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AXIS FORCES IN RETREAT :
Date : 2nd-3rd January
1943.
Allied forces gained successes
in both theatres. Soviet troops forced the Nazis to retreat from
the Caucasus in the south of the Soviet Union.
In the Pacific Allied forces
gain the New Guinea town of Buna as the Japanese are forced out.
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CASABLANCA CONFERENCE :
Date : 14th January 1943.
British Prime Minister
Churchill and US President Roosevelt meet for a conference in
Casablanca, Morocco. The conference decided the Allies next move,
the invasion of Sicily and the prelude to invading occupied mainland
Europe, Italy, what Churchill called 'the soft under belly'.
At the conference US President
Roosevelt announced the 'Unconditional Surrender' doctrine.
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BRITISH FORCES ADVANCE IN NORTH AFRICA
:
Date : 23rd January 1943.
With Rommel's force in
retreat and occupying Tunisia, the British 8th Army in pursuit
entered Tripoli, Libya.
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STALINGRAD LIBERATED :
Date : 2nd February 1943.
The German 6th Army under
Field Marshal von Paulus surrendered to General Zhukov's Soviet
force at Stalingrad. This bitter battle was the turning point
on the eastern front, and thought by some as the turning point
of World War II.
Von Paulus' 6th Army had
been surrounded and cut off. An airlift to supply the besieged
6th Army by the Luftwaffe had failed. Attempts by the Germans
to break through and relieve von Paulus also failed.
Hitler promoted General
von Paulus to Field Marshal during the Stalingrad battle, as no
German Field Marshal had ever surrendered in battle, and Hitler
had ordered General von Paulus to hold Stalingrad at any cost,
after requests to surrender by Zhukov's Red Army.
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ALLIED ADVANCES :
Date : 8th February 1943.
General Wingate's Chindits
made their first expedition into Burma. The force would go deep
into the jungle behind Japanese lines to carry out operations
over long periods, being supplied by air.
General Zhukov's advancing
Russians recapture the city of Kursk.
Date : 14th February 1943.
Rommel attacks US forces
advancing from the west at Faid in Tunisia. Allied forces having
closed the net, Monty's British 8th Army continued to advance
from the east.
General Wingate's Chindits
cross the Chindwin river in Burma.
The Nazis in retreat as
the Russians advance on the eastern front and retake the city
of Rostov.
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ALLIED NORTH AFRICAN ADVANCES :
Date : 6th March 1943.
Rommel's force attacked
the British 8th Army advancing from the west at Medenine, in Tunisia.
Failing to defeat the British, the then ill Rommel left north
Africa and returned back to Germany. Command of the Axis forces
in north Africa was handed over to General von Arnim.
Date : 29th April 1943.
British 8th Army breached
the Axis Mareth line defence, and continued its advance east to
link up with Allied forces advancing from the west in Tunisia.
43 Allied merchant ships
were lost to German U-boats in the month of March 1943.
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YAMAMOTO KILLED :
Date : 18th April 1943.
The Allies had broken the
Japanese code and intercepted a message that Admiral Yamamoto
would be inspecting Japanese bases in the Pacific, and detailed
times and dates when he was travelling.
A force of Eighteen US
P.38s were tasked to 'seek and destroy' the Admiral's plane. The
mission was a success and Admiral Yamamoto was shot down and killed.
His death was a massive loss to the Japanese.
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WARSAW JEWISH GHETTO UPRISING :
Date : 19th April 1943.
The Warsaw Ghetto was created
by the Nazi in 1939, after the defeat of Poland. An area within
Poland's capital city that the Nazis crowded with Jews.
On the 19th April 1943,
Nazi SS officers attempted to round up and transport those Jews
within the ghetto to camps, as the Soviet Army advanced.
The Nazis faced resistance
as the Jewish uprising erupted.
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NORTH AFRICAN ALLIED ADVANCES :
Date : 21st April 1943.
British 8th Army's successful
breach of the Mareth line from the east and occupied the port
of Sfax. Then Monty's 8th Army attacked and defeated Axis forces
at the Enfidaville Line in Tunisia.
Date : 7th May 1943.
The Allied forces advanced
from the west and take Tunis and Bizerta in Tunisia. The Axis
force was trapped as the net closed, and brought the north African
campaign to an end.
Victory to the Allies.
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US ADVANCES IN THE PACIFIC :
Date : 11th May 1943.
US troops started the liberation
of the Aleutian Islands, in the Bering Sea, North Pacific. The
volcanic chain of islands passed into American possession with
the purchase of Alaska in 1867.
The Japanese occupied the
islands of Attu and Kiska in 1942, and was retaken by US forces
11th May 1943. Marked as the only time that any ground fighting
on American soil during World War II.
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NORTH AFRICA LIBERATED BY THE ALLIES
:
Date : 13th May 1943.
Axis forces led by General
von Arnim surrender to the Allies in Tunisia. 250,000 Nazi and
Italian troops became prisoners of war, as the north African campaign
ends.
The Allies then prepared
for the next stage, the invasion of Sicily, as agreed by British
Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt at the Casablanca
conference back in January 1943.
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WARSAW JEWISH UPRISING CRUSHED :
Date : 16th May 1943.
The Warsaw uprising crushed
by the Nazis. Many of the Jews escaped through the sewers of the
city, and continued the fight against the Nazis by enlisting with
the Polish resistance. Those that did not escape were killed.
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GERMAN DAMS ATTACKED BY RAF :
Date : 17th May 1943.
RAF squadron 617 under
Wing Commander Guy Gibson attacked the Moehne and Eder Dams in
the Ruhr Valley. Flying at a height of sixty feet the squadron
breached the dams using the Barnes Wallis' 'Bouncing Bomb'.
The mission was to flood
the Ruhr Valley and hinder German industrial production. The mission
was a success but came at a very high price.
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ALLIED ADVANCES IN THE PACIFIC :
Date : 29th June 1943.
US forces led by General
MacArthur land at Nassau Bay, New Guinea. Australian forces advance
inland its targets were the towns of Lae and Salamaua.
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ALLIED GAINS : EUROPEAN THEATRE :
Date : 4th July 1943.
Battle of Kursk. The German
offensive named Operation Citadel is known to be the largest tank
battle in history, as German and Soviet tanks clashed. The Soviet
victory was a crushing blow for Hitler.
Date : 9th-10th July 1943.
Allied troops victorious
against Rommel's Afrika Korps in north Africa invade the island
of Sicily. The British 8th Army under General Montgomery invaded
the south-east point at Syracuse, then to advance up east coast
to the town of Messina.
US forces, American 7th
Army, under the command of General Patton landed on the south-west
coast at the Bay of Gela. Their target was to move northward towards
the island capital Palermo, then to move east to link up with
British forces at Messina.
Sicily would be used as
the Allied invasion platform for mainland Europe, Italy, and the
long awaited second front.
Date : 22nd July 1943.
General Patton's 7th Army
troops take the Sicilian capital of Palermo.
Date : 25th July 1943.
The invasion of Sicily,
and the probability of an Italian invasion by the Allies, proved
disastrous for Italian dictator Mussolini. Mussolini loses backing
from the Fascist Grand Council, and is arrested and imprisoned.
Pietro Badoglio becomes the new Italian Prime Minister.
Date : 17th August 1943.
Allied armies reach Messina
on the island of Sicily. General Patton's 7th Army arriving a
few hours before Monty's 8th Army. Although Field Marshal Kesselring
managed to evacuate over 100,000 Axis troops to the Italian mainland,
the north African campaign and the invasion of Sicily had taken
its toll on both the German and Italian armies, either taken prisoner
or killed.
Date
: 17th August 1943.
USAF operational daylight
raids on Regensburg and Schweinfurt
start.
An operation against a
ball bearing factory in a two wave attack on two targets deep
inside Nazi Germany. The first wave targeted an aircraft factory
at Regensburg, the second wave would hit the ball bearing factory
at Schwienfurt. The operation proved disastrous for the Americans,
and would be cancelled in October.
Date : 23rd August 1943.
The Soviet Red Army made
swift gains on the southern front, retaking many towns that included
Kharkov, which pushed the Nazis further and further back.
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BRITISH AIR RAID ON PEENEMÜNDE
SECRET BASE :
Date : 18th August 1943.
The RAF mount a 600 bomber
raid on Germany's secret test base on the Baltic coast. The Peenemünde
base was being used to develop Hitler's 'Wonder Weapons' V1 and
V2 under the direction of German rocket scientist Dr. Wernher
von Braun.
Date : 28th August 1943.
After the army testing
grounds at Peenemünde had been destroyed by bombs, Dora is
created as a sub-camp of Concentration Camp Buchenwald, with an
intention to relocated rocket testing and production out of reach
of Allied bombing attacks. Dora would supply the slave labour.
After the British raid
on Peenemünde the SS took control over the German rocket
programme.
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ALLIED ITALIAN CAMPAIGN ADVANCES :
Date : 3rd September 1943.
With Sicily secured by
the Allies, and the invasion of mainland Italy pending, the new
Italian Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio signed an Armistice with
the Allies. Although the Armistice was signed it would not announced.
The same day the Allies invaded mainland Italy by crossing the
Straits of Messina and landed in Calabria, on the southern most
tip.
Date : 8th September 1943.
Italians announced their
surrender to the Allies, and the Nazis moved and occupied the
Italian capital Rome.
Date : 9th September 1943.
Allies armies landed at
Salerno in a second invasion of mainland Italy, 200 miles south
of its capital Rome, and faced strong opposition from German forces.
Date : 12th September 1943.
On being arrested and deposed
Mussolini had been held prisoner high in the Gran Sasso mountains.
Hitler ordered his rescue, which was successfully carried out
by Nazi commandos in a daring raid.
Hitler reinstalled Mussolini
as a puppet leader for Nazi held territories in Italy.
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SOVIET ADVANCES ON EASTERN FRONT :
Date : 25th September 1943.
The Soviet Red Army matched
their advance on the southern eastern front, and advanced on the
central eastern front, retaking Smolensk.
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NAZIS BUILD UNDERGROUND ROCKET FACTORY
:
Date : September 1943.
Prisoner transports brought
workers to excavate the underground facilities built under Kohnstein
Mountain. This facility built Wernher
von Braun's V2 rockets.
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ITALY DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY :
Date : 13th October 1943.
The new Italian government
under Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio declared war on Germany.
The new government was safely situated in Allied held territories
in southern Italy. Nazi held territories had the reinstalled dictator
Benito Mussolini as its head of state.
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SOVIETS ADVANCE :
Date : 25th October 1943.
Soviets made more advances
on the southern eastern front by the recapture of Dnepropetrovsk,
in the Ukraine.
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US ADVANCES IN THE PACIFIC :
Date : 1st November 1943.
US Marines under the command
of Admiral Halsey land on the island of Bougainville, New Guinea.
MacArthur's force and the Australian forces continued to advance
through the islands of New Guinea.
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SOVIETS ADVANCE ON EASTERN FRONT :
Date : 6th November 1943.
The Soviets made more eastern front gains as
the Red Army recaptured the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
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BRITISH RAF RAID BERLIN :
Date : 18th November 1943.
RAF Bomber Command made
its heaviest raid yet on Germany's capital Berlin, deep inside
the Third Reich.
Allied
Air Offensive :
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BRITISH ADVANCE IN ITALY :
Date : 20th November 1943.
British 8th Army made swift
advances along the eastern coast of mainland Italy, breaching
Kesselring's defences at the Voltumo line. Kesselring's forces
retreated behind a stronger defensive position named the Gustav
line.
The Gustav line was a strong
defensive position just behind the rivers of Garigliano, Rapido
and Sangro. For the Allied forces crossing the rivers to engage
the Germans it was a very dangerous and tricky operation.
On the 20th November 1943,
the British 8th Army crossed the Sangro river.
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CAIRO CONFERENCE :
Date : 22nd November 1943.
Cairo conference. British
Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt meet with
Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalists.
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TEHERAN CONFERENCE :
Date : 28th November 1943.
The Allied meeting with
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in attendance at the Teheran conference
in Iran. The redrawing of the map of Europe after the Nazis are
defeated is discussed.
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MITTELWERK ESTABLISHED :
Date : November 1943.
The "Mittelwerk"
Company is founded in Germany, and orders for the assembly-line
production of V2 rockets start being filled.
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