Eighty years ago this week Admiral Yamamoto and the German attempt to resupply Tunisia fall victim to Allied command of the air.

 

The Japanese navy commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was killed when his aircraft was shot down by US Air Force P-38 fighters in a targeted operation. A combination of US code-breaking and poor Japanese security had disclosed the precise schedule of the admiral's tour of inspection. The full chain of decisions that led to the mission is unclear, but the most plausible version is that the USN commanders immediately present made the the decision and informed Washington. Yamamoto had planned the Pearl Harbor attack so revenge featured as a motivation but the killing hit Japanese morale and deprived them of a highly competent commander. Fittingly the P-38s, the only aircraft with sufficient range for the operation, had just moved to Guadalcanal safely in US hands after an epic struggle.

Just as the Germans had attempted in the Stalingrad pocket, the beleaguered Axis forces in Tunisia could only be supplied by air, because the allies had achieved practical control of the Mediterranean sea route. This was inefficient and wasteful; Germany no longer had the reources to mount this kind of operation. The Allies mounted Operation Flax to establish an air blockade and on one day allied fighters shot down 24 Ju-52 transport aircraft and fatally damaged a further 35, in what came to be known as the Palm Sunday Massacre. The Germans lost a total of approximately 400 aircraft trying to resupply Tunisia that they could ill-afford for almost no gain; surrender was only a matter of time.

Successive deporations had left around 50,000 mainly young Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. When the Germans sent in troops to liquidate the Ghetto completely, the Jews fought back. Even though they had trivial supplies of weapons they initially held the attackers at bay.

Coal supply rose to the top of the political agenda in Britain. The minister responsible, Gwilym Lloyd Geroge son of the former prime minister,  claimed that weekly production was down despite there being 5,000 more men in the industry. He blamed absenteeism. The unions responded with a call for full-scale nationalisation of the industry rather than simple government control. They accused pit owners of provoking disputes and argued that production could only be increased by "beating down" management.