Diary December 31, 1943

12-1943, Diary WW2, War Diary, Year 1943 / 1 minute of reading

WW2 War Diary for Friday, December 31, 1943:

Eastern Front

Southern Sector: Russians storm Zhitomir – routing German garrison – and sweep westwards towards pre-war Polish frontier.

Home Fronts

USA: Death of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the composer; aged 69.

Mediterraean

Italy: Montgomery leaves British 8th Army.

Sea War

Merchant shipping losses in December 1943: 8 Allied ships with 53,871 tons in Atlantic, 23 Allied ships with 114,653 tons elsewhere.
53 Japanese ships with 207,048 tons in Pacific.
6 U-boats sunk in the Atlantic, Arctic or Baltic (worldwide total of 7 losses), 31 new U-boats operational, 456 U-boats of all types total in service.
Total Shipping Losses 1943:
Allied and Neutral: 597 ships totalling 3,271,820 t.
Axis: Germans 237 U-boats, Italians 24 submarines, Japanese 27 submarines.

About The Author

Kretaner

My name is Norman 'Kretaner' and since my childhood I am interested in history and strategy games. Later, I have learned programming and the development of computer games, and finally with the Internet, also web design. I'm in the fortunate position to combine all my interests with my work and to live on a place of my choice, on Crete. All information, figures, specifications and statistics used here had been compiled from a variety of sources and the large, over decades collected, library of the author about military history, WW2 and weapons.