Air Operations, Bismarcks

• More than 60 V Bomber Command B-24s and B-25s attack the Cape Gloucester airfield on New Britain. Other B-24s mount anti-shipping attacks.
• During the night, 32 RAAF Beauforts attack the Lakunai airfield at Rabaul.

Air Operations, CBI

• 8 14th Air Force P-40s attack a barracks at Wanling.

Air Operations, East Indies

More than 20 380th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack Waingapoe, Sumatra.

Air Operations, Europe

• There is a heavy raid on Leipzig carried out by all the Halifaxes available and 307 Lancasters. The raid is a complete success. The Germans are fooled into thinking it was a Berlin raid. 41% of all the housing in the city of Leipzig is either destroyed or damaged. 4 bombers are lost over the target area, but about 12 more are lost on the homeward flight when the wander into the Frankfurt flak defenses.

Air Operations, New Guinea

• 3rd Light Bomb Group A-20s attack occupied villages around Finschhafen.
• 348th Fighter Group P-47s down 3 A6M Zeros and 2 Ki-61 'Tony' fighterss in the Wewak area between 1100 and 1115 hours.

Air Operations, Solomons

• 21 XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack Bonis. B-24s also attack numerous targets of opportunity while conducting armed reconnaissance missions.
• 23 42nd Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack Kieta. 6 other B-25s attack Aitara Mission.
• AirSols fighters attack numerous targets on Bougainville and the northern Solomons area.
• A VMF(N)-531 PV crew downs an unidentified airplane at sea at 2211 hours.

Allied Planning

Operation CROSSBOW directed against secret weapons bases in Germany is accorded absolute priority for the Allied air forces in the west.

Eastern Front

The Soviets capture Dovsk north of Gomel and make other gains around Rogschev in the same sector. To the south they also push forward west of Cherkassy.

The Belorussian Front captures Dovsk.

Germany, Planning

Göring orders Dietrich Peltz, commanding the German bomber forces in the west, 'to avenge the terror attacks of the enemy, I have decided to intensify the air war over the British Isles by means of concentrated attacks on [British] cities, especially industrial centers and ports'. (See January 21, 1944.)

Italy

The 56th Div of X Corps nearly reach the summit of Monte Camino and to their right units of 36th Div of II Corps capture the slightly lower Monte Maggiore. In the British 8th Army's V Corps sector the 8th Indian Div and British 78th Div reach the Moro River by-passing San Vito Chietino and Lanciano. They do not, however, exploit German weakness around Orsogno where the New Zealand Div is driven back by a desperate counterattack by 26th Pzr Div. The 78th Div is relieved by the Canadian 1st Div which is transferred fomr the XIII to the V Corps.

Occupied Norway

Capt Nordahl Grieg, a Norwegian airman, poet and playwright and relative of the famous composer, is killed in a bomber over Berlin. He was 41.

Pacific

The dates for the landings on Arawe peninsula and Cape Gloucester, in New Britain, are confirmed for December 15 and December 26.

Images from December 3, 1943

US Tank Crew in Italy on 3 December 1943

US artillery and troops in heavy mud in Cassino, Italy on 3 December 1943

US Troops Near Cassino

Men of the Royal Signals laying telephone wire on the slopes of Mt Camino, 3-4 December 1943.

Royal Signals Laying Wire

December 1943, between Zhitomir and Kiev. The photograph shows part of the battlefield, with several burning Soviet T-34 tanks outside a recaptured village. A young NCO from the Das Reich Division signals his men to close up.

Germans Between Zhitomir and Kiev