Air Operations, Bismarcks

1 V Bomber Command B-24 attacks the Lakunai airfield at Rabaul.

Air Operations, CBI

P-40s of the 23rd Fighter Group’s 74th Fighter Squadron intercept 8 Japanese bombers and 20 fighters near Nanchang at 1255 hours. 7 Japanese fighters are downed.

Air Operations, Europe

• 197 Lancasters and 6 Mosquitos are sent to Oberhausen.

Beaufighters Escorting the Bombers

June 14, 1943: Accompanying a raid by 197 British Lancaster bombers against Oberhausen, Germany, five British Beaufighter night fighters make the first operational use of Serrate, a radar detector & homing device that allows them to home in on German night fighters employing the Lichtenstein airborne radar from up to 80km (50 mi) away & intercept them. The Beaufighters do not intercept any German aircraft during the raid, however, & 17 British bombers are lost.

• The target area is cloud-covered but the Oboe skymarking is accurate.
• 17 Lancasters are lost.

• 2 Mosquitos are sent to Cologne and 29 aircraft lay mines off Brittany and in the Gironde River.
• 1 mine-laying Stirling is lost.

Air Operations, Gilberts

1 VII Bomber Command B-24 based at Funafuti attacks the Betio airfield on Tarawa.

Air Operations, Solomons

• 11 XIII Bomber Command B-17s and B-24s attack the Kahili airfield on Bougainville and targets in the Shortland Islands.
• 18 42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s make their unit’s combat debut with an attack against the Vila airfield on Kolombangara.

Atlantic

RAF Coastal Command and attached Allied squadrons begin systematic daily patrols in the Bay of Biscay to counter new U-boat tactics. The actions are dubbed Operations MUSKETRY and SEASLUG.

Axis Diplomacy

Tojo confers in Tokyo with Subhas Chandra Bose. The pro-Axis Indian leader had fled India in 1941 while awaiting trial and worked his way to Germany. He arrives in Tokyo after an 18-week trip from Kiel on German and Japanese submarines. Tojo encourages Bose to form a provisional government which can take control of Indian territory which the Japanese plan to occupy.

'Piccadilly Queen' Returns Home to Great Ashfield

Piccadilly Queen returns home to Great Ashfield with wounded aboard on June 14, 1943. This Fort was a B-17F and was part of the 385th Bomb Group’s original contingent of aircraft. It soldiered through the harshest air battles of the 1943 campaign only to be shot down by Luftwaffe fighters during a raid on Frankfurt on January 29, 1944. Piccadilly Queen crashed near Kaiserlautern, where about half the crew survived to be taken prisoner.

Britain, Preparations

The RAF forms the Second Tactical Air Force.

China

The headquarters of the US 14th Air Force is set up at Kweilin, in southern China in the Kwangsi Chuang province.

Chinese forces in western Hupeh have now recaptured all territory lost to the Japanese during the recent offensive toward Chungking, the headquarters of Nationalist forces and government. In a two-week push, the Chinese lose more than 70,000 troops.

Eastern Front

SOVIET COMMAND

In an effort to maximize the disruption caused by the partisans in the rear of the German forces, the Stavka orders the start of the Rail War, an all out attack against the railway network which supplies the combat forces of Army Groups North, Center and South. These attacks prove extremely troublesome to the Ostheer as greater numbers of men are drawn away from the combat line.

Despite the passing of yet another D-Day for CITADEL, Hitler is still not prepared to begin the offensive.

Mediterranean

A ship of the Royal Navy takes the uninhabited island of Lampione. The Allies now control all the islands in the Sicilian Channel.

Secret War

After their evaluation of the Lichtenstein BC radar set obtained May 9, Dr R. V. Jones and his specialists have replicated it and, under the code name Serrate, it enters service with British night-fighters. The German aircraft carrying their version of the device can now be identified and so the hunters become the hunted.