Phosphorus bombs unleashed on an airfield at Rabaul in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. 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 the Eastern Front, Soviet forces pressure the Germans between the cities of Orsha and Vitebsk, in Belorussia. The brunt of the offensive on October 29 falls on the German Fourth Army. Unfortunately for the Red Army, the German Fourth Army is commanded by Col. Gen. Gotthard Heinrici, considered the foremost defensive tactician in the Wehrmacht. Not surprisingly, the Soviet forces fail to break through the German lines. In Italy, troops of the British XIII Corps (part of the Eighth Army) capture Cantalupo.
In Ukraine, Soviet units reach the northern Crimean Peninsula on October 30, having cleared the Germans from the left bank of the Dniepr River.
Heavy rains in Italy on October 31 slow the Allied advance below Rome. In the Atlantic, German submarines U-306, U-584 and U-732 are all lost to enemy action.
Realizing that it cannot win a war of attrition with the Allies, the Japanese Imperial High Command on November 1 begins withdrawing its forces — numbering well over 100,000 — from Rabaul and moves them north to Truk, in the Caroline Islands. Rabaul, to be bypassed by the Allies, will remain in Japanese hands — but isolated — until the end of the war. 14,000 U.S. Marines land on Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands, at Empress Augusta Bay. Fighting on the island — defended by 40,000 Japanese soldiers and 20,000 sailors — will continue until the end of the war. In the U.S., dim-out lighting restrictions are lifted in the San Francisco area.
On November 2, a force of three Japanese heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and six destroyers attempts to interrupt the U.S. landings at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville. However, U.S. Navy Task Force 39, consisting of 12 cruisers and destroyers under command of Rear Adm. Aaron Merrill, repels the attack, sinking the light cruiser and a destroyer, and damaging two heavy cruisers and a destroyer. The key advantage of the American ships: radar. Allied planes continue bombing Rabaul. In Burma, Chinese 38th Division troops under Gen. Sun Li-Jen strike at the Japanese 56th Division along the Taping River in an attempt to capture the town of Myothit. In Europe, German troops liquidate the Jewish Ghetto in Riga, Latvia.
The USAAF on November 3 launches a daylight raid — comprising 400 bombers escorted by 600 fighters — on Wilhelmshaven, Germany. At night, the RAF drops over 2,000 tons of bombs on Düsseldorf in 27 minutes. In Ukraine, the Second Battle of Kiev opens. In Poland, more than 43,000 Jewish prisoners at the three Majdanek concentration camps are shot to death by the SS, German police and Ukrainian paramilitary forces on this one day in what is called by the Nazis “Operation Harvest Festival.”
In Lebanon, the Chamber of Deputies on November 4 unilaterally amends the country’s constitution to end the French Mandate (to rule the nation) that had been set up by the League of Nations in 1920. (Lebanon had been proclaimed independent by Free French leader Charles de Gaulle after the successful Allied Syria-Lebanon Campaign in 1941, but the country, in actuality, remains under French control.) French authorities immediately arrest Lebanese government leaders. The country’s Christian and Muslim factions unite in opposition to the French action and strikes and riots ensue throughout the country. In Washington, the War Department concludes it would be impractical to invade Japan from mainland China. The focus will be to capture Pacific islands within striking distance of Japan.
