1943
January 10th, 1943: Beginning of liquidation of
German troops in Stalingrad (German tanks
to Russian Front).
August 17th, 1943: Allied troops reach Messina
and occupy all of Sicily, Italy.
Ortona is taken.
February 2nd, 1943: Germany surrenders
at Stalingrad.
December 24th, 1943: The battle for
Ortona ended after 8 days of heavy fighting
Michael Howe
Asmaa Hattal
Courtney Kilgore
5/16/13
WWII- A Year In Review
Inside Cover:
KEY TERMS:
Casablanca Conference- a meeting between churchill & roosevelt to plan the Allied European strategy for the next part of World
War II.
Stalingrad- a major city in Russia that was named to honor the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin & is now called Volgograd.
Guadalcanal- a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific , was the scene of bitter fighting between Japanese and American
troops.
Warsaw Ghetto-was the largest of all the Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.
Trident Conference- a meeting that took place in Washington D.C where the plans for the Italian
Campaign, air attacks on Nazi Germany, and the Pacific War were agreed on.
Operation Husky- the important military and air force units that were involved in the campaign for Sicily.
Hamburg- second largest city in Germany
Benito Mussolini- an Italian politician, journalist and leader of the National Fascist Party.
Fascist- Someone who believes in a totalitarian state rule by a supreme leader(dictator) who controls everything possible and treats
people badly.
Quebec Conference- a highly secret military conference held during World War II between the British, Canadian and United States
governments.
Teheran Conference- was a strategy meeting held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.
Roosevelt-A dominant leader of the Democratic Party, lead the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and
total war.
Churchill-was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.
Stalin- leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.
Dwight Eisenhower- was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961.
Time Line
January 2, 1943 - Australian and U.S. Army forces under MacArthur fight back the Japanese at Buna in New Guinea.
January 14, 1943 - The Casablanca Conference between the U.S. and Britain begins. Roosevelt and Churchill agree that Germany
must surrender unconditionally, and plan the Allied invasion of Sicily.
January 31, 1943- Over 90,000 German troops at Stalingrad surrender to the Soviets. It is a
significant turning point in the war against Germany. Friedrich Paulus (Generalfeldmarschall in command of the German 6th Army)
and his staff surrender to Soviet troops in Stalingrad. Giving an edge to the soviets in the war.
February 8, 1943- U.S. troops complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese. The Chindits (a "long range penetration
group") under British General Orde Wingate begin an incursion into Burma. The German City Nuremberg is heavily bombed.
April 19, 1943- The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins after German troops attempt to deport the ghetto's last surviving Jews. About
750 Jews fought back the Germans for almost a month.
May 11, 1943- The Trident Conference between the U.S. and Britain begins. Roosevelt and Churchill decide to delay the Allied
invasion of France and in its place plan the Allied invasion of Italy. In Alaska, U.S. troops land on Attu in the Aleutian islands to
retake it from the Japanese .
May 12, 1943- Axis forces in North Africa surrender. The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom
had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth
and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States entered the war in 1941 and began direct military assistance in North
Africa on 11 May 1942.
May 16, 1943- German troops crush the last resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and kill thousands of Jews. The rest are sent
to the Treblinka concentration camp to die.
July 1, 1943-The U.S. government begins directly withholding income tax from wages
July 10, 1943-Over 160,000 Allied troops land in Sicily, beginning Operation Husky.
July 24, 1943- The Allies begin bombing Hamburg.
July 25, 1943- Benito Mussolini's fascist government is overthrown in Italy. The new Italian government begins peace talks.
August 1, 1943-The Allies bomb the Ploesti oil fields in Romania.
August 11, 1943-The Quebec Conference between the U.S. and Britain begins.
August 15, 1943-U.S. troops retake Kiska island in the Aleutians.
August 17, 1943-Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, is successfully concluded when American troops take Messina.
September 3, 1943-British troops land on mainland Italy, beginning the Allied campaign in Italy. American troops land six days later.
The new Italian government formally surrenders.
September 10, 1943- German troops occupy Rome. Mussolini soon declares himself the head of a new fascist Italian government
in German-occupied northern Italy.
October 13, 1943-Italy declares war on Germany.
November 1, 1943- U.S. Marines land on Bougainville island in the Solomons.
November 20, 1943-U.S. Army troops land on Makin island in the Gilberts. The next day, U.S. Marines land on Tarawa. Within four
days, both islands were secured, but at the cost of thousands of casualties.
November 8, 1943-The Teheran Conference between the U.S., Britain, and the USSR begins. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet
together for the first time.
December 1, 1943-The Teheran Conference between the U.S., Britain, and the USSR is successfully concluded. Roosevelt,
Churchill, and Stalin agree that the Western Allies would invade France in June 1944 and that when it began the USSR would
launch a new offensive from the east.
December 24, 1943-Dwight Eisenhower is named supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces.
Feature Stories: 1943
Destruction of The Warsaw Ghetto
In Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the Nazis established the largest ghetto in all of Europe. 375,000 Jews lived in Warsaw before the
war – about 30% of the city’s total population. Immediately after Poland’s surrender in September 1939, the Jews of Warsaw were
brutally preyed upon and taken for forced labor. The Jews had wear white armbands with a star of david on it, economic measures
against them were taken that led to the unemployment of most of the city’s Jews. The Jews were being taken more and more often,
people were scared. They thought there was no way to stop Hitler and the Germans and were starting to lose faith. Between 1941
and 1943 around 100 Jewish groups formed underground resistance movements to assist in the defeat of Germany. Finally
standing up for themselves and turning the pages of this war. The most famous attempt by Jews to resist the Germans in armed
fighting occurred in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka.
When reports of mass murder in the killing center were reported back to the Warsaw ghetto, a surviving group of young people
formed an organization called the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting
Organization). The Z.O.B., led by 23-year-old Mordechai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish people to resist
going to the railroad cars. Now is when they show their power to fight back. In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon
German troops as they tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation. The resistance fighters used a small
supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated, giving a huge advantage to the
resistance. However small the victory this inspired the fighters and readied them for future resistance. On April 19, 1943, the
Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred
and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month,
but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured,
about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to camps. Marking the end to the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto.
However bad the loss, however great the win, each battle is a victory. This battle was important because it gave the resistance a
fighting spirit, one that could help them earn a grand victory. The fact that they were able to fight off the German troops for as long
as they did changed the war in the Favor of the resistance, from here on out no one will go down without a fight.
Mussolini Rescued by Nazi Forces
A few weeks after the Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as Operation Husky -where the Allies took Sicily from the Axis (Italy and
Germany)- the Italian Grand Council of Fascism voted to dispose of Mussolini and replace him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio, an
Italian General and Prime Minister of Italy. With Benito Mussolini out of the picture a doorway is opened for the Allied invasion of
Italy. While Mussolini was being transported around Italy by his captors after his arrest, Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny,
Lieutenant Colonel in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field
commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny, also the
leader of Operation Greif, in which German soldiers were to infiltrate through enemy lines, using their opponents' language,
uniforms, and customs. At the end of the war, Skorzeny was involved with the Werwolf guerrilla movement and the ODESSA
network where he served as a Spanish coordinator. He used his own reconnaissance to locate Mussolini at a ski resort at Campo
Imperatore, high in the Apennine Mountains. September 12, 1943 Otto Skorzeny joined rescue team led by Major Harald Mors, to
rescue Mussolini in a high risk glider mission. The mission resulted in a successful liberation of Benito Mussolini through
the strategic cooperation between the Badoglio Government, and the German forces. Crashing their gliders into the
nearby mountains the liberation forces led by Harald Mors overwhelmed Mussolinis guards. Luckily the carbonieri,
the national military police of Italy, were ordered by Italian General Fernando Soleti to not resist the attackers.
Skorzeny attacked the radio operator and his equipment, greeted Mussolini, saying "Duce, the Führer has sent me to
set you free!" to which Mussolini replied "I knew that my friend would not forsake me!" Mussolini was first flown from
Campo Imperatore in a Luftwaffe Fieseler Fi 156C-3/Trop Storch STOL liaison aircraft. Originally flown in by Captain
Walter Gerlach, a German physicist who co-discovered spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern-Gerlach effect.
Then taking off with Mussolini and Skorzeny to the military airport of Pratica di Mare, near Rome. He then embarked
in an Heinkel He 111 on to Vienna, where Mussolini stayed overnight at the Hotel Imperial and was given a hero's
welcome. This operation gave way to a rare late-war public relations opportunity to German Politician, and military
leader, Hermann Goering; also a member of the Nazi Party. He climbed the ranks gaining Hitler's trust, and was
made his right hand man, Senior Commander and his future successor. Nazi propaganda orbited the operation for
months, the Axis powers otherwise having little to boast about in the fall of 1943. As it turned out, it was the last of
Hitler's spectacular attempts to spread his conquest.
Memorable Quotes:
"I've had my fill of Hitler. These conferences called by the ringing of a bell are not to my liking.
The bell is rung when people call their servants. And besides, what kind of conferences are these? For five hours I am forced to
listen to a monologue which is quite fruitless and boring" - Benito Mussolini To his son-in-law on June 10th, 1941
"Our losses... have reached an intolerable level." - German Grand Admiral Doenitz Commenting on German naval losses in the
Atlantic Theater, May 1943
"I saw my enemies in Munich, and they are worms." - German Leader Adolf Hitler
"Soldiers of the Reich! This day, you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend
on its outcome." - July 5th, 1943 - Adolf Hitler