This is a timeline of events that occurred during World War II in 1943.
January 1: German 1st Panzer Division withdraws from the Terek River area in southern Russia to prevent encirclement.
2: Americans and Australians recapture Buna, New Guinea.
5: Eighteen countries issue a declaration in London stating their determination to "combat and defeat the plundering by the enemy Powers of the territories which have been overrun or brought under enemy control" and to take measures to restore property after the war.
7: Japanese land more troops at Lae, New Guinea.
9: United States Western Task Force redesignated I Armored Corps.
10: Soviet troops launch an all-out offensive attack on Stalingrad; they also renew attacks in the north (Leningrad) and in the Caucasus.
14: The Casablanca Conference of Allied leaders begins. Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt discuss the eventual invasion of mainland Europe, the impending invasion of Sicily and Italy, and the wisdom of the principle of "unconditional surrender".
15: The British start an offensive aimed at taking far-off Tripoli, Libya.
16: Iraq declares war on the Axis powers.: The Royal Air Force begins a two-night bombing of Berlin.
18: The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rise up for the first time, starting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.: Besieged defenders of Leningrad link up with relieving forces.
19: General Georgy Zhukov is promoted to Marshal as the Stalingrad struggle grinds to a close.
20: attacks a Japanese convoy 286 miles from Truk, Caroline Islands en route to the Solomon Islands, sinking transport Meiu Maru and damaging Surabaya Maru.
21: Last airfield at Stalingrad is taken by Red Army forces, ensuring that the Luftwaffe will be unable to supply German troops any further; Hitler demands that Friedrich Paulus continue fighting and promotes Paulus to Field Marshal in order to bolster morale.: Red Army armies have more victories in the Caucasus.
22: Allies liberate Sanananda, New Guinea.
23: British capture Tripoli, Libya.: Japanese continue their fight in western Guadalcanal; although facing setbacks in Papua, they resolve to continue the fight and to attempt sporadic air attacks on Allied forces in the region New Guinea campaign.
24: The Casablanca Conference ends; Allies insist on unconditional surrender from Germany.: German forces in Stalingrad are in the last phases of collapse.
25: United States XIV Corps arrives in Pacific Theater.
26: Soviet troops retake Voronezh.
27: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany. Wilhelmshaven, the large naval base, is the primary target.
28: A new conscription law in Germany: men between 16 and 65 and women between 17 and 50 are open to mobilization.: Georgy Zhukov awarded the first Order of Suvorov 1st Class.
29: The naval battle of Rennell Island, near Guadalcanal, begins. The Japanese beat the Americans and the is lost.
30: The last Japanese have cleared out of Guadalcanal undetected by U.S. forces.: On the tenth anniversary of his rise to power, Hitler makes a speech in which he promotes General Paulus to Field Marshal. This includes a reminder that no German field marshal has ever surrendered or been captured.
31: Friedrich Paulus (Generalfeldmarschall in command of the German 6th Army) and his staff surrender to Soviet troops in Stalingrad, the first time a German Field Marshal is lost to surrender and thus captured by the enemy.
February
2: In the Soviet Union, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the official surrender of the German 6th Army. The German public is informed of this disaster, marking the first time the Nazi government has acknowledged a failure in the war effort.: Rommel retreats farther into Tunisia, establishing his troops at the Mareth Line. Within two days, Allied troops move into Tunisia for the first time from the South.
5: The Allies now have all of Libya under their control.
7: In the United States, it is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in two days.
8: The Chindits (a "long range penetration group") under British General Orde Wingate begin an incursion into Burma.: United States' VI Corps arrives in North Africa.
9: Guadalcanal is finally secured; it is the first major achievement of the American offensive in the Pacific war.: Munich and Vienna are heavily bombed, along with Berlin.
11: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe.
13: Rommel launches a counter-attack against the Americans in western Tunisia; he takes Sidi Bouzid and Gafsa. The Battle of the Kasserine Pass begins: inexperienced American troops are soon forced to retreat.
14: Rostov-on-Don is liberated by the Red Army.
16: Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov.: Prime Minister of Vichy France Pierre Laval and Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélemy formally create the Service du travail obligatoire (STO)
18: In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declares a "Total War" against the Allies; the Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement, an anti-Nazi youth group.: Chindits under Wingate cut the railway line between Mandalay and Myitkyina.
21: Americans take the Russell Islands, part of the Solomons chain.
22: Hans and Sophie Scholl of the White Rose movement are executed.
22: Japanese POWs refuse to work at Featherston prisoner of war camp; this escalates into a deadly clash between the inmates and the guards.
28: Operation Gunnerside: six Norwegians led by Joachim Rønneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
March
1: Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
2: Battle of the Bismarck Sea. U.S. and Australian naval forces, over the course of three days, sink eight Japanese troop transports near New Guinea.: Wingate's Chindits continue their localised strikes in Burma.
5: German advances around Kharkov threaten earlier Red Army gains.: Essen is bombed, marking the beginning of a four-month attack on the Ruhr industrial area, the Battle of the Ruhr.
6: Battle of Medenine, Tunisia. It is Rommel's last battle in Africa as he is forced to retreat.
8: Continuing German counter-attacks around Kharkov.: Nuremberg is heavily bombed.
9: Members of the Calcutta Light Horse carry out a covert attack against a German merchantship, which had been transmitting Allied positions to U-boats from the Mormugao Harbour in neutral Portugal's protectorate, the Indian territory of Goa.: Munich is heavily bombed.
10: The USAAF 14th Air Force is formed in China, under General Claire Lee Chennault, former head of the "Flying Tigers".: The US House of Representatives votes to extend the Lend-Lease plan.
11: The Germans enter Kharkov and the fierce struggle with the Red Army continues.
12 Karditsa in Greece becomes the first city in Europe to be liberated from Nazi occupation, after a campaign fought by ELAS, the Greek People's Liberation Army.
13: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
14: Germans recapture Kharkov.
16: The first reports of the Katyn massacre in Poland seep to the West; reports say that more than 22,000 prisoners of war were killed by the NKVD, who eventually blame the massacre on the Germans.: Stalin for the ninth time demands a "Second Front," accusing his allies of treachery.
17: Devastating convoy losses in the Atlantic due to increased U-boat activity; the middle of the Atlantic is apparently not sufficiently covered by planes or ships.
18: General George S. Patton leads his tanks of II Corps into Gafsa, Tunisia.
20: Montgomery's forces begin a breakthrough in Tunisia, striking at the Mareth line.
23: American tanks defeat the Germans at the Battle of El Guettar in Tunisia.
26: The British break through the Mareth line in southern Tunisia, threatening the whole German army. The Germans move north.: Battle of the Komandorski Islands. In the Aleutian Islands United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. Poor leadership on both sides leads to a stalemate of sorts, and the Japanese withdraw without achieving their goal.
April 1: Allies continue to squeeze the Germans into the corner of Tunisia.
3: Racial tensions between American Marines and New Zealand troops of Māori origin result in the Battle of Manners Street, a small-scale riot in which there were no deaths.
4: The only large-scale escape of Allied prisoners-of-war from the Japanese in the Pacific takes place when ten American POWs and two Filipino convicts break out of the Davao Penal Colony on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The escaped POWs were the first to break the news of the infamous Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by the Japanese to the world.Lukacs, John D. Escape from Davao. Penguin Books, 2010.
7: Hitler and Mussolini come together at Salzburg, mostly for the purpose of propping up Mussolini's fading morale.: Allied forces–the Americans from the West, the British from the East–link up near Gafsa in Tunisia.: Bolivia declares war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.
10: The British 8th Army enters Sfax, Tunisia.
13: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles purportedly killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
15: Finland officially rejects Soviet terms for peace.: Heavy RAF raid on Stuttgart.
18: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief architect of Japanese naval strategy, is killed when his plane is shot down by American P38's over Bougainville. He was on an inspection tour.: The "Palm Sunday massacre": large numbers of German troop-transport aircraft are shot down before reaching Tunisia, where they were to pick up the isolated German troops.
19-30: The Bermuda Conference takes place in Hamilton, Bermuda. U.K. and U.S. leaders discuss the plight of the European Jews.
19: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: On the Eve of Passover, Jews resist German attempts to deport the Jewish community. The Germans retrat, but come back with reinforcements.
19: In occupied Belgium, partisans attack a railway convoy transporting Belgian Jews to Auschwitz. It is the largest attack on a Holocaust train of the war and 236 Jews escape.
22: The Germans brutally crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, burning every building and shooting anyone who tried to escape. The flames force people into the street where German soldiers are. Most of the Jewish resistance group ZZW are killed, and its remnants escape. Very few Jewish resistance fighters continue fighting. 26: The British finally take "Longstop Hill" in Tunisia, a key position on the breakout road to Tunis.
28: Allies attempt to close the mid-Atlantic gap in the war against the U-boats with long-range bombers.
30: Operation Mincemeat: Lt. Jewell's crew release a body bearing false documents near the Spanish coast. Later, the body washes up on the Spanish coast and is discovered by a local fisherman. They will go on to mislead the Germans about the site and timing of the Allied invasion of Sicily.
May
1: Allies close in on the cornered Germans in the Tunis area.
2: Japanese aircraft again bomb Darwin, Australia.
7: Tunis captured by British First Army. Meanwhile, the Americans take Bizerte.
9: The Japanese begin a three-day massacre of civilians; about 30,000 Chinese are killed in the Changjiao massacre.
11: American and Canadian troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
12: The Trident Conference begins in Washington, D.C. with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill taking part. The discussions are mostly on future strategy.
13: Remaining German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces. The Allies take over 250,000 prisoners.
15: The French form a "Resistance Movement".