1st group of 71 Women Marine Officer Candidates arrived 13 March 1943 at U.S. Midshipmen School (Women’s Reserve) at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. For more information, click this link.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
Erwin Rommel’s and Hans-Jürgen von Arnim’s Axis forces launch a counterattack against the American II Corps in central Tunisia on February 12, 1943, forcing it back in some disarray. In the Caucasus, the Soviets capture Krasnodar, held by the Germans since August 1942. During a radio broadcast to share with the public details of the recently concluded Casablanca Conference, President Roosevelt makes the statement: “the Axis propagandists are trying all of their old tricks in order . . . to create the idea that if we win this war, Russia, England, China, and the United States are going to get into a cat-and-dog fight.” In Thessaloniki, Greece, the Germans mandate that Jews must wear yellow Star-of-David badges. Two ghettoes are established for them near railroad tracks.
On February 13, Soviet forces capture Novocherkassk, Russia, displacing German troops. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve is officially established, with Maj. Ruth Streeter as its first director. The purpose is to replace men at shore stations, freeing them for combat. In the Pacific, the Vought F4U Corsair is first used in combat. The fast, single-engine fighter is flown by Navy and Marine Corps pilots from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.
In Africa on February 14, the 5th Panzerarmee, under Gen. Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, forces the retreat of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division, inflicting very heavy losses during the Battle of Faïd Pass, in west central Tunisia. The Germans exploit the Americans’ poor command, weak land and air coordination, faulty unit dispositions, and the inexperience of some troops. It is the U.S. Army’s first major battle defeat in the war. In Russia, in the Caucasus, the Soviets capture Rostov, on the Don River.
Kharkiv and other cities in the Ukraine are liberated on February 15 as Soviet forces reoccupy territory formerly held by the Germans. Stalin begins to speak of the possibility of total victory in 1943.
Under constant pressure from Germany’s Commissar-General for Labor, the government of Vichy France on February 16 introduces Compulsory Labor Service, which requires that men born between 1920 and 1922, except for those in a few excluded categories, go to work in Germany. The initial manpower goals will, in fact, be met — nearly 300,000 workers are sent to Germany. (Others, slated to go, will run away, many joining the French Resistance.) In Munich, Germany, residents awaken to find “Down with Hitler” painted on walls throughout the city. Norwegian commandos — under the auspices of the British Special Operations Executive — parachute into the mountains 40 miles north of the German “heavy water” plant at Telemark, Norway. The commandos meet up with a four-man reconnaissance party that had arrived at the location the previous October. Their objective: damaging the Nazis’ atomic-weapons program. In Berlin, Mildred Harnack, a U.S. citizen living in Germany and convicted of espionage against the Third Reich, is executed by guillotine on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler.
The British Eighth Army occupies Medenine, in southern Tunisia, on February 17. The 5th Panzerarmee’s advance beyond the Kasserine Pass is temporarily halted. Hitler, angered by the constant retreats of his armies on the Eastern Front, flies to Zaporozh’ye, Ukraine, to harangue Gen. Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group Don, over his failures. Von Manstein in turn convinces der Führer that the Germans must again take the offensive, to regain the initiative and avoid encirclement. He lays out a proposal for counterattacks against already overextended Soviet spearheads. Hitler accepts the plan and returns to Germany. Demonstrations by university students against the Nazi regime take place in Munich, followed by protests at other universities in Germany and Austria. In the U.S., New York Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio enlists in the U.S. Army Air Forces, where he spends most of his tour of duty playing baseball in exhibition games with the Seventh Army Air Force team.
German Army Group Don on February 18 launches a counteroffensive in the Ukraine to thwart the Red Army’s thrust towards the Dniepr River. Four of Gen. von Manstein’s Panzer corps isolate three Soviet armies, inflicting severe losses on them. In the wake of the Stalingrad disaster, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, speaking before an audience of soldiers and civilians in Berlin, announces the implementation of “total war,” which, for the first time, mandates the use of German women in the war effort. In Washington, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of China’s president, addresses the U.S. Congress, the first private citizen to do so. President Roosevelt approves extension of the Lend-Lease program to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after being advised that geologists feel the Middle Eastern country has the largest oil fields in the world. Japan accedes to German demands and begins confining Jewish residents to specific areas in its cities and towns.
