Apr

2

1943

U-Boat ace of U-124 sunk by HMS Black Swan

The Flower class corvette HMS Stonecrop.

There were ships that had seen scores of long-drawn out actions, and still came back cheerfully for more; there were men – British and Allied sailors – who dared all, not as a job for money but simply as a chosen habit, who returned to the same task and the same run after two or even three hideous ordeals as survivors, who stuck to oil-tankers as other people stick to one brand of bottled beer.

Apr

1

1943

Death railway bridge built like ‘a pack of cards’

Bridge over the River Kwai, 1943. L Rawlings.

As we sang these numbers, we’d pull on the rope. This huge great lump of steel would rise up. On the last ’nisio’ we would all let go. Down would come the pile-driver and the pole would sink another inch. All day seven days a week, for weeks on end, with not a single day off, we drove these bloody things into the ground.

Mar

31

1943

A first anti U-boat patrol out over the Bay of Biscay

Allied Aircraft: A Short Sunderland Mk II flying boat of 10 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, used for reconnaissance and anti-U-boat duties

The routine check ofthe aircraft began while the duty hand, still in his underwear, tried to drag on his trousers and rub the sleep out of his eyes.You wandered round watching every body move through the orderly procession of duty; inspecting the bilges and the guns and the ammunition, adjusting the moorings for casting off, unlocking the flying controls, arranging the signal colours, checking the cockpit and the wireless and testing the engine controls, setting up the charts, blacking out the portholes, and clambering up top out onto the wing to examine the mainplane.

Mar

30

1943

Irish Guards suffer heavy losses in hilltop battle

A 25-pdr field gun in action at night during the assault on the Mareth line, 30 March 1943.

The mortars covered the withdrawal of 5 wounded men (Sergeant DEAZLEY, Sergeant MEARS, McCAFFERTY, and two gunners) and then were ordered to withdraw. Major GORDON-WATSON had come up to join them. THey came down the track towards No. 3 Company, but found it under heavy shell fire, turned and tried another way. As they came to the railway bridge they noticed, just in time, a wire stretched across the road to which was suspended a mine.

Mar

29

1943

Australian VC hero beheaded by Japanese

RAAF Boston aircraft as flown by No. 22 Squadron.

Flight Lieutenant Newton maintained control and calmly turned his aircraft away and flew along the shore. He saw it as his duty to keep the aircraft in the air as long as he could so as to take his crew as far away as possible from the enemy’s positions. With great skill, he brought his blazing aircraft down on the water.

Mar

28

1943

A precarious sanctuary for Jews in Poland

Warsaw, Poland, 1943, Jews and German soldiers behind a fence. The numbers remaining in the Warsaw ghetto were much now diminished , and the people becoming increasingly desperate.

One day, when only the grandmother and my wife were in the house, sitting as quiet as mice, Henrietta heard a conversation through the wall. The neighbour, Mrs. Kaminska, and a relative of hers were talking. Mrs. Kaminska said she had a feeling that a jewess was hiding next door. The relative said she should inform the Germans at once, and they would soon find out if it were true.

Mar

27

1943

British tanks break through German lines overnight

Valentine tanks carrying infantry of the Black Watch, March 1943.

At times the tanks were crunching over occupied enemy trenches, and we could see terrified parties of Germans and Italians running about with their hands up. But we hadn’t time to bother about prisoners. Our progress was desperately slow. That was my chief worry. If we didn’t succeed in getting through in the dark, the situation in the morning didn’t bear thinking about. We should be surrounded by the enemy and dominated by the hills on either side of the valley.

Mar

26

1943

Maori Victoria Cross in battle for Tebaga Gap

Soldiers of the Māori Battalion training in the Western Desert, Egypt. The Māori infantrymen earned a fearsome reputation for their skill with the bayonet.

Under cover of a most intense mortar barrage the enemy counter-attacked, and 2nd Lieutenant Ngarimu ordered his men to stand to and engage the enemy man or man. This they did with such good effect that the attackers were virtually mown down, 2nd Lieutenant Ngarimu personally killing several. He was twice wounded, once by rifle fire in the shoulder and later by shrapnel in the leg, and though urged by both his company and battalion commanders to go out, he refused to do so, saying that he would stay a little while with his men. He stayed until he met his death the following morning.

Mar

25

1943

Gurkhas ambush Japanese in Burmese jungle

A Gurkha soldier assisting a wounded comrade. An image by Cecil Beaton from the Arakan Campaign, Burma, January 1943 - May 1945:

God knows he could have had a wife and family back in japan. But he would have killed me remorselessly if he could have fired first, and I felt no sense of guilt. But I looked quickly away, determined not to remember the man’s face, knowing that I could have no control over my dreams, recalling the warning from an old ex-Gurkha colonel who spoke of his experiences in World War I.

Mar

24

1943

Horror of journey to the Railway of Death

Typical labouring scene. Shows Hammer and Tap, Embankment labouring, Timber felling and an excavated cutting. Lt Fred "Smudger" Smith (Ransome Smith)

It was baking hot during the day and bitterly cold by night, and by now dysentery had got a grip on many of the lads. As each day in those horrific wagons passed we prayed that it was the end of the line and I said a silent prayer when the guards finally shoved us out of the trucks for the last time at Pan Pong, about forty miles west of Bangkok.

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