UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMS Morecambe Bay launched.
Captain-class frigate HMS Whitaker constructive total loss after being torpedoed by U-483. (Dave Shirlaw)
NETHERLANDS: Landings by a brigade of the British 52nd Division and 3 commando groups today on Walchern Island. The planned air support is cancelled due to bad weather but the naval force of 181 vessels and landing craft include HMS Warspite and two monitors which bombard. The island, in the German-held Scheldt estuary is defended by the German 70th Division, and is the gateway to Antwerp. The British landed at Westkapelle and Flushing despite heavy fighting on land and at sea. They destroy field batteries on Walcheren Island, and Canadian troops land on the island, only to be repelled by the Germans.
FRANCE: This afternoon the US 319th Infantry Regiment attacked enemy positions in the Adaucourt-Letricourt sector, on the Seille river near Nancy. Catching the Germans unawares, the Americans cleared both towns with an hour and a quarter, drove the enemy back across the river and took 162 PoWs.
GERMANY: East Prussia: Red Army forces are closing in on East Prussia in a vast pincer movement. Pushing up from the south through Hungary and in from the west through Poland, they are now approaching the once free city of Danzig on a front along the Narew river. Waves of refugees are fleeing before the vengeful Russians.
U-2342 commissioned.
U-2358, U-4703 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
HUNGARY: Marshal Malinovsky's troops, advancing across Kecskemet Heath south-east of Budapest, are today within 37 miles of the Hungarian capital and advancing along a 75-mile front between the Danube and Tisza rivers. The town of Kecskemet, the key to the southern defences of the capital, has fallen after bitter house-to-house fighting. Moscow hopes that Malinovsky will celebrate the 27th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in a week's time with the capture of Budapest, but the Germans will not relinquish the capital without a struggle. Their position has been strengthened by the crushing of an uprising by Slovak nationalists.
Budapest: Now that the Nazis have installed a puppet government here, the reprieve for Hungary's Jews is over. Unlike Admiral Horthy (now under arrest) the regime of Ferenc Szalasi does not want to save them.
"Let no person of the Jewish race believe that ... he can circumvent the lawful measures of the Hungarian state," announced the interior minister on 18 October. Adolf Eichmann has returned to Budapest with a new plan to send the Jews to the death camps on foot, hoping that most will die on the way.
Szalasi's government will no longer recognize the passports issued to protect the Jews by the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
ITALY: Units of the 10th Indian Division ( V Corps ) of the British Eighth Army advance to the Rabbi river at Collina, near Ravenna, building up its bridgehead across the Ronco river and taking the town of Meldola on the west bank. The 4th Division is halted outside Forli airfield.
GREECE: The Germans evacuate Florina. British forces take Salonika. Distribution of food in and around Athens begins. Famine relief is very necessary in this war torn country.
YUGOSLAVIA: Tito and the Prime Minister of the government-in-exile sign an agreements on a new constitution, in which King Peter II will continue to act as head of state.
EUROPE: Daylight raids were made by the US Eighth Army Air Force against synthetic oil plants at Gelsenkirchen and railway targets in Hamm and Coblenz. All the bombers and all but one fighter returned. Last night RAF Halifaxes and Lancasters continued the offensive against the industrial centre of Cologne.
BURMA: Men of the British 36th Division, on the move again after a few days' rest at Mawpin, yesterday advanced two miles down the Myitkyina to Mandalay railway line, stopping one mile outside Mawlu. In the Chin hills troops of the 5th Indian Division wiped out a Japanese stronghold.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The Japanese land 2000 reinforcements at Ormoc, Leyte. The defenders are composed of the 35th Army commanded by General Suzuki. The original 16th Division has been reinforced by the 30th and 102nd Divisions. Units of the US 7th Division liberate Baybay. One US destroyer, USS ABNER READ, is sunk and three other destroyers badly damaged by kamikaze's, while two more were hit by a combination of suicide and conventional air strikes.
Japanese "Frances" twin-engine bomber crashed into destroyer USS Ammen resulting in 21 wounded and 5 dead. Four other destroyers hit in air attacks. (Dave Shirlaw)
JAPAN: Tokyo: The Japanese army opens a bombing campaign against the US mainland, launching the first of 9,000 explosive balloons designed to float across the Pacific on the prevailing westerly wind.
PACIFIC OCEAN:
2200: USS TRIGGER (SS-237) sinks two cargo ships at 29-12 N, 134-37 E.
2400: USS HADDOCK (SS-231) sinks a transport and cargo ship at 09-02 N, 150-43 E.
USN Submarine Operations in the PACIFIC:
0500: USS ATULE (SS-403) sinks an armed transport at 20-17 N, 117-08 E.
0800: USS BLACKFIN (SS-322) sinks an armed transport at 12-57 N, 120-12 E.
0900: USS RAY (SS-271) sinks two civilian tankers, one at 12-57 N, 120-12 E and one SW of Manila. (Skip Guidry)
U.S.A.: The play, Harvey, about a large white rabbit that appears to a drunk, opens on Broadway. It was written by Mary Chase to bring laughter to a widowed Denver neighbour, whose son was killed in the Pacific.
Destroyer USS John A Bole launched.
Destroyer escort USS Charles E Brannon commissioned.
Submarine USS Lionfish commissioned.
Minesweeper USS Superior commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Frigate HMS Whittaker is torpedoed by U-483 (Kapitanleutnant Hans-Joachim von Morstein). The propellant for the 24 Hedgehogs on the launcher in front of the bridge exploded and blew off her bows and wrecked her bridge structure. She was towed into Belfast and laid up. She was not repaired. (Alex Gordon)(108)