GERMANY: 262 Lancasters, 209 Halifaxes, 117 Stirlings, 105 Wellingtons and 12 Mosquitoes attacked Krefeld, 44 aircraft lost. This raid was carried out before the moon period was over and the heavy casualties were mostly caused by night fighters. 12 of the aircraft lost were from the Pathfinders. 35 Squadron lost 6 out of its 19 Halifaxes taking part in the raid. The raid took place in good visibility and the Pathfinders produced an almost perfect marking effort and ground-markers dropped by Oboe Mosquitoes being well backed up by the Pathfinder heavies. 619 aircraft bombed these markers, more than three quarters of them achieving bombing photographs within 3 miles of the centre of Krefeld. 2,306 tons of bombs were dropped. A large area of fire became established and this raged, out of control, for several hours. The whole centre of the city - approximately 47% of the built up area - was burnt out. The total of 5,517 houses destroyed, quoted in Krefeld's records, was the largest figure so far in the war. 1,056 people were killed and 4,550 were injured. 72,000 people lost their homes; 20,000 of these were billeted upon families in suburbs, 30,000 moved in with relatives or friends and 20,000 were evacuated to other towns.

MEDITERRANEAN: In Italy, B-24s attacked the ferry terminal and surrounding areas at Villa San Giovanni, and the harbor area and railroad yards at Reggio di Calabria. Royal Air Force (RAF) heavy bombers follow up with raids on the same targets. Wellingtons bombed Naples during the night. The following day, B-17s hit the Naples railroad yards, Salerno marshalling yard and trestle, Battipaglia marshalling yard, and Cancello Arnone air depot. Fighters flew patrol, reconnaissance, and convoy escort.

Thirty six B-25s (12 of the 445th) took off to bomb the marshalling yards and power plant at Battipaglia in Italy, about 40 miles south of Naples. This was the first time that medium bombers had ever hit Europe proper in the Mediterranean area. Thirty eight P-38s were escort. The marshalling yards, a transformer and repair sheds were hit. The hits rendered all approaches useless. Some bombs fell short and some fell over into the town. Twenty five units of rolling stock were destroyed and seventy-five percent of the power plant, which was the 445th target, was destroyed. There was no flak and one JU-290 was probably destroyed by the escort.

NORTH AFRICA: The USAAF 480th Antisubmarine Group was activated at Port Lyautey, it was equipped with four squadrons of B-24s.

UNITED KINGDOM: The first production Hawker Tempest fighter, a MK V (JN 729) made its maiden flight with Bill Humble at the controls. During flight trials the first Tempest prototype had exceeded 477 mph in level flight, and the first production model was essentially similar to the first prototype with the chin-type radiator. This was designated Tempest V, and the initial production batch, the Series I, had Mk. II cannon which projected slightly ahead of the wing leading edge, but the Series II had the short-barrelled Mk. V cannon which did not project, and also featured a detachable rear fuselage, small-diameter wheels, and a rudder spring tab.

WESTERN FRONT: Gestapo policemen raid a doctor's surgery at Caluire near Lyons, France. They captured Resistance leaders including the president of National Resistance Council Jean Moulin. He was tortured and died, probably around 8 July. Moulin, who escaped to England in 1941 in order to meet the Free French leader de Gaulle, agreed to be parachuted back into his native country on 1 January last year, charged with the mission of co-ordinating the many rival resistance groups operating there.

An FW 190A-5 belonging to 1./ JG 11 crashed at Fliegerhorst Aalborg West and was 60% damaged. Pilot Uffz. Franz Keller was injured.

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22 June 1943

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Rocket projectiles were used for the first time against enemy surface shipping by Coastal Command with the rocket-firing version of the Bristol Beaufighter, the MK VIC.

'U-572' fired a spread of four torpedoes at Convoy UGS-10 and sank the "Lot" with two of them. The fleet oiler USS 'Merrimack' and an escorting corvette picked up the survivors.

EASTERN FRONT: Koivisto islands in Finland were evacuated and troops transported to the west side of Bay of Vyborg.

GB "Kama" of the Baltic Fleet and Ladoga Flotilla was sunk by aviation, close to Lavensari Is.

On the second anniversary of the invasion, Radio Moscow claimed that 6.4 million Germans have been killed or taken prisoner.

Lt. Walter Geisen of 7./JG 5 (7 victories) was killed in action against Hurricanes near Murmansk.

GERMANY: VIII Bomber Command Mission Number 65: In the first US large-scale daylight raid on the Ruhr, 235 B-17s were dispatched to hit the chemical works and synthetic rubber plant at Huls. 183 bombed the target and claimed Luftwaffe aircraft but lost 16 and 75 others were damaged. This plant, representing a large percentage of the country's producing capacity, was severely damaged. 11 YB-40's accompanied the Huls raid and 1 was lost.

In a second raid, 42 B-17s were dispatched to bomb the former Ford and General Motors plants at Antwerp. They claimed 1-2-9 Luftwaffe aircraft but lost 4. An additional 21 B-17s flew an uneventful diversion.

242 Lancasters, 155 Halifaxes, 93 Stirlings, 55 Wellingtons and 12 Mosquitoes attacked Mulheim, 35 aircraft lost. The Pathfinders had to mark this target through a thin layer of stratus cloud but Mulheim's records contain reference to the accuracy of the markers over this medium sized town and to the ferocity of the ensuing bombing. The now familiar area of fire and temporary breakdown of the fire and rescue services followed. In later stages of the raid the Pathfinder markers and the bombing moved slightly into the northern part of the town. This had the effect of cutting all road and telephone communications with the neighbouring town of Oberhausen with which Mulheim was linked for air raid purposes. Not even cyclists or motor cyclists were able to get out of Mulheim, only messengers on foot coul;d get through. The centre and north of Mulheim and the eastern parts of Oberhausen were severely damaged. 578 people were killed and 1,174 were injured in the two towns. 1,135 houses were destroyed and 12,637 damaged. Other buildings hit were 41 public buildings, 27 schools, 17 churches and 6 hospitals. The only reference to industry is a general note - 'a large proportion of industries were severely affected'. The post-war British Bombing Survey Unit estimated that this single raid destroyed 64% of the town of Mulheim.

4 Mosquitoes each to Berlin and Cologne, no losses.

MEDITERRANEAN: Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) Wellingtons bombed Salerno, Italy during the night. Northwest African Coastal Air Force (NACAF) Beaufighters sank a small vessel off Sardinia.

'U-593' fired a spread of four torpedoes at Convoy 'Elastic' about eight miles northeast of Cape Corbelin, Algeria and hit the USS LST-333 and LST-387 with one torpedo each. The first was beached and declared a total loss, while the latter was towed to Dellys and later repaired. The torpedoing of these two ships hampered the training for the forthcoming invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). The torpedo struck USS LST-333 on the starboard side in the stern. The explosion demolished the stern section, carried away the screws and rudder and stopped the engines. About 20 minutes after the hit, the landing crafts USS LCT-244 and LCT-19 took the landing ship in tow and proceeded slowly towards the beach. After one hour, the submarine chaser USS SC-503 came alongside and took off 32 injured crewmembers and 24 injured passengers and brought them to Algiers. After five hours of towing, the stern of the landing craft came aground near Dellys. The crew and passengers were taken off by the landing craft and brought to Dellys. The USS LST-333 later sank during a salvage attempt on 6 July.

WESTERN FRONT: Obstlt. Walter Oesau was appointed Jagdfliegerfuhrer of Jagdfliegerfuhrer 4 in place of Oberst Karl Viek.

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23 June 1943

GERMANY: Hitler tells an acquaintance who has questioned the deportation of Jews in occupied Europe:

"Germany has lost half a million .... on the battlefield. Am I to preserve and minister to these others? .... You must learn how to hate."

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3 Mosquitoes each went to Cologne and Duisburg and 30 aircraft went minelaying off Brittany and Biscay ports without loss.

MEDITERRANEAN: Royal Air Force (RAF) Liberators, under the operational control of the IX Bomber Command, hit the airfield at Comiso, Sicily. Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) Wellingtons bombed the town of Olbia, Sardinia and laid mines in the harbor during the night.

52 Lancasters from the force which bombed Friedrichshafen 3 nights earlier flew from North Africa, bombed La Spezia and then flew on to England without loss. Bomber Command claimed damage to an armaments store and an oil depot at La Spezia.

Submarine HMS 'Unshaken' sinks the Italian merchant Pomo (former Jug. Nico Matkovic, 1425 BRT).

UNITED KINGDOM: Winston Churchill ordered a military mission, led by a senior British officer to join Tito in his campaign against the Germans in Yugoslavia. After years of being unable to decide whether to back Tito's partisans or the rival Chetnik army led by General Mihailovich, the British now believe that the former have emerged as the only effective force against the Axis in Yugoslavia. But although the Chetniks were co-operating with the Italians against Tito's partisans, the British would continue to drop supplies to them, largely because of pressure from the Yugoslav government in exile.

WESTERN FRONT: The US 4th Antisubmarine Squadron (Heavy), AAF Antisubmarine Command began a movement from Gander Lake, Newfoundland to England with B-24s.

British aerial reconnaissance has now secured photographs of Peenemunde research base showing rockets available for firing.