Bohr flees Copenhagen because he is wanted by the Germans

Wolf’s Lair. 11:30 a.m. Four days after the heavy bombing of the Peenemünde site, Himmler tells Speer that he can guarantee the safety and secrecy of the V-1 and V-2 programs with forced labor. Speer agrees, and the two programs are moved to an underground sodium sulfate mine in the Harz Mountains, 100 kilometers west of Leipzig, and so deep below ground level that they are completely immune to Allied bombing. The Dora concentration camp is built outside the mine. Eighty percent of all V-1 and V-2 rockets will be produced here, in two paired 3-kilometer tunnels.

361 American B-17 bombers depart from British bases for the heart of Germany; their escort of short-range P-47 fighters (long-range fighters did not yet exist) leaves them over Brussels, then the Nazi fighters unleash themselves: in the first wave, 20 bombers are shot down, the survivors reach and precisely bomb the Messerchmidt factory in Regensburg, Bavaria (unknowingly, they also destroy the assembly lines of the NE262 jet aircraft that could have turned the tide of the war); in the second wave, 39 bombers are shot down, the P-47s manage to rescue the B-17s over Liège, only one P-47 is shot down, 11 Nazi fighters are shot down; the second wave, after low-precision bombings on the ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt, returns to England (the landings will follow one another for three hours), the first wave lands in North Africa, short of fuel (many ditchings in the Mediterranean, all crews recovered); in total the USAF loses 482 airmen (100 dead, the others captured), 160 aircraft damaged.

On a full moon night, a formation of 579 British four-engined Bomber Command planes bombs the Nazi base at Peenemünde, where the V-1s are being tested and built. 753 people die, but only two scientists or engineers die, and Wernher von Braun’s entire team remains intact and unharmed. Among the soldiers present on site are members of the I and II Italian Fog Battalions. The RAF raid, with 15 Halifax bombers, 23 Lancasters, and two Stirlings, is preceded by a separate raid on Berlin with eight Mosquitoes, to divert German attention. The operation is called Hydra. Hydra is the first operation against the German V-weapon program, a campaign later known as “Crossbow.” The British lose 40 bombers and 215 crew members, and several hundred slave laborers at the nearby Trassenheide forced labor camp are killed. 1,938 tons of bombs were dropped. The Luftwaffe lost 12 night fighters and approximately 170 German civilians were killed, including two V-2 rocket scientists. Assessments of the raids’ effectiveness vary; the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1945) called the raid “ineffective”, while in 2006 historian Adam Tooze judged it to have been a great success. Assessments vary between having caused a delay of 2 and 6 weeks in the development of German V-weapons. Also in the first wave was George Dunn, in a Halifax (76Sq crew), whom I met at Duxford in September 2024 (he was 102 years old).

The US Army Chief of Engineers establishes the Manhattan District (or the Manhattan Project) with headquarters in New York City

The Anglo-American SOE (Special Operation Executives) special forces, using parachute units, blow up power plants in France that supplied Nazi weapons factories.

Quebec. The Allies decide there will be no landing on the Balkan Peninsula.

The Polish Second Army Corps, veterans of the Soviet Gulag and arriving from Iran, arrives in Palestine. Here, nearly 3,000 of the 4,000 Polish Jews desert to join the Israeli militias. Among them is Menachem Begin, the future Israeli Prime Minister from 1977 to 1983. The Second Army Corps, however, continues its journey through Egypt and then Italy. Together with the bear Wojtek, purchased in Iran, they fight in the Battle of Monte Cassino, capture the port of Ancona, and finally Bologna. Ultimately, they refuse to return to Sovietized Poland, and almost all end up in Great Britain, with some in the United States, Italy, and so on.

Hamburg. The fire sparked by the bombing of the city causes at least 40,000 deaths and outrages the German population, but it’s the manner in which these deaths occur that is most shocking. Stories of raging infernos, hurricane-force winds, and blizzards of sparks that set hair and clothes ablaze. Traditional history is simply not equipped to describe what Nossack calls “Something else… the strangeness itself… the essentially impossible.”

British bombers dropped 1,900 tons of white phosphorus incendiary bombs on Hamburg, the culmination of Churchill’s “moral bombing” strategy, aimed at weakening Germany’s historical and industrial prosperity by targeting the areas with the highest worker density and terrorizing the Germans. On July 27, thanks to warm and clear weather, a firestorm ensued, sucking in air from all directions, further fueling the flames: the Gomorrah effect, which caused 40,000 to 50,000 people to die of asphyxiation or liquefy. 250,000 homes were destroyed, as well as factories, docks, and military bases. Three hundred years earlier, in Hamburg itself, the German Henning Brand had isolated the element phosphorus…

Two six-engine Messerschmitt 323 “Gigant” aircraft belonging to the 3rd Staffel took off from Venafiorita airport near Olbia, bound for Pistoia. Twenty minutes later, British fighters intercepted the two transports flying in formation. They were attacked simultaneously. The first, hit in the tail, managed to land. The crew threw a life raft into the sea, but only a few survived, as the aircraft sank within moments. The other attempted to flee to land, but exploded on impact near Mongiardino on the island of La Maddalena. Only 10 crew members survived, while the others were burned to death. The Messerschmitt “Gigant” was produced in various versions, with 200 aircraft produced, all destroyed during the war. The aircraft that crashed into the sea was found in 2012 off the coast of Caprera, at a depth of 64 meters, and is the only wreck discovered to date. It was one of the giants of the Luftwaffe’s transport air force, with a wingspan of 55 metres, a height of 10 metres and a length of 30 metres, six radial engines, and a full load weight of 45 tonnes: it could carry tanks and many soldiers.

Victor Emmanuel III had Mussolini arrested and handed over the government to Marshal Badoglio. During his 45 days in office, he conducted the armistice negotiations with the Angolan Americans in a confusing manner.

Moscow. The Second Polish Army Corps is recognized by the Allied military commands. It was formed when Stalin was persuaded by Polish General Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile, to free all Polish prisoners in the Gulags to contribute to the Allied war effort. After thousands of kilometers of foot marches and transport by cargo ship across the Caspian Sea, they received training from the British in Iran, before moving first to Palestine and then Egypt, and finally fighting in Italy. Ultimately, they were unable to return to Soviet Poland, and almost all ended up in Great Britain, with some in the United States, Italy, and so on. Sikorski, however, had died a few days earlier, on July 4, 1943, in a plane crash shortly after a stopover in Gibraltar.

Soviet counteroffensive at Kursk

First direct observation of a virus under the microscope

Bletchley Park resumed heavy interception of Soviet traffic in the summer of 1942, already anticipating the coming Cold War. Interception had ceased in December 1941.

The Los Alamos Laboratories are established in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Oppenheimer, who had already gathered a group of physicists in the summer of 1942 to study nuclear weapons, is at its head. The site is on a desert plateau. Neither their families nor the public will learn of these projects. The researchers are given false personal details and forced to live in secrecy. This is where the nuclear bomb is built from plutonium.

During a lunch discussion with colleagues at Los Alamos, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi summarized what would become known as Fermi’s Paradox: if so many extraterrestrial civilizations exist, where are they? A simple and essential question, perfectly in keeping with the character: if there are so many beings more advanced than us, why haven’t we seen clear signs of their presence? A few years later, the concept would be refined by Von Neumann: if an advanced civilization systematically launched probes (later known as Von Neumann Probes) capable of self-repairing and multiplying to colonize other planetary systems, it would be able to colonize the entire galaxy in less than 3 million years. Since we don’t see any alien civilizations on Earth, that advanced civilization is us! (That is, we are necessarily the first, a sort of anthropic principle.)

Allied landing in Sicily; in two years, in Italy, there will be 45,806 American deaths and 17,500 among English, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Indian, Brazilian, Polish, the wounded will be 350,000

German offensive towards Kursk (second battle in history after Verdun where 2 million soldiers participated and 1.5 million died; the confirmed deaths were more than 100,000 Germans and more than 250,000 Soviets and 650,000 Soviet wounded); largest tank battle in history: 3,000 panzers and 4,000 Soviet tanks faced each other on the grassy plains of Ukraine on a front of only 10 km, the distance between rival tanks sometimes being reduced to a few meters.

General Sykorsky, Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, dies in the crash of the British plane that was carrying him from Gibraltar to London.

Battle of Sutjeska, Yugoslavia. 120,000 German and Italian soldiers track down and surround 20,000 partisans in the mountains above the Drina River. Axis planes begin bombing, injuring Tito himself. After ten days of siege, the weather worsens, and Tito takes advantage of the situation to escape across the river and reach safety. This event puts Tito in high regard. In August of the following year, Tito meets with Churchill, reaching an agreement for the supply of weapons and equipment, but without mentioning his communist aspirations. Shortly thereafter, Tito also travels to Moscow, agreeing with Stalin to allow the Red Army to occupy Belgrade before the Allies do so. In effect, Tito lied to both Churchill and Stalin (quoted by Jasper Ridley, biographer).

Robert Oppenheimer visits his old flame, Jean Tatlock. The event is monitored by the FBI, given Oppenheimer’s position as head of the Manhattan Project and Jean’s political activism as a member of the Communist Party.

Construction of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) computer begins for the U.S. War Department. Mauchly is the consultant and visionary, and Eckert is the chief engineer. It uses a decimal (i.e., non-binary) system, conditional branching, and subroutines. It will not be operational until November 1945.

Bletchley Park. The first Bombes machines arrive to decrypt the new four-rotor Enigma machine.

Washington. Trident Conference. The Allies decide that the second front will be in the English Channel in 1944, but leave open the possibility of a third front, to be opened that same summer in Sicily, with the possibility of further operations in the Mediterranean. A landing on the Balkan Peninsula is still a possibility.

Italian war bulletin no. 1083 orders the cessation of fighting in Africa. The African campaign cost the Axis forces 1 million men killed, wounded, and taken prisoner, 8,000 aircraft, 6,200 guns, 2,500 tanks, 70,000 vehicles, and 2.5 million tons of merchant shipping sunk by the British thanks to Enigma interceptions.

Tunisia. Battle of Enfidaville. The British occupy Tunis. A few hours later, the Americans enter Bizerte.

Bletchley Park. There were 72 functioning triple-rotor “Bombes,” manned by 900 “Wrens” (female operators) and 75 RAF mechanics. By May 1945, there were 211 Bombes, manned by 1,676 Wrens and 265 mechanics.

Tunisia. Battle of Enfidaville. The Americans advance. But the Italian-German forces still refuse to give up, and retreat narrowly. They are completely depleted of supplies, which are promptly and punctually sunk by the British, thanks to Ultra interceptions.

Tunisia. Battle of Enfidaville. The last African battle of the conflict. The powerful Hermann Göring Armored Division with Tiger tanks and the Italians initially withstand the onslaught. They surrender on April 27.

Poland. The Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising. This was the first armed urban action against the German occupiers during World War II. After witnessing the deportation or murder of over 300,000 Jews from the ghetto, the approximately 60,000 Jews who remained, mostly young people, were mostly employed as forced labor. Then, on April 19, 1943, German forces, with 850 soldiers and 18 officers, entered the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto to deport the last Jews. The vigor of the resistance caught them by surprise, and they were forced to retreat. Street-by-street urban guerrilla fighting ensued. Buildings were demolished one by one. On May 8, 1943, the Jewish resistance headquarters on Mila Street was surrounded, and its leader, Mordechai Anielewicz, committed suicide rather than surrender. His successor, Marek Edelman, managed to escape through the sewers. On May 6, the Germans gained full control of the ghetto, which had now been reduced to rubble, and had the synagogue demolished.

9:35 a.m.: Eighteen American P-38s shoot down two Japanese planes, killing Yamamoto in one of them. The Americans had intercepted the information about the Japanese high command’s presence. A heated argument then broke out with the British, who believed the Americans had thus risked revealing themselves. Fortunately for the Americans, the Japanese had also transmitted information on different channels, and they believed the enemy had intercepted these.

German radio broadcasts the news of the discovery of the Katyn massacre. Mass graves filled with tens of thousands of bodies of men and women killed with a single gunshot to the head, their hands tied behind their backs, including thousands of officers. As early as April 15th, two days later, the Soviets blamed the Nazis for the massacre, but the truth would only emerge decades later: the Soviets were solely responsible, with the specific intent of exterminating the Polish ruling class and replacing it with Soviet leadership. A Russian commission of inquiry established Soviet responsibility in 2004, and in 2010 the Duma attributed the blame to Stalin.

Around 90,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian partisans, 50,000 of them in Volhynia and another 40,000 in other areas such as Galicia.

Northwestern Ukraine. The entire village of Oleksieta, an ethnic Polish village, is set ablaze by pro-Nazi collaborators. In Wysocko Wyzne, 13 children are locked in a Catholic church, which is then set on fire. In Wola Ostrowiecka, the entire community is surrounded, the men taken away five at a time and hacked to death, the women and children taken to the school, which is then targeted by grenade attacks and set ablaze.

The US War Department approves the construction of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) computer.

The Battle of Kursk begins; Field Marshal Eric Von Manstein and Soviet General Nokolaj Vatutin are pitted against each other.

Bletchley Park. The Fifth Man in Cambridge is John Cairncross. He works for the KGB at Hut 3, where Tunny, the German teleprinter code, is broken. Cairncross passes details of the Nazis’ intentions in Kursk to the Soviets.

The Red Army advances into Belarus, Warsaw razed to the ground by the Luftwaffe

With a microphone installed in the house of Steve Nelson, Oppenheimer’s collaborator and Communist Party informer, they listen to a conversation with another member of the party in which the atomic bomb project is discussed.

Tunisia. The Allies break through the Mareth Line.

Tunisia. The Allies attack the remnants of the Italian-German troops, deprived of Rommel. They are a mixed force of New Zealand, Americans, and French. The resistance of the infantrymen of the Trieste and Giovani Fascisti repel the attack.

Henning von Tresckow, along with his aide Fabian Schlabrendorff, placed a bomb on Hitler’s plane. The bomb was British-made and chemically detonated, placed inside a package of liquor bottles. He then asked Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was accompanying Hitler, to deliver it to his friend Colonel Helmuth Stieff at his headquarters in Rastemburg. The bomb was placed in the hold. The plane was supposed to explode over Minsk. But luck favored Hitler: the detonator failed due to the temperature inside the hold, which formed a film of ice. If the package had been placed in the cabin, Hitler would have died two years earlier. Henning von Tresckow committed suicide with a rifle grenade to the head after learning of the failure of the July 20th Plot.

Wehrmacht General Henning von Tresckow had his first opportunity to take action against the Führer’s life when Hitler, after countless delays, was finally scheduled to visit the Eastern Front near Smolensk. Along with other conspirators, Tresckow practiced pistol shooting to kill both Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler during lunch in the officers’ mess as they sat down. However, partly due to Himmler’s cancellation of the visit, Field Marshal von Kluge was determinedly opposed. Although personally complicit, he convinced the conspirators not to carry out their plan due to the risk of civil war that a living Himmler would pose, pitting the army against the SS. Tresckow, however, had a backup plan, which he put into action the following day.

Stalingrad. After 1991, thanks to Soviet witnesses who gave interviews, it was learned that several hundred Germans had taken refuge in the sewers, where they continued to fight until March 10th, when they were all dynamited. Forty days after the official end of hostilities in the city.

Tunisia. Operation “Capri”: Rommel’s last stand in Africa. But this time Ultra works as it should, and Montgomery is ready to welcome it. In the battle, Rommel loses 50 of his remaining 145 tanks.

Von Neumann and Morgenstern introduce the characteristic form (sets) of Game Theory

Tunisia. Rommel’s Operation “Spring Breeze” against the inexperienced American lines, which are caught by surprise. The new Tiger tanks work miracles. Just a few tanks destroy 32 Shermans, losing only two. Eisenhower himself nearly falls prisoner. By evening, over 4,000 Yankees, disheartened by their first defeat, are taken prisoner; 200 Shermans are destroyed, 60 captured, and a huge amount of equipment lies on the ground. There are also about a hundred trucks marked GP (General Purpose), which the Americans call jeeps. The Italian and German soldiers learn to chew gum, enjoy the scent of Camels and Chesterfields, and savor the delicacies of the US Army’s K rations. Eisenhower, furious at the defeat, replaces Fredendal with a general destined for great things: George Patton.

Hilbert dies after a fall on the streets of Göttingen. For the German city, already scarred by Nazi purges, this event marks the end of its role as a mathematical mecca. German mathematics will never be what it once was.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Tesla, not Marconi, is the first inventor of wireless radio communication, as his patents were filed three years earlier. Specifically, No. 645,576, filed on September 2, 1897, and granted on March 20, 1900.

The American Signal Intelligence Agency (SIS) creates a department to study Soviet codes. Its British partner is kept in the dark. However, the British will also create such a department at the end of 1944. Both evidently understand that the USSR will soon be the enemy after the war. The American project is called Venona.

American intelligence agencies have the first signs that several university members of the Manhattan Project are passing information to the Soviets.

Anglo-American SOE (Special Operation Executives) special forces blow up Nazi heavy water depots (believed to be essential for producing a nuclear device) in Norway.

End of organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal

Libya. End of organized Italian resistance. The last Italian soldier retreats to Tunisia. The war in the desert ends.

Stalingrad is flown over by a last Henkel 111. It glimpses some figures moving among the ruins and drops its load of loaves. No other Nazi aircraft will ever fly over Stalingrad again.

General von Paulus, 25 other generals, and the last surviving Germans in Stalingrad (93,000 soldiers) surrendered; in the entire campaign, the Germans lost 1.5 million soldiers—about a third of all soldiers engaged in the Soviet Union. For the Stalingrad pocket alone, the numbers are: the Red Army suffered 485,751 dead and 652,249 wounded, with losses of 1,500 tanks, 2,500 guns, and 1,000 aircraft. The Germans in the pocket lost: 170,000 dead, 120,000 prisoners, 400 tanks, 1,800 guns, and 488 aircraft. Of the 120,000 prisoners, 80,000 died in the first months of captivity in Russia and Siberia. Only 6,000 returned home, in many cases after several years. Among the Axis troops, 77 Italians remained in the pocket and were captured by the Soviets. Two returned to Italy. After the war, von Paulus settled in Dresden, East Germany.

Stalingrad. The Northern Pocket of the Sixth Army, under Strecker’s command, also surrenders. At this point, the fighting officially ends in Stalingrad. In reality, after 1991, thanks to some Soviet witnesses who gave interviews, it was learned that several hundred Germans had taken refuge in the sewers, where they continued to fight until March 10th, when they were all silenced by dynamite.

Stalingrad. A dozen groups of Germans manage to escape through the Red Army’s clutches. Most are captured in the countryside. However, one priest, Father Hering, a medical assistant, manages to escape Stalingrad with a hundred or so compatriots, reaching a German garrison, where he is found guilty of disobedience by a court martial. He ends up in a concentration camp, where he is liberated by the Americans in 1945.

Stalingrad. 7:45 a.m. Paulus writes: “Russians at the gate. We are destroying…” They are the raiders of Colonel Burmakov’s 38th Motorized Brigade. Fighting ceases throughout the southern part of the city: the Red Army has Red Square, Red October, and the Central Station under its control.

The Battle of Nikolaevka (Бой под Николаевкой): a fierce clash between Axis occupation forces and Soviet troops. The Soviets launched a very significant attack that led to a chaotic retreat to the southern part of the Eastern Front, and constituted the crucial and decisive phase of the retreat, resulting in the annihilation of the Italian troops, decimated by deaths, wounded, and prisoners, with only a small portion able to escape from the pocket.

Stalingrad. The Sixth Army is split in two: the southern section (20 km) with Paulus is now separated from the northern section with Strecker in the tractor factory with the remnants of the XI Army Corps. Since the beginning of Operation Ring, the Germans have lost one hundred thousand men killed, wounded, and prisoners. Orders are given to withhold food supplies from the wounded and sick to preserve them for the fighting.

Stalingrad. Paulus reports that the swastika flag has been raised on the tallest house in the center of Stalingrad. Food supplies are running out. Ammunition is running low.

After several weeks of siege, the British Eighth Army takes Tripoli.

Stalingrad. Afternoon. The Germans lose control of Gumrak airfield, where they receive supplies of food and supplies. Gumrak will be evacuated the next day.

Stalingrad. Morning. The Germans have 30 rounds left for each gun.

Stalingrad. Although Gumrak airfield was completely passable, only two Heinkel 111s landed with supplies for the German Sixth Army.

Stalingrad. The Germans retreat toward the (former) town center. The disintegration of some Wehrmacht units begins.

Only 6 weeks after Fermi’s successful experiment in Chicago, the Soviets learned of the fact

After 16 months of construction, the Pentagon building in Washington DC is completed.

Stalingrad. The first three days of Soviet assaults on the German Sixth Army do not go well: 25,000 Red Army casualties and half of their armored vehicles are lost. The Soviets are also shocked to discover that the most determined fighters they face are their compatriots, the so-called “Hiwis,” who had been captured by the swastika.

Stalingrad. 6:05 a.m. Rokossovsky sends riflemen and T-34 tanks of the 21st Army into an assault against the “nose” of Marinovka, the westernmost tip of Paulus’s Sixth Army pocket.

Stalingrad. Operation Ring is ready, aimed at eliminating Paulus’s Sixth Army. On paper, the odds favor the Russians, but not by much: 3 to 2 in air power, 3 to 1 in air force, and 6 to 5 in infantry. But this doesn’t take into account the malnutrition and disease conditions on the German lines, and the scarce (or no) ammunition.

Mauthausen, Austria. The system of Austrian subcamps and underground factory production was completed, ranging from synthetic gasoline plants to high-speed aircraft to more conventional weapons. These camps were often given code names: “Cement” (Ebensee), “Rock Crystal” (St. Georgen near Gusen), “Quartz” (Melk), etc. Thousands of deportees were also employed in external factories, often owned by the SS (the Göringwerke). The work shifts were grueling (12 hours), although those employed in some jobs were provided with slightly better food. But in many camps, work meant death or disability within three months; the sick and disabled were sent to the Revier, to the “Russian Camp” at Mauthausen, or directly eliminated in the gas chambers or by other means. From 1943 onwards, Italians (mostly resistance fighters and anti-fascists) began arriving at Mauthausen. They were treated as traitors by the Nazis, and as fascist enemies by the other deportees (who were unaware of the political changes that had taken place in Italy after July 25). This created a particularly difficult situation that could only be changed after many months. The first Italian transport (October 1943, 300 or 1,000 people) came from the Cairo Montenotte internment camp, which housed citizens of Gorizia, Trieste, and Capodistria, deported by the fascists. Up until February 1945, there were about twenty transports, for a total of deportees that, according to current research, is estimated at around 8,000. At the end of 1943, the deportees from Mauthausen (and subcamps) numbered 25,000 (8,000 from Gusen).

The one-day-old T2 tanker SS Schenectady, just returned to port after a sea trial, suddenly split in two from top to bottom due to a crack in the steel that was not stopped by any “crack stopper.”

The US Army consists of 7,200,000 men, including 2,300,000 in the USAF; the Chief of Staff is Marshall

Albert Einstein responds to a letter that the adolescent Hugh Everett, future creator of the “Many World Interpretation” in Quantum Mechanics, sent him posing the problem of an irresistible force encountering an immovable object.

USSR. Isayev Bureau (KhimMash). Founded in 1943 in Podlipki, west of Moscow, it was later renamed OKB-2, and then KhimMash in 1966. It is led by Alexei Isayev. Its engines are used in small propulsion systems, maneuvering systems, and attitude guidance. The KVD-1 is the first hydrogen-powered engine and is designed to brake the final stage of the N-1 rocket for use in lunar vehicles. For example: KTDU-414 for interplanetary probes, KTDU-1 for the Vostok spacecraft, KTDU-53 for the Zond spacecraft, KRD-61 for the Luna 16 spacecraft, KTDU-35 for the Soyuz spacecraft, KVD-1 for the lunar program, and KVD-1M for the Indian GSLV rocket.

North American builds the P51 Mustang; 14,819 will be built.

Arlington Hall, Virginia. Signal Intelligence. The enormous American investments in automatic decryption machines are bearing fruit. IBM is perhaps the main beneficiary of the investments. The 100 four-rotor bombs in Washington handle the majority of the U-Boats’ intelligence traffic.

Karl Lark-Horovitz, a Viennese naturalized American, shows the staff of Bell Labs in New York his discoveries on the pn junction, which will prove very useful for the invention of the transistor

The US Army Ordnance Department orders the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer) to calculate missile trajectories; it can perform 5,000 additions per second, weighs 30 tons, is 30 m long and 2.5 m high, and contains 17,468 vacuum tubes.