October 1943


The following events occurred in October 1943:

October 1, 1943 (Friday)

October 2, 1943 (Saturday)

October 3, 1943 (Sunday)

  • An experimental television program, The Bureau of Missing Persons, premiered on the DuMont Television Network. A forerunner of the 1990 premiere of America's Most Wanted, the show, hosted by NYPD Captain John J. Cronin, showed photographs of missing persons and invited the few television set owners, in New York City, to call the local police for any clues in identification.
  • After General Henri Giraud stepped aside as a co-director, General Charles de Gaulle became the sole leader of France's Committee for National Liberation, which would form the basis of the nation's post-war government.
  • SS General Dr. Werner Best declared Denmark to be judenfrei, although most of the nation's Jews had learned of the impending mass arrests and were in hiding, awaiting the chance to flee to Sweden.
  • The United States agreed to loan Saudi Arabia two million dollars' worth of silver in order for the Saudis to create a stable currency.
  • British Commandos began Operation Devon, an amphibious landing at the town of Termoli on the Adriatic coast of Italy.
  • The Battle of Kos began for the island of Kos in the Aegean Sea.
  • Nazi Wehrmacht forces committed the Lyngiades massacre in northwest Greece as an arbitrary reprisal against Greek partisan guerrillas.
  • The American destroyer USS Henley was torpedoed and sunk at Finschhaven, New Guinea by the Japanese submarine Ro-108.
  • The British destroyer Usurper was sunk in the Gulf of Genoa by the German anti-submarine vessel UJ 2208.
  • Born:
  • *Aaron Latham, American journalist and screenwriter, in Spur, Texas
  • *Yohji Yamamoto, Japanese fashion designer in Europe and Asia; in Tokyo

October 4, 1943 (Monday)

  • Heinrich Himmler delivered the first of the two Posen speeches to assembled SS officers and German administrators in the German city of Posen. "What happens to the Russians, what happens to the Czechs, is a matter of utter indifference to me," he said. "Such good blood of our own kind as there may be among the nations we shall acquire for ourselves, if necessary by taking away the children and bringing them up among us. Whether the other races live in comfort or perish of hunger interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture." He added, "We shall never be rough or heartless where it is not necessary; that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude to animals, will also adopt a decent attitude to these human animals...I shall speak to you here with all frankness of a very serious subject. We shall now discuss it absolutely openly among ourselves, nevertheless we shall never speak of it in public. I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race...."
  • In an attack by 406 bombers of the Royal Air Force on the city center of Frankfurt, a children's hospital on Gagernstrasse suffered a direct hit on its air-raid shelter. There were 529 civilian deaths, including 90 children, 14 nurses and a doctor.
  • The Battle of Kos ended when the German Army conquered the Greek island of Kos, took the 4,423 Italian and British troops there prisoner, then carried out Adolf Hitler's order to execute any Italian officers who had switched allegiance from the Axis to the Allies. Colonel Felice Leggio and 100 of his fellow officers were shot in groups of ten, then buried.
  • The island of Corsica, seized by Italy and Germany from France in the 1940 conquest, was liberated by the Allies after a battle of 25 days.
  • The Battle of Dumpu ended in Allied victory.
  • The Battle of Drashovica ended in victory for the Albanian resistance fighters.
  • American carrier-based aircraft carried out Operation Leader, an attack on German shipping along the coast of Norway.
  • The German submarines U-279, U-389, U-422 and U-460 were all depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied aircraft.
  • Bing Crosby first recorded his second-most famous Christmas song, "I'll Be Home for Christmas", parenthetically titled "".
  • Born:
  • *John Bindon, English gangster and actor, in Fulham
  • *H. Rap Brown, African-American radical, founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and convicted murderer, as Hubert Gerold Brown, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

October 5, 1943 (Tuesday)

October 6, 1943 (Wednesday)

  • American and Japanese ships fought the naval Battle of Vella Lavella, after nine Japanese destroyers arrived to evacuate troops from New Georgia island. Six U.S. Navy destroyers intercepted the Japanese, and the battle lasted two days, with the loss of one ship on each side. The evacuation of the Japanese was completed by October 8, and the recapture of the island ended the second phase of Operation Cartwheel.
  • Heinrich Himmler gave the second of his two Posen Speeches, outlining the carrying out of the Holocaust to the assembled SS officers. The text of the speech would not be published until 1974. In his address, Himmler said, "The question will be asked: 'What about women and children?' I did not consider myself entitled to exterminate the men, to kill them or have them killed, and then allow their children to grow up to revenge themselves on our own sons and grandsons. The painful decision had to be taken, to remove this people from the face of the earth..."
  • British Commandos completed Operation Devon successfully.
  • In an effort to intercede against the genocide of Jews in much of Europe, 400 rabbis marched in Washington, D.C. demanding action from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

October 7, 1943 (Thursday)

October 8, 1943 (Friday)

  • The last Jewish residents of the Liepaja Ghetto, in German-occupied Latvia, were deported and sent to the Kaiserwald concentration camp. Before the 1941 invasion, there had been more than 7,000 Jewish residents of Liepaja. Only 832 remained by mid-1942, when the order went out to confine them to a small area of the city.
  • The German submarines U-419, U-610 and U-643 were all depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied aircraft.
  • Polish destroyer Orkan was sunk in the North Atlantic by German submarine U-378.
  • Born:
  • *Chevy Chase, American TV comedian and film actor, as Cornelius Crane Chase in New York City
  • *R. L. Stine, American author of children's books, best known for the Goosebumps series of horror stories; in Columbus, Ohio

October 9, 1943 (Saturday)

October 10, 1943 (Sunday)

October 11, 1943 (Monday)

October 12, 1943 (Tuesday)

October 13, 1943 (Wednesday)

October 14, 1943 (Thursday)

  • Jewish prisoners at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland launched an uprising against their German captors. The attack, co-ordinated by Leon Feldhendler and Captain Alexander Pechersky, was partially successful. Eleven German SS men and several Ukrainian guards were killed, and about 300 of the 700 inmates were able to escape. Many of the escapees died when they fled through the minefields that surrounded the death camp, and others were recaptured and killed, but about 50 were able to survive. Those prisoners who had elected not to escape were killed and the camp was closed.
  • In the second raid on the German industrial city of Schweinfurt, the U.S. Eighth Air Force sent 291 B-17 bombers to attack Germany's ball bearing factories, which were met by several hundred German fighters. Sixty of the bombers were shot down, and another 133 were heavily damaged, while the Germans lost 35 fighters. It took four months for the Eighth Air Force to return to full capacity.
  • José P. Laurel, formerly a justice of the Philippines Supreme Court, took the oath of office as President of the nominally-independent Second Philippine Republic, under the sponsorship of Japan. The Republic's first act was to sign an alliance with Japan.Born: Mohammad Khatami, Iranian theologian and President of Iran 1997–2005; in Ardakan

October 15, 1943 (Friday)

October 16, 1943 (Saturday)

  • With 3,000 people being released to their home countries in one of the largest repatriations during the war between the United States and Japan, the Swedish "repatriation liner" MS Gripsholm docked alongside the Japanese liner Teia Maru, at the Portuguese Indian port of Mormugao. The Gripsholm was carrying 1,500 Japanese nationals, while the Teia Maru had 1,503 citizens from the United States, United Kingdom and France.
  • German police in occupied Rome arrested 1,259 Jews, though 252 were subsequently released after being deemed to be children of mixed marriages. Many others had gotten word of the order of October 9, and fled from their homes to find sanctuary with Gentile friends or in Roman Catholic churches or institutions.
  • The German submarines U-470, U-533, U-844 and U-964 were all lost to enemy action.
  • Born: Paul Rose, Canadian Quebec nationalist and assassin, in 1970, of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte; in Montreal

October 17, 1943 (Sunday)

October 18, 1943 (Monday)

  • Two days after the roundup of Jews in Rome, 1,007 were sent directly to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they would arrive on October 23 for extermination.
  • Count Carlo Sforza, the former Foreign Minister of Italy, returned to his homeland after an exile of fifteen years.
  • Four provinces of Japanese-occupied British Malaya were transferred by Japan to the Kingdom of Thailand, pursuant to a treaty signed between the two monarchies on to be made part of Thailand. Thai administration would begin on August 20.
  • Perry Mason, based on the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner, was first broadcast as a 15-minute-long daytime radio show on the CBS Radio Network. The show would run on radio until December 20, 1955.

October 19, 1943 (Tuesday)

  • The antibiotic Streptomycin was first isolated in a laboratory, by Albert Schatz, a 23-year-old student at Rutgers University. Schatz was working for Professor Selman Waksman, who gave the new medicine, developed from a culture of the bacteria Actinomyces griseus, which was able to kill certain bacteria that could not be treated with penicillin. Treatment for human patients would be approved in 1946.
  • The first exchange of prisoners of war, between the United Kingdom and Germany, began in Sweden at the port of Goteborg. A group of 4,340 POWs from Allied nations, released because of illness and injuries, arrived by trains and on hospital ships from Germany; most had been imprisoned for more than three years, including 17 Americans. Later in the day, 835 German prisoners arrived on two British liners, with more due to arrive later in the week. The exchange was supervised by the Swedish Red Cross.
  • Allied aircraft sank the German-controlled cargo ship in the Mediterranean, killing over 2,000 people, mostly Italian military internees.
  • African-American actor Paul Robeson made his Broadway theater debut, portraying the title character in a revival of Shakespeare's Othello.
  • Died: Camille Claudel, 78, French sculptor

October 20, 1943 (Wednesday)

  • A U.S. Navy PBY Catalina flying boat and an Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G4M bomber exchanged fire off Attu. As the last air combat action in the Alaska Territory's Aleutian Islands, the incident also marked the last combat fought in any of the fifty United States.
  • Eighty-eight people were killed by an explosion and fire that happened when two gasoline tanker ships collided off of the coast of Palm Beach, Florida. The two vessels, an empty tanker with 73 people on board and a fully loaded ship with a full load of gasoline and a crew of 43, had been unable to see each other because they were blacked out as a precaution against a submarine attack. There were only 28 survivors, most of whom had been able to jump overboard and swim away from the burning pool of aviation fuel.
  • The United Nations War Crimes Commission was established by the representatives of 17 Allied nations at a meeting in London.
  • Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and Winchester was sworn in as the new Viceroy of India.
  • The German submarine U-378 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by American aircraft.
  • Born: Noreen Corcoran, American television actress who was the co-star of the 1950s show Bachelor Father; in Quincy, Massachusetts

October 21, 1943 (Thursday)

October 22, 1943 (Friday)

  • Ten thousand residents, mostly German civilians, were killed as Bombing of [Kassel in World War II|the city of Kassel was leveled by ten squadrons] of the Royal Air Force, with 569 planes, dropped 416,000 incendiary bombs on the older section of town during extremely dry weather, fires swept the city center within 15 minutes, and became a firestorm that peaked after 45 minutes. Although more people had died in the July 27 and 28 attack on Hamburg, a higher percentage of the population died in the attack.
  • As part of the bombing of Kassel, the RAF launched Operation Corona, an attempt to confuse German night-fighters by having native German speakers impersonate German Air Defence officers.
  • Thirteen of the 15 people aboard a Swedish airliner were killed after the plane was shot down by "an unidentified warplane". The airliner came under fire for ten minutes and crashed on the island of Holloe.
  • The British destroyer Hurworth struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea.
  • German-American circus performer Aloysius Peters, billed as "The Great Peters" and "The Man With the Iron Neck", was killed when his signature stunt went wrong at the Fireman's Wild West Rodeo and Thrill Circus in St. Louis, Missouri. Peters' act involved leaping from a trapeze bar with a noose around his neck made from an elastic rope. The rope Peters used at his final performance was of inferior wartime quality, affecting his timing, and his neck was broken.
  • The Battle of Sept-Îles was fought over the night of October 22–23 near the French coast in the English Channel between British and German naval forces. The result was a German victory as the British cruiser Charybdis was torpedoed and sunk in the Bay of Biscay by German torpedo boats.
  • The German submarine U-537 arrived at Martin Bay on the Labrador Peninsula to set up an automatic weather station - Weather Station Kurt. This was the only armed German military operation on land in North America in World War II.
  • Born: Catherine Deneuve, French film actress; as Catherine Dorleac in Paris
  • Died: Sir William Reginald Hall, 73, British Admiral and Director of the Naval Intelligence Division

October 23, 1943 (Saturday)

  • The Soviet 28th Army drove the German 6th Army out of Melitopol.
  • The German submarine U-274 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by British warships and aircraft.
  • The Swedish government decided that for the fourth straight year, the Nobel Prizes would not be awarded.
  • Born: Alida Chelli, Italian actress and singer, in Carpi, Emilia-Romagna
  • Died: Ben Bernie, 52, American jazz violinist and NBC Radio show host nicknamed "The Old Maestro"

October 24, 1943 (Sunday)

October 25, 1943 (Monday)

October 26, 1943 (Tuesday)

  • U.S. President Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 2597, extending draft registration beyond the 48 states. Thereafter, all American men aged 18–44, living in the territories of Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico, were required to register before the end of the year.
  • The German Dornier Do 335 heavy fighter had its first flight.
  • Died: Aurel Stein, 80, Hungarian-born British archaeologist

October 27, 1943 (Wednesday)

October 28, 1943 (Thursday)

  • In the "Philadelphia Experiment", a story widely believed to be a hoax, the destroyer escort was supposedly rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period, and even teleported from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to the U.S. Navy shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia and back, with the result that several of the people on board were seriously injured, went insane, or killed. The story would be popularized by the bestselling 1974 book The Bermuda Triangle, by Charles Berlitz, and the U.S. Navy began receiving regular inquiries. In 1979, Berlitz and William L. Moore would write a more detailed account in The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility, by which time the Navy would have a standard response: "As for the Philadelphia Experiment, the ONR has never conducted any investigations on invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time. In view of present scientific knowledge, our scientists do not believe that such an experiment could be possible except in the realm of science fiction."
  • The Allied Raid on Choiseul in the Solomons began.
  • The German submarine U-220 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by U.S. aircraft from the escort carrier Block Island.

October 29, 1943 (Friday)

  • Robert Dorsay, 39, German character actor and comedian, was executed in Germany after being convicted of "ongoing activity hostile to the Reich and serious undermining of the German defense effort". In March, Dorsay had been overheard by a Gestapo informer, while joking about the government. When his mail and home was searched, an unsent letter was found in which Dorsay made fun of the Nazi Party and described the continued German war effort as "idiotic".
  • The German submarine U-282 was depth charged and sunk in the North Atlantic by British warships.

October 30, 1943 (Saturday)

October 31, 1943 (Sunday)