British forces arrived in Greece the year after the Germans took the Dodecanese Islands. Reddit.
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.
The Germans on November 12 overrun British forces in the Dodecanese Islands, a group of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey. In Australia, Japanese planes bomb Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. Since February 19, 1942, Darwin has been bombed 63 times. In Italy, British troops capture Atessa, in Abruzzo, on the Adriatic coast.
In Italy, Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander of Ground Forces in the Mediterranean, on November 13 orders his 15th Army Group, comprising the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, to rest and reorganize after fighting against determined German forces. The war in Italy is proving to be very attritional.
In the Pacific, American heavy bombers hit Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, on November 14. In the Atlantic, the destroyer USS William D. Porter — during a torpedo drill — accidentally fires a live, armed torpedo at the battleship USS Iowa, which is carrying President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and multiple military and civilian advisers to North Africa for summit meetings at Cairo and Tehran with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Frantic efforts using signal flags and lamps to warn Iowa of the danger are unsuccessful (the vessels are under orders to maintain radio silence). Finally, Porter breaks radio silence, and the battleship turns hard to avoid the torpedo, which explodes in Iowa’s wake. Porter is immediately ordered to Bermuda, where the officers and crew are placed under arrest for an inquiry into the affair. The Iowa incident is ultimately judged to have been an accident, and USS William D. Porter — with its captain and crew intact — continues its wartime service. (The crewman responsible for failing to remove the torpedo’s primer [thereby rendering it harmless] is later individually tried, convicted and sentenced to hard labor. President Roosevelt, understanding that the mishap was an accident, intervenes and commutes the sailor’s sentence.) Axis partner Bulgaria is bombed for the first time, as 91 American B-25 bombers attack Sofia.
On November 15, Great Britain resumes its Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. In London, the Allied Expeditionary Force, for the invasion of western Europe, is officially organized. In Germany, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler orders that nomadic gypsies and “part-gypsies” are to be considered “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.” The first 20 Roma (gypsies) reach Auschwitz on this day.
The Battle of Leros, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, ends on November 16 with the Germans capturing 8,850 British and Italian troops. RAF and U.S. planes bomb the “heavy water” plant at Telemark, Norway, which the Germans are attempting to repair. The plant — crucial to Germany’s atomic-weapons program — was heavily damaged in a raid by Norwegian commandos in February 1943. In the South Pacific, the American submarine USS Corvina, on patrol south of the Japanese base at Truk, is hit by two torpedoes fired by Japanese sub I-176 and sinks with the loss of all 82 crew members. Corvina will be the only U.S. sub to be sunk by a Japanese submarine during the war.
On the Eastern Front, Soviet forces on November 17 advance toward Korosten, Ukraine, and Gomel, Belarus. On Papua-New Guinea, the Battle of Sattelberg — between Australian and Japanese troops — begins on the Huon Peninsula.
On November 18, 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin, but cause only light damage.
