Air Operations, Bismarcks

V Bomber Command B-17s and B-24s attack the Cape Gloucester airfield and targets in the area on New Britain.

Air Operations, CBI

• 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack rail facilities at Monywa.

Air Operations, East Indies

V Bomber Command B-24s and B-25s mount light attacks against Penfoei (Timor) and Amboina and Selaroe islands in the Molucca Islands.

Air Operations, Gilberts

20 11th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s leaving from the airfields at Canton Island and Funafuti attack and photograph Tarawa and Abemama atolls. 1 B-24 is lost to Japanese Navy fighters.

Air Operations, New Guinea

• V Bomber Command B-25s and B-26s mount preinvasion strikes against Finschhafen, which is to be assaulted from the sea on September 22.
• The airfield at Kaiapit is seized by an Australian Army infantry company and held against several counterattacks.

Air Operations, Solomons

42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s and AirSols SBDs attack the Vila airfield on Kolombangara, a causeway, an ammunition dump, and troop emplacements. B-25s also attack Ringa Cove and Webster Cove.

Battle of the Atlantic

Over the next few days 20 U-boats are deployed against convoys ON-202 and ONS-18. The Germans claim outstanding successes with acoustic torpedoes against the escorting warships. They claim 12 sunk and 3 probably sunk, but only 4 are actually hit. 7 merchant ships are sunk. 3 U-boats are lost.

Central Pacific

Tarawa is again attacked by land-based Liberator bombers.

Eastern Front

Further great victories are announced by Stalin. The Kalinin Front under Yeremenko and the West Front under Sokolovsky continue their attacks against von Kluge's Army Group Center liberating Yartsevo and Dukovschina to the northeast of the Smolensk. In the southern sector the Germans withdraw on to the Dniepr, giving up Priluki, Piryatin, Lubny, Khorol and Krasnograd to the Russians.

Italy

Auletta is captured by 5th British Div, XXIII Corps, 8th Army.

The Germans, in one of their reprisal measures, burn down Boves, in Cuneo province, and kill 32 civilians. The episode sparks off the partisan struggle in Italy.

New Guinea

After some hard fighting the Australians take Kaiapit and drive off repeated Japanese counterattacks.

Pics from September 19, 1943

Members of the 34th Naval Construction Battalion erecting a 40 x 100 foot Quonset hut warehouse at Halavo Seaplane Base, Florida Island, Solomon Islands, September 19, 1943. Source: U.S. Navy Seabee Museum

Seabees Constructing Quonset Hut

Ken Slessor, Australian poet and war correspondent, at his typewriter, Lae, New Guinea, September 19, 1943. He had just landed with the 9th Australian Division and had made his headquarters as close to the front line as possible.

Australian Poet and War Correspondent Ken Slessor

Moiano (near Sorrento), 19 September 1943. A British surgical unit works in an operating room set up in a church.

Surgery Near the Front

Eerie as a scene from Dante's Inferno is this view of a combat photography unit at work in the smoking ruins of Lae the morning after the capture of the Japanese held town. It had been cut to pieces by the heavy Allied bombardment preceding the landing of an amphibious expedition which was the preliminary action to routing the Japanese out of northeastern New Guinea. The clearing out of these enemy nests was a preliminary to an attack on Rabaul.

After the Capture of Lae

F4Fs of VMF-441 at Nanumea, 19 September 1943

General Sir Bernard Montgomery with his senior officers at Eighth Army Headquarters at Vasto, shortly before handing over command of the Eighth Army to General Sir Oliver Leese and leaving Italy to prepare for the Normandy invasion in England. Left to right: Major General F de Guingand, Air Vice Marshal H Broadhurst, General Montgomery, General B Freyberg VC, Lieutenant General Allfrey and General Dempsey.

Montgomery and Senior Officers at Vasto