World War II in Photographs
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1943
OPPOSITE PAGE
A 3-inch mortar of 5th Battalion, The
Hampshire Regiment in action during the
fierce fighting for the Salerno beachhead.
ABOVE
In this apparently unposed shot, a PIAT
(Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) of 2/6th
Battalion, The Queen's Royal Regiment
scores a direct hit on a German tank.
The PIAT was a primitive spigot
mortar which could throw a 3-lb
shaped charge for about 100 yards.
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LEFT
The Germans pursued a rigorous
scorched earth policy: this device was
designed to rip up railway sleepers.
BELOW
The first Allied convoy arrives in the
ruins of Naples harbour, with
Mount Vesuvius in the background,
October 4. There had been a popular
rising in the city, which the Germans sharply
repressed, just before the Allies appeared.
RIGHT
The Italian campaign was characterized by
the need to cross numerous rivers which
ran at right angles to the Allied advance.
Here British troops cross the Volturno on
October 13, on a bridge laid by US engineers.
LEFT
A Sherman tank of 8th Army towing
a limber with an anti-tank gun moves
down to the River Sangro with the Maiella
mountains in the background, November 27.
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1943
RIGHT
The Monte Camino massif stands on the
Bernhardt Line, held by the Germans in the
winter of 1943. It was taken after bombard-
ments that recalled the First World War. On
December 2, 22,000 shells fell in a single hour.
BELOW
In December 1, Canadian Infantry Division
attacked Ortona on the Adriatic coast.
The Germans were forced to withdraw
after a week of severe house-to-house
fighting. Tanks were used to "mousehole"
walls to enable infantry to enter, and
to deal with snipers.
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THE EASTERN FRONT
After encircling Stalingrad the Russians mounted a general offensive
and retook Kharkov in mid-February. However, in a slick display
of manoeuvre Manstein counterattacked, routing the Russians
and recapturing Kharkov. These battles left a salient bulging into
the German lines around Kursk, between Belgorod and Orel, and
in July the Germans launched a major offensive to pinch it out.
The failure of this attack was followed by another Russian surge,
and although Manstein's skill helped prevent worse disasters by
the year's end the Russians had rolled the Germans right back
across the steppe, recapturing Smolensk and Kiev.
ABOVE
The Russians had ample time
to prepare their defences in the
Kursk salient, digging six belts of
three to five trench lines and laying vast
minefields to break up the German attack.
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1943
l i M
The Battle of Kursk saw German armoured
spearheads blunted by deep Russian defences
before massive armoured counterattacks
were unleashed. Kursk destroyed the last
German armoured reserve in the east, and
after it the initiative passed to the Russians.
BELOW
A German defensive position ploughed by
Russian artillery: this "Red God of War"
came increasingly to dominate the battlefield.
OPPOSITE PAGE
Disconsolate German prisoners, late
1943. Two in the front rank have lost
their boots and face almost inevitable death.
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1943
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1943
ABOVE
The story of 1943: German troops falling
back through a burning Russian town.
RIGHT
It was indeed a Great Patriotic War: Russian
propagandists took trouble to portray the
unity of the USSR's many national groups
in the face of the German threat. Here
the chairman of a collective farm in
South Kazakhstan, with a benevolent
Stalin looking on, makes a generous
donation to the State War Loan.
288
1943
THE SINKING OF THE SCHARNHORST
The 31,000 ton German battlecruiser Scharnhorst had escaped
through the Channel with Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz
Eugen in 1942. She was damaged by mines but, duly repaired,
reached Norway in March 1943. On Christmas Day she sailed
to attack an arctic convoy, but the British, acting on ULTRA
intelligence, screened the convoy with a cruiser squadron
which prevented Scharnhorst from reaching it. When she turned
for home the was intercepted by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser,
Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, and sunk on December 26.
ABOVE
Scharnhorst in heavy weather, 1942.
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1943
ABOVE
The battleship HMS Duke of York,
Admiral Fraser's flagship,
firing from her aft 14-inch turret.
290