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• The Battle of Cape St. George took place near Buka Island north of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands; three Japanese destroyers were sunk at the end of what was to be the final surface battle of the Solomon Islands campaign. ww2dbase [Solomon Islands Campaign | CPC]
• George Patton sent Dwight Eisenhower a cable apologizing for the public relations row that he had caused. ww2dbase [George Patton | CPC]

• Father Joseph Lamarre witnessed two Australian and ten American captives, blindfolded and bounded at the wrists, being loaded onto trucks. While the Japanese said that they were being transported to Japan, Lamarre noted that the trucks did not stop by the wharves. Instead, they were taken to a field of volcanic ash near Tavurvur for their execution. US Lieutenant Marcus Mangett, Jr. and US Staff Sergeant Kenneth Vetter, who were wounded and could not stand, were executed by rifle fire. The remaining ten prisoners of war were executed by beheading at the hands of newly arrived junior officers as a test of their courage; the ten victims included Australian Warrant Officer John Bailey, Australian Flight Officer Charles Vincent, US Lieutenant John Rippy, US Lieutenant Philip Bek, US First Lieutenant Ernest Naumann, US Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class Harlan Burrus, US Lieutenant Leslie Neuman, US Staff Sergeant Ernest Burnside, US Corporal John Mulligan, and US Private Robert George. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 3 | New Britain | CPC]

• US Marine Corps squadron VMF-214 commanding officer Gregory Boyington was released from his arrest three days early. ww2dbase [CPC]
• US Marine Corps squadron VMSB-236, equipped with SBD dive bombers, was transferred out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. ww2dbase [Henderson Field | Lunga Point, Guadalcanal | CPC]
• Cruisers USS Nashville and USS St. Louis returned to Tulagi, Solomon Islands. Rear Admiral Walden Ainsworth shifted his flag from USS Nashville to USS St. Louis. ww2dbase [Nashville | St. Louis | Walden Ainsworth | Tulagi, Solomon Islands | DS]

• At Cairo, Egypt, Chiang Kaishek decided to pull his support for a Chinese invasion of northern Burma due to his perception that the British and the Americans were not putting in their full effort in the theater. ww2dbase [Cairo Conference | Chiang Kaishek | Cairo | CPC]

• Noor Inayat Khan attempted a failed escape attempt from her imprisonment at Sicherheitsdienst (SD) headquarters in Paris, France along with fellow Special Operations Executive agents John Renshaw Starr and Leon Faye. ww2dbase [Noor Inayat Khan | Special Operations Executive | Paris | CPC]

• RAF bombers attacked Frankfurt, Germany; 3 Mosquito aircraft attacked Berlin, Germany as diversion. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Berlin | CPC]

• Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Two officers of ACORN-20; 11 officers of ACORN-21; 2 officers of CASU-30; 1 officer of ARGUS-18; 1 officer of ARGUS-21; and 1 officer of ARGUS-22 arrived on board. Parts of ACORN-17 and CASU-16 departed. Part of ARGUS-16 departed. Two officers of ACORN-22 and 1 officer of CASU-30 arrived on board. ww2dbase [Barbers Point Naval Air Station | Ewa, Oahu | DS]

• Destroyer Yuzuki arrived at Yokosuka, Japan for a scheduled overhaul. ww2dbase [Yokosuka Naval Arsenal | Yuzuki | Yokosuka, Kanagawa | CPC]
• Light carrier Ryuho departed the Inland Sea in Japanese Wars for Tairajima, Bonin Islands. ww2dbase [Ryuho | Inland Sea | CPC]

• Naka arrived at Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. ww2dbase [Naka | Kwajalein | CPC]

• Colonel Antulio Segarra was made the commanding officer of US Army 65th Infantry Regiment, a Puerto Rican unit. He was the first Puerto Rican Regular Army officer to command a Regular Army regiment. ww2dbase [CPC]

• 6 B-25 bombers of 2nd Bomber Squadron of the Chinese-American Composite Wing and 8 B-25 bombers of US 11th Bomber Squadron, escorted by 8 P-51A and 8 P-38 fighters of US 23rd Fighter Group, attacked Japanese airfields in Taiwan, destroying 32 aircraft without any losses. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Aircraft of US Army 14th Air Force (14 B-25 bombers, 16 P-38 and P-51 fighters) attacked Shinchiku Airfield in Shinchiku (now Hsinchu), Taiwan. US claimed 50 Japanese aircraft destroyed, but Japanese records showed only 4 shot down and 13 destroyed on the ground. 25 Japanese servicemen were killed, and a further 20 were wounded. 2 US aircraft were damaged. US journalist Theodore Harold White observed this attack in one of the bombers. ww2dbase [Shinchiku Airfield | Shinchiku | CPC]

• Colossus, the world's first all-electric computer, created by Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, to assist in the reading of German Lorenz teleprinter traffic, was tested at the Post Office factory in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom. The huge machine would be able to process data five times faster than the earlier slower Robinson machine and process as many as fifteen signals a day. ww2dbase [Enigma Code Broken | Birmingham, England | AC]
• USS Ancon arrived in Devonport, Plymouth, England, United Kingdom. ww2dbase [Ancon | Plymouth, England | CPC]

• Russian Jew Jacob Golos died of a heart attack in his apartment in New York, New York, United States. Despite being under constant FBI surveillance, Golos and his long-time lover, Elizabeth Bentley, had built up the largest Soviet spy network in North America whose contacts and informers were able to furnish Moscow with large amounts of classified American material. After Golos' death Bentley was handled by NKVD agent Itzhak Akhmerov but after a while her increased alcohol consumption and signs of stress limited her further usefulness to the Communists. ww2dbase [New York | AC]

25 Nov 1943 Interactive Map