An American pilot in occupied Copenhagen is watched over by the Danish resistance. For more information about the Danish resistance, click here. Wikipedia.
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.
On May 28, 1943, in the Aleutians, Japanese forces on Attu Island, reduced in number to about 1,000 from their original 2,500, launch suicide attacks against the U.S. troops fighting them.
The RAF on May 29 launches a major raid, comprising 719 bombers, against Wuppertal, Germany, dropping 1,900 tons of bombs. The resulting firestorm kills some 3,450 civilians and leaves 118,000 homeless. The RAF claims that half of Wuppertal has been “wiped off the map.” In Asia, the Japanese offensive along the Yangtze River in China is stopped in the Ichang area, roughly 700 miles inland from Shanghai.
In the Aleutians, organized Japanese resistance on Attu Island ends on May 30. The fighting comes to a halt with only 29 Japanese soldiers left alive of the 2,500 that had been on the island originally. The others not killed in the battle committed suicide as the fighting tapered off. A search of the island finds no survivors. U.S. forces incur 561 fatalities and 1,136 men wounded of the 12,000 involved.
On May 31, American B-17 bombers strike Naples, Italy. In Asia, Chiang Kai-shek claims that three Japanese divisions have been surrounded on the Yangtze River near Ichang. In Scandinavia, the Danish Resistance blows up a railroad-locomotive shed at Tønder, on the border with Germany, as sabotage mounts despite appeals for a halt by King Christian X, the Danish monarch.
On June 1, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, announces that British Empire casualties in the first three years of war are 92,089 killed, 226,719 missing, 88,294 wounded and 107,891 captured. The British actor Leslie Howard, flying back to England from a five-week lecture tour boosting the Allied cause in Spain and Portugal, is killed when his DC-3 airliner is shot down by Luftwaffe fighter planes over the Bay of Biscay. (Although it was initially believed that the target was Howard’s manager, Alfred Chenhalls, who bore a passing resemblance to Winston Churchill, historians now feel that Howard was the actual target. Alerted to Howard’s presence on the Iberian Peninsula by German agents, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels likely ordered Howard’s plane shot down to silence the outspoken, anti-Nazi actor.)
Japanese forces are reported on June 2 to be in full retreat along the Yangtze River, in China. In Europe, the Red Air Force bombs Kiev, Ukraine, and Roslavl, a road and rail hub in Russia. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe bombs the Russian city of Kursk. Liquidation of the Lwów Ghetto in Occupied Poland is completed, with the last of the remaining Jewish residents deported to the nearby Janowska concentration camp. At one time, Lwów had numbered 160,000 Jews among its residents.
Rival French leaders Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Gen. Henri Giraud on June 3 agree to share the presidency of the French Committee of National Liberation, formed in Algiers, Algeria, to organize and coordinate activities dedicated to liberating France from Nazi Germany. In China, the Battle of West Hubei ends in a draw. The Chinese suffer more casualties than the Japanese, but the Japanese withdraw from the field without pursuit. In Occupied France, the Resistance destroys 300 tons of rubber tires at the Michelin plant in Clermont-Ferrand.
