The following events occurred in June 1943:
June 1, 1943 (Tuesday) An explosion caused by a collision that killed 65 of the 68 men on the American liberty ship SS John Morgan, and 18 of the 82 crew on the tanker SS Montana. SS John Morgan was sailing out of the Baltimore harbor on its maiden voyage, and carrying a cargo of explosives, while SS Montana was entering the harbor. All but three crew on John Morgan were killed instantly in the blast, while the Morgan caught fire and 18 of its crew were burned to death in the subsequent blaze.Justin F. Gleichauf, Unsung Sailors: The Naval Armed Guard in World War II (Naval Institute Press, 2003) p140 The U.S. Navy waited five days before releasing the news."Munitions Ship Plows Into a Tanker; 84 Men Die in Blast and Blazing Oil", Milwaukee Journal, June 7, 1943, p1
The Soviet Navy gunboat KL-12 was sunk by German aircraft while off of the coast of Vailisin Island, killing 27 of the 49 people aboard. All 17 persons aboard British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 where killed, including film actor Leslie Howard, who had starred as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind."Leslie Howard Aboard Plane Missing at Sea", Milwaukee Journal, June 2, 1943, p1 The DC-3 airplane was on a scheduled passenger flight, when it was shot down over the Bay of Biscay during an encounter with eight German Junkers Ju 88s. There was speculation that the downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and that the Germans may have mistakenly believed that he was aboard. When the truce called by the UMWA in the coal mine strike expired at 12:01 am, union miners walked off of their jobs for the second time in five weeks."Nation's Coal Mines Again Deserted as UMWA Members Resume Strike", Milwaukee Journal, June 1, 1943, p1 John L. Lewis ordered the men to return to work at the end of the week."Lewis to Tell Workers to Go Back Monday", Milwaukee Journal, June 4, 1943, p1 Born: Kuki Gallmann, Italian author who wrote of her experiences in Kenya, including her book I Dreamed of Africa; in Treviso
June 2, 1943 (Wednesday) Liquidation of the Lwów Ghetto, located in German-occupied Poland, was completed, with the last surviving Jewish residents deported to the nearby Janowska concentration camp. At one time, there had been 160,000 Jews in Lwów which the Germans had renamed Lemberg. Nearly all of the former dwellers would be killed by November. After the Soviet victory in World War II, the city would become part of the Ukrainian SSR and renamed Lvov.Mordecai Paldiel, Saving the Jews: Men and Women who Defied the Final Solution (Taylor Trade Publications, 2011) p248 The Italian Navy torpedo boat Castore was shelled and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea near Cape Spartivento off of the coast of Sardinia by the British ship HMS Jervis and the Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga, with the loss of at least 82 of its crew of 152. The German submarines U-105 (with all 53 crew), U-202 (with 18 of its 48 crew) and U-521 (with 50 of its 51 crew) were lost to enemy action in the Atlantic Ocean. U-105 had sunk 23 merchant ships in almost 30 months of action. Klaus Bargsten, the commander of U-521, was the sole survivor after giving the order to flood the vessel and abandon ship. The comedy film Hit the Ice, starring, Abbott and Costello was released. Born: Ilaiyaraaja, Indian classical musician and film score composer; as Raja Gnanadhesikan in Pannaipuram, Madras Presidency, British India Blinky Palermo (artistic name of Peter Schwarze), German abstract artist; in Leipzig (died 1977) Died: Nile Kinnick, 24, winner of college football's Heisman Trophy in 1939 at the University of Iowa. Kinnick, who had passed up on an NFL career, disappeared when his F4F Wildcat fighter plane crashed during a training mission. He ditched in the ocean off of the coast of Venezuela when his plane began leaking oil while he was returning to the aircraft carrier USS Lexington."Kinnick, Nile Clarke", in The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, David Hudson, et al., eds, (University of Iowa Press, 2009) pp 285–286; "'Iron Man' Kinnick Killed In Action", (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal, June 4, 1943, p1 John Frank Stevens, 90, American engineer, chief engineer on the Panama Canal Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, 60, Canadian physician to the Dionne quintuplets
June 3, 1943 (Thursday) The "Zoot Suit Riots" began when 11 U.S. servicemen, on shore leave in Los Angeles, got into a fight with a group of Mexican-American youths. The next day, about 200 servicemen, mostly U.S. Navy sailors, rode in taxis to the Hispanic neighborhoods in East L.A. and began attacking non-white residents; by June 7, thousands of civilians were involved in the fighting. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Army barred military personnel from venturing into downtown L.A., ending the riots."Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots", in LosAngelesAlmanac.com; "L.A. ZOOT SUIT DISORDERS SPREAD", Long Beach (CA) Independent, June 8, 1943, p1 Robert Sickels, American Popular Culture Through History: The 1940s (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) p93; Himilce Novas, Everything You Need to Know about Latino History: 2008 Edition (Penguin, 2007) p98 The French Committee of National Liberation (Comité Français de Libération Nationale, CFLN) was formed with headquarters in Algiers and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud as co-presidents. The Battle of West Hubei in China ended after more than five weeks. China claimed that it 14,723 of its soldiers had been killed and that 25,000 from Japan had been killed or wounded, while Japan claimed that 30,766 Chinese and 771 Japanese had been killed. Inventor Robert Hurley filed a patent application for the pocket protector, designed for carrying ink pens in shirt pockets. Hurley would be awarded U.S. Patent No. 2,417,786 on March 18, 1947, for his "Pocket Shield or Protector"."Hurley Smith's Pocket Shield", by Jeanette Madea, in IEEE History Center (July 2004) p6 The Hot Springs Conference on Food and Agriculture in Hot Springs, Virginia, attended by representatives of 10 nations, all part of the Allies, came to an end after having convened on May 18.
June 4, 1943 (Friday)
A coup d'état in Argentina ousted President Ramón Castillo, who had insisted on strict neutrality during World War II and continued to maintain diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. Castillo fled from Buenos Aires to a warship"Castillo Takes Refuge on a Warship as Army Revolt Flares in Argentina", Milwaukee Journal, June 4, 1943, p1 and resigned the next day, surrendering to military forces at La Plata."Revolt Ended in Argentina", Milwaukee Journal, June 5, 1943, p1 General Arturo Rawson was named by military as the new President of Argentina on Saturday but, after three days, announced on Monday that he would decline to be sworn in to office and would yield the position to General Pedro Ramirez. Henri Giraud was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Free French Forces. The German submarine U-308 was torpedoed and sunk with all 48 crew in the Norwegian Sea by the British submarine Truculent, while U-594 was sunk west of Gibraltar, with all of its crew of at least 44 men, by a rocket attack from a Lockheed Hudson of No. 48 Squadron RAF. Born: John "Burgo" Burgess, Australian TV show host (including that nation's Wheel of Fortune show) Joyce Meyer, American evangelist; in St. Louis Died: U.S. Army Major Kermit Roosevelt, 53, American explorer and author, and son of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, shot himself to death while serving in Alaska at Fort Richardson."Son of T. R. Dies in North — Kermit Roosevelt, Veteran of 2 Wars, Dead in Alaska", Oakland Tribune, June 6, 1943, p1
June 5, 1943 (Saturday) Pierre Laval, the puppet chief of government for Nazi occupied France, told his countrymen in a radio broadcast that an additional 200,000 Frenchmen needed to be sent to Germany to assist in war production."Slaves Called From France", Milwaukee Journal, June 6, 1943, p4 A state funeral was held in Japan for Isoroku Yamamoto. A squad of chemical warfare soldiers, making sure the wind was away from spectators, exploded small vials of mustard, chloro-picrine, lewisite and phosgene gases in a simulated air raid in New York City, to test the ability of civil defense workers to recognize the different chemical agents."Tear, Poison Gas Used in Raid Test in New York City", Milwaukee Journal, June 6, 1943, p3 The German submarine U-217 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean with all 44 crew by an American Grumman TBF Avenger from the escort carrier USS Bogue. The British cargo ship Dumra was torpedoed near Durban, South Africa by the German sub U-198, killing 26 of her 93 crew. The German cargo ship Altenfels was torpedoed and sunk by the Norwegian navy south of Bergen, killing 22 civilians and 14 German Navy sailors. Josef Mengele was promoted to Chief Medical Examination Officer at Auschwitz in Poland.
June 6, 1943 (Sunday) The new French Committee of National Liberation made a radio broadcast from Algiers pledging to abolish the "arbitrary powers" imposed by the Vichy government and to restore "all French liberties, the laws of the Republic and the Republican regime." Count Fleet won the Belmont Stakes to complete the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. The thoroughbred had won the Kentucky Derby on May 1, and the Preakness Stakes only one week later, on May 8. Ohio University student Paul Newman, who had enlisted in the U.S. Navy four days before his 18th birthday, was called up for active duty. The future Oscar-winning film actor, nicknamed "Gus" Newman, enrolled in the pilot training program but was soon kicked out because it was discovered that he was color blind.Marian Edelman Borden, Paul Newman: A Biography (ABC-CLIO, 2010) p6 Born: Richard Smalley, American chemist and physicist, winner of 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for being a co-discoverer of buckminsterfullerene; in Akron, Ohio (died 2005)
June 7, 1943 (Monday) General Arturo Rawson decided not to take office as President of Argentina after failing to get support from other officers, and yielded to General Pedro Ramirez."Neutral, Edict for Argentina", Milwaukee Journal, June 8, 1943, p3 Born: Chan Hung-lit, Chinese actor in the Hong Kong film and television industries; in Shanghai (died 2009) Nikki Giovanni, American poet, in Knoxville, Tennessee (d. 2024) Superstar Billy Graham, professional wrestler, in Phoenix, Arizona (d. 2023)
June 8, 1943 (Tuesday) An explosion of ammunition on the Japanese battleship Mutsu killed 1,222 people while the ship was anchored in the harbor at Hashirajima. Extremely hot weather was blamed for the blast, and 1,121 of the 1,474 crew of Mutsu were killed, along with 101 bystanders.A. D. Harvey, Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793–1945 (Continuum International, 2003) p581 killing 1,222 peopleStanley Sandler, Battleships: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (ABC-CLIO, 2004) p122 including 1,121 of the 1,474 member crew.Mutsu in CombinedFleet.com Born: Colin Baker, British TV actor best known as the sixth Dr. Who; in London
June 9, 1943 (Wednesday) The first automatic payroll tax in the United States was implemented by the passage of the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, which was signed into law the next day."President Signs Pay-As-You-Go Tax Measure", El Paso (TX) Herald Post, June 10, 1943, p1 Under the new procedure, employers deducted the taxes from the employees' checks, then paid the equivalent amount to the federal government at the end of the month, replacing the system of employees paying taxes on their salaries at the end of each tax year."FDR's Class Warfare: A Tutorial For Obama", by Burton Folsom, Jr. and Anita Folsom, The American Spectator (December 2011 – January 2012)