Air Operations, Bismarcks

43rd Heavy Bomb Group Command B-17s attack the Kavieng airfield and town area on New Ireland and mount individual attacks against Cape Gloucester.

Air Operations, CBI

• 7 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack the oil refinery at Thilawa.
• 8 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack rail facilities at Maymyo.
• 9 B-25s attack rail facilities at Pyawbwe.

Air Operations, Europe

• 24 Venturas attack an airfield at Caen, 24 more a shipyard and Rotterdam and 12 a railway target at St Brieuc. All targets are successfully bombed.
• 2 planes from the Rotterdam raid are lost.

• 577 aircraft are sent to Kiel. Included in this total are 203 Lancasters, 168 Wellingtons, 116 Halifaxes and 90 Stirlings.
• The Pathfinders encounter thick cloud and strong winds over the target area which makes it difficult for accurate marking. Decoy fire sites may have also drawn off some of the bombing.
• 5 Lancasters, 4 Halifaxes, 2 Stirlings and 1 Wellington are lost.

Armorers prepare to load a Halifax for the night's mission to Kiel

Loading a Halifax

• US bombers raid the Renault plant on the outskirts of Paris and prepare for a similar mission to Antwerp the following day.
• German aircraft drop mines in the Thames Estuary.

Air Operations, Mediterranean

Naples, Palermo and Syracuse in Sicily, and Carloforte in Sardinia are heavily bombed. Official sources put the dead in Naples alone at 221 with 387 injured.

Naples is bombed by 100 flying fortresses of the US Army Air Force on April 4 1943.

B-17s Bomb Naples

Army Air Corps Raid to Italy

A US Army Air Corps B-24D named Lady Be Good was part of a bombing raid on Italy on April 4, 1943. It was the first mission for both the plane and the crew. Lady Be Good was the only plane of the mission that did not return to its base in Libya. Officials assumed at the time that the plane went down in the Mediterranean Sea. An extensive search was carried out, but no sign of the plane or crew was found. In 1958 an oil survey exploration crew was taking aerial photographs and spotted the plane in the Libyan desert. The plane had crashed, but was preserved well in the arid conditions. The radio and a machine gun still worked! But there was no sign of the nine-man crew. In 1959, a months-long search was conducted to find their remains. A trail was found, complete with signs left behind indicating what direction the men had gone, but the trail petered out and the search was abandoned. In 1960, the remains of eight of the nine crew members were found at various places in the desert. Among the items found with the bodies was a diary of co-pilot Robert Toner that revealed the tragic story. The nine men had bailed out before the crash; eight survived. The survivors walked 85 miles before five gave up and three continued to walk until they died. The remains of gunner Vernon L. Moore were never found.

Air Operations, New Guinea

• 43rd Heavy Bomb Group B-17s mount individual attacks against Salamaua.
• V Bomber Command B-25s and A-20s attack ground targets and Huon Gulf, Kitchen Creek, and two other areas.

North Africa

The IX Corps, the 18th Army Group reserve, prepares for an offensive to recover Fondouk Gap. The US 34th Div, which is to participate, is transferred to the IX Corps. In the US II Corps area, the 1st and 9th Divs continue their futile efforts to clear the Gumtree and Gabès roads.

The British 8th Army, preparing for an assault on the Wadi Akarit line, has nearly 500 tanks concentrated in the region.