page_title: May 1943
section_title: May 30, 1943 (Sunday)
hierarchical_section_title: May 1943 / May 30, 1943 (Sunday)
caption_attribution_description: US troops navigate snow and ice during the battle on Attu in May, 1943. Public domain as Crown copyright lasts 50 years in Australia.
context_page_description: The following events occurred in May 1943:
context_section_description: After 19 days of fighting, the United States recaptured Alaska's Attu Island from the Japanese Army, annihilating the remaining fighters "except for a few snipers". The Japanese soldiers who weren't killed in battle committed mass suicide, and a search of the island found no survivors. Of the 2,500 Japanese who originally tried to hold the Alaskan island, only 28 prisoners were alive at the battle's end, while the American losses were 600 dead.
  In a German air raid on the British coastal town of Torquay, a church was bombed, killing 35 children and four Sunday school teachers.
  Dr. Josef Mengele began his service as a medical officer in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and spent the next 19 months conducting bizarre surgical experiments on the captive patients.
  The British submarine HMS Untamed sank during a training exercise in the Firth of Clyde with the loss of all 35 of its crew.   She was later raised, repaired and returned to service as HMS Vitality.
  The four team All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), the first and last professional baseball league with women players, made its debut, with the South Bend Blue Sox (Indiana) beating the Rockford Peaches (Illinois), 1–0. In the game with the two Wisconsin teams Kenosha Shamrocks beat the Racine Belles, 8–6.
  Born:
  Gale Sayers, African-American NFL running back and Hall of Famer, in Wichita, Kansas
  James Chaney, African-American American civil rights worker, in Meridian, Mississippi (killed 1964)
caption: U.S. troops retake Alaska's Attu island
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