the field artillery journal - Fort Sill - U.S. Army

JANUARY, 1943
Diary of War Events
(As Reported in the American Press)
1st Russia captures Veliki Luki (central front) and Elista
(south of Stalingrad).
U. S. Army planes reported to have bombed Wake Island
night of Dec. 23-24.
2nd Russian gains continue around Stalingrad and in Caucasus.
Axis and Allied bombers active in Tunisia.
Allied troops break Jap resistance on right of Buna
position.
3rd Heavy U. S. bombers attack the German sub base at St.
Nazaire; 7 bombers lost.
Our Navy reports that in the Pacific in October, a U. S.
battleship destroyed 20 Jap dive bombers and
wrecked 32 other planes, surviving their attack.
4th French Tunisian forces, supported by U. S. AT and aerial
units, beat off Axis assault near Kairouan.
R.A.F. bombs Jap-occupied villages near Akyab, and
railroad centers of Monyewa and Meiktile in Central
Burma.
5th French, using U. S. AT guns, wreck over a dozen German
tanks in Kairouan area.
U. S. planes sink 9 Jap cargo ships at Rabaul.
6th U. S. and British planes in India make 3 raids on
Mandalay.
7th Two large Jap transports sunk and 18 planes destroyed
during continuing attack on convoy off Lae, New
Guinea.
8th Zimonivki, railway town 50 miles below Kotelnikov, falls
to Russians.
British planes raid Tunis, Gabés, and Sfax; U. S. bombers
attack Palermo, Sicily.
9th Our bombers raid Bizerte-Ferryville, shoot down 4 enemy
aircraft.
China-based U. S. planes bomb Jap-occupied Burma.
11th U. S. to invest $109,000,000,000 in war against Axis
during coming fiscal year.
Our bombers continue mass attacks on German
communications and supplies in Tunisia.
12th In Tunisia, General Giraud's forces drive Germans from
mountain pass 23 miles south of Pont du Fahs.
13th Flying Fortresses destroy 34 planes during a raid on
airfield 10 miles south of Tripoli.
Chungking troops recapture Sinyang (on Peiping-Hankow
railway) and Hangchwan (farther east).
14th Torpedo boats turn back flotilla of Jap destroyers trying to
approach Guadalcanal, hitting at least 2.
15th R.A.F. bombs sub base at Lorient in France and the docks
at Cherbourg.
16th Iraq declares war on Axis.
Our planes in Tunisian area shoot down 7 Junkers
transports and fire a large schooner; 17 enemy planes
shot down and 14 damaged in air combats.
231
U. S. planes from Guadalcanal shoot down 30 Jap planes,
lose only 7.
17th Berlin heavily bombed by British
18th Seventeen-month siege of Leningrad is broken.
Britain's Eighth Army advances to within 100 miles of
Tripoli.
19th Red Army within 79 miles of Kharkov.
After the capture of Sanananda Point and Sanananda
Village in New Guinea, Allied forces mop up the
area.
20th German fighters and bombers raid London, bomb school
and kill about 75 children; 16 raiders shot down.
Chile breaks relations with Axis.
21st Axis registers further gains against French, southwest of
Pont du Fahs.
22nd All Jap resistance ends in Sanananda area of New Guinea.
23rd Tripoli falls to Eighth Army; British continue Rommel
pursuit.
24th Russia continues Caucasus advance.
In Tunisia our troops drive back German force moving
south in central area; our planes shoot down 19 planes
and damage 16 more.
25th U. S. troops raid Maknassy, 33 miles from Gulf of Gabes.
Russians continue to advance on Rostov.
26th President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, with
their chiefs of staff and other military and civil
officials, announced as having concluded a 10-day
conference at Casablanca.
Eighth Army captures Ez Zauia, 30 miles west of Tripoli.
27th U. S. bombers make first all-American assault on
Germany, with a heavy daylight raid on
Wilhelmshaven (naval base) and Emden (port); lose
only 3 planes.
U. S. planes shoot down 2 Jap aircraft near enemyoccupied
Wake Island.
28th Russian forces in the Caucasus continue to advance.
Secretary Stimson announces that our casualties (dead,
wounded, missing) in Tunisia totaled 1,258.
War Department states we lost 309 war planes during
1942 against 987 enemy aircraft destroyed and 362
damaged.
30th Mosquito bombers hit Berlin in broad daylight just as
Reich Marshal Goering was about to begin his "10th
Nazi Anniversary" speech, force postponement for
an hour. No planes lost.
Navy announces sub-sinking in Pacific of 6 more enemy
ships, including a destroyer; 7th ship was damaged.
31st Russians wipe out German pocket just west of Stalingrad,
capture the commander of the German Army
(General Field Marshal von Paulus).
Heavy British bombers drop 2- and 4-ton bombs and
thousands of incendiaries on Hamburg; 5 bombers lost.