On this day during W.W. 2

Mar 12 1940 The Russo-Finnish war ended with an agreement signed in Moscow. Russia got an area of about 16,000 square miles, including the Karelian Isthmus, the naval base at Hango, and the city of Viipuri. Two hundred thousand Finns in the ceded area were to be sent to Finland. The campaign cost Russia a dear price. More than 68,000 men were killed in action, and 1,600 tanks and 700 aircraft were lost. Finland suffered 24,923 military dead.

1941 Mar 10 Japan resolved a number of outstanding disputes in south east Asia by winning a French cession of Cambodian territory to Thailand and recieving a monopoly on the production of all rice produced in Indochina. French authorities in Indochina also granted Japan full use of the Saigon airport. Previously, Japanhad sought military rights only in the Northern section of Vietnam.
Mar 12 Roosevelt requested $ 7 billion in military credit to Britian under the new lend-lease law. Churchill expressed British thanks for the measure, hailing it as a “Magna Charta”.      Italian forces in Albania launched another offensive along a 130 mile long front in an effort to throw Greek forces back to their own territory.

1942 Mar 10 All Allied forces in the Dutch East Indies surrendered unconditionally.    The Port of Finschhhafen in Northeast New Guinea was taken by the Japanese.    More thana hundred U.S. carrier based planes attacked Japanese shipping and troop concentrations on New Guinea
11th General MacArthur, his wife and amall child left Correigidor on a P.T. boat for Mindanao……"I shall return"MacArthur " told the Filipinos in a final message. 
12th A U.S. Army force of 17,500 men landed at Noumea in New Caledonia.    The Japanese Imperial Gaurds Division was landed without opposition in Northern Sumatra.      The British garrison on the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal was evacuated because the sea plane base could no longer be defended  with the loss of Southern Burma.    Under Japanese auspices king Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed Cambodia’s independence.
Mar 11th The ChannelDash, A German straegic error,  I’ll fil in a time line tomorrow.

1943 Mar 9th A German submarine, U-510, sank nine ships off the coast of Brazil.

1944 The Czech government in London called for an armed civilian uprising in Czechoslovakia.    British troops made advances on the Arakan front in Burma, taking Razabil.    London ordered a halt to alltravel between the Irish Republic and Great Britian because the Irish refused to order German and Japanese diplomats out of the country.

1945 Mar 9-10 On the night of 9-10 1945 ,waves of U.S. B-29’s (279) delivered unequaled destruction of a population center-Tokyo. The Superforts dropped 1,665 tons of delay-fuzed napalm filled bombs which on impact spewed adhering fire as far as 100 feet. In only 30 minutes the incendiaries created an inferno which killed 83,793 Japanese. The actual causes of death were direct incineration, suffocation, or scalding, primarily of those forced into boiling canals and rivers. Another 41,000 victims were injured. More than a million people lost their lives in the 1944-1945 Allied air attacks as 15.8 square miles of central Tokyo were completly destroyed. It was the deadliest air raid in the war against Japan.
12th Russian troops captured Kustrin, a German strong point on the eastern approaches to Berlin. The U.S.VIII Corps completed mopping up operations west of the Rhine.    The R.A.F. “earthquake” bomb was dropped for the first time. The 10 ton weapon was used to knock out the Bielefeld viaduct.

Yes it was more deadly than the bombs at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Mar 13 1941 Germany repeated its demand that Yugoslavia join the Axis. It became increasingly appearent to Berlin that German troops would be needed in Greece and access through Yugoslavia was essential.

1942  March 11 10:45 P.M. Accompanied by a protective force of 6 destroyers and an array of smaller ships the German ships departed Brest.      12th 6:00 A.M. The column was still underected as it passed Cap de la Hague at the northern tip of the Cherbourg peninusla.    10:30 A.M. R.A.F. Spitfires identified the German armada but maintained radio silence and thus did not report their findings until landing,wasting precious time.      12:28 P.M. R.A.F.Swordfish torpedo bombers took off to attack.    12:30P.M. Five Royal Navy torpedo boats failed to penetrate the destroyer escort screen protecting the larger German ships and did not even engage the ships.    1:00 P.M. All of the attacking Swordfish aircraft were shot down and none of the torpedos hit.    2:31 P.M. The Scharnhorst hit a mine and suffered minor damage.    3:30 P.M. Six Royal Navy destroyers from Harwich attacked the Germans but inflicted no damage.      4:00P.M. About 25 of the 240 R.A.F bombers sent aloft were able to locate the Germans and started their attacks in poor visibility. They scored no significant hits, nor did they impaair the progress of the German ships      7:55 P.M. The Gneisenau struck a mine off the Dutch Island of Terschelling but no major damage resulted.    9:25 P.M. The Scharnhorst hit a second mine but suffered only minor damage.    Early on the 13th the Scharnhorst reached Wilhelmshaven and the Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen put into Brunsbuttel

1943 The first of two attempts to kill Hitler within the span of a few days failed. General Henning vonTresckow, who was Field Marshal Hans Gunther von Kluge’s chief of staff, and an aid planted a bomb aboard Hitlers private plane. The device, made of plastic explosives was contained in a package supposedly containing two bottles of Brandy for delivery to a member of Hitlers staff at Wolfsschanze Hitlers military head quarters in East Prussia. The detonator failed as the conspirators discovered  when they recovered the bomb      Chinese troops hurled the Japanese backacross the Yangtzee River

1944 Kherson was recaptured by the Russians who crossed thr lower Dnieper.    The Japanese 33rd and 15th divisions advanced toward the Imphal plain in Operation U-GO  took the British by surprise and treatened to cut off the retrating 17th and 20th Indian divisions.      In an outflanking amphibious operation,British west African troops landed on the Arakan coast.

1945 A Japanese force was sealed inside Mandalay.      Congress voted 354 to 28 to extend the Lend-Lease act for one more year, but with the restictians it not be used for "post war relief,rehabilitation or reconstuction.

Mar 14 1940 Only three of 30 Chinese fighters escaped destruction when they engaged a flight of 12 Japanese Zero’s over Chengtu. The Japanese suffered no losses.

1942 The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to continue a defensive policy in the Pacific while building up American strenth in Britian for the offensive operations against Germany.    The first U.S. troops arrived in Australia.      MacArthur reached Mindanao.      Petain renamed Laval as premier of Vichy France.

1943 Two German SS divisions recaptured Kharkov. Russian resistance west of the Donets River collapsed.

1944 Russian troops closed the trap around the Germans at Nikolayev.      Indian forces attempting to pull back from the Imphal front found their path had been blocked by the Japanese.

1945 U.S. 11th Armored and 90th Infantry Divisions units crossed the Moselle River southwest of Koblenz. First Army troops advanced to within two miles of the Autobahn linking Frankfurt and the Ruhr.      A total of 372 Luftwaffe planes attacked the Rhine River bridges during the past week. Allied antiaircraft shot down 80.      Adolf Eichmann declared he would go to his grave happy knowing he had helped kill six million Jews.    Only Fort Dufferin in Mandalay remained in Japanese hands.      A few Japanese pockets remained on Iwo Jima as U.S. Marines began mop-uo operations

Mar 10 1933 Einstein declared he would not be returning to Germany: “as long as I have a choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail……These conditions do not exist in Germany at the present time”

Mar 12 1938 German army troops crossed into Austria at dawn. They met no resistance and were even embraced by the bulk of the civilianpopulation who displayed pride at the reunification of the Germanic peoples.

Mar 14 1939 Under the threat of German invasion, Slovakia and ruthenia declared their independence, disolving the Czechoslovak state. Military action by the Czechs was beyond question since the mountainous boundry regions, offering natural defensive barriers, were now lost . Czech resistance was deemed suicidal. German troops occupied Ostrava and concentrated other units around Bohemia and Moravia

Sorry for the no post the last two days……lots of funeral arrangements and early bed time and rise time, I’ll catch up tomorrow,it could be a long post.      I think Norway was invaded,I’ll check to make sure

Mar 16 1941 Hitler predicted the war would be wonby the Axis by the end of the year    Berbera in British Somaliland was retaken by a small British kanding force from Aden
17th The Italian defense of Keren in Eritrea began to collapse when British commonwealth reinforcements entered the assult on th fortress.    Jijiga in Ethiopia fell to British forces which had started off from Kenya and pressed through Italian Somaliland. The Britishnow had reached a point about a thousand miles from the Kenyan border in just five weeks.

1942 The Soviet ambassadoir in London called on the British to begin diversionary military operations on the European continent to draw off the German strenth from the Russian front.    Australian based U.S.bombers attacked Japanese positions in the Philippines.
17th General MacArtur arrived in Darwin, Aulstralia to take up his new duties as supreme commanser of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater.    Three U.S. fighter sqadrons began operating out of Darwin. The Kittyhawks were instrumental in  reducing the Japanese air theat.    Roosevelt recalled the U.S. ambassador to Vichy France, Admiral William D. Leahy.

1943 16-19 Nazi U-Boat destruction reached its heighr in a running battle between 38 of the German underwater craft and two Allied convoys and their escorts in the North Atlantic. The official Royal Navy history of the war called the outcome a “serious disaster to the Allied cause”.  The action occured along the east coast of Newfoundland when a fast eastbound (HX229) convoy overtook a slower moving one ( SC 122) Together they formed a mass of ships concentrated in a small area, which also happened to be along the patrol line of three U-Boat groups. In the end 21 of the Allied merchant ships were sunk, a loss of 141,000 tons. A naval escort ship was also lost. Only one of the U-Boats was destroyed when it came under aerial attack. The entire convoy concept was now in jeopardy and the British Admiralty questioned whether the war itself could be properly prosecuted, What tuned the tide was the introduction of long range aircraft, escort carriers and the development ofship and aircraft shortwave radar which pinpointed the presence and location of submarines.

1944 16th New Zealand forces made only limited progess in their attacks at Cassino
17th New Zealand units reached the rail station at Cassino.    Dubno, the Ukrainian rail and road junction was retaken by the Russians.    Finland rejected Russias terms for armistice.

1945 Units of the 87th Division began attacks tto cross the Moselle near Winningen and Koblenz. To the south tanks of the U.S.4th Armored Division pierced 32 miles to the Nahe River and captured two bridges south of Bad Kreuznach. All resistance south of the Moselle now collapsed.    Soviet forces launched an offensive to take Vienna from bases in Hungary.    Iwo Jima was declared secure.    Kobe was bombed by B-52’s resulting in 15’000 casualties.
17th The U.S. 87th Division entered Koblenz.    Eisenhower called on civilians in Frankfurt and Mannheim to evacuate the cities.    The Ludendorf bridge at Remagen finally collapsed, but Allied forces were already firmly entrenched east of the Rhine. U.S. engineers had now been able to construct bridges rapidly completing one span in 10 hours and 11 minutes under battlefield conditions.    Japanese for ces on Iwo Jima were reduced to a pocket less than one-half square mile in size.    The 2nd British Division captured Ava on the Irrawaddy south of Mandalay.

Mar 18 1940
Hitler and Mussilini conferred at the Brenner Pass. The Duce agreed to join in the war. Italy’s choise was to attack either France or Yugoslavia, and Mussolini chose the former because its share of the plunder would be greater.

1941 Rommel was denied permission to launch a German counteroffensive in North Africa by the end of May.    The Italian offensive in Albania was halted with only insignificant gains made in a week of fighting.

1942 Admiral Lord Mountbatten was named chief of Combined Operations.

1943 U.S. units occupied El Guettar in Tunisia as the Axis forces fell back.    Frencg Guiana formally disassociated itself from Vichy and declared the territory on the side of the Free French.    British units were hurled back on the Arakan front in Burma. Chindits behind Japanese lines began filtering back to India after extreme hardships which forced them to abandon plans for cutting the Mandalay-Lashino rail line.

1944 Russian troops reached the Rumanian border, capturing Yampol on the east bank of the Dniester.    In the heaviest air raid of the war so far, R.A.F. aircraft dropped more than 3’000 tons of bombs on Frankfurt am main.    AN armored attack on the abbey of Monte Cassino by New Zealanders was turned back with heavy losses.    After the Hungarian regent Admiral Miklos Horthy refused to dign a document requesting direct intervention, Hitler ordered German troops into Hungary.

1945  A U.S.regiment landed on Panay in the Philippines and pushed toward Iloilo.    The port of Kolberg was taken by the Russians, ending all German pockets on the Baltic between the Polish corridor and the mouth of the Oder River.    Massive air attacks were launched against Berlin and Frankfurt. More than 1,000 people were killed in Frankfurt. The attack on Berlinwas the heaviest launched by the U.S.Eighth Air Force, involving 1,250 bombers. They were attacked in force by German jets for the first time. The ME-262 and other interceptors,plus heavy anti-aircraft fire, accounting for the loss of 24 bombers and 5 fighters. Another 600 planes were damaged.    All Japanese schools were ordered closed for 1 year beginning April 1.

Mar 19 1940 Chaberlain defended Britain’s lack of assistance to Finland. He said only once did Field Marshal Mannerheim request troop assistance, in January, for 30,000 men to arrive in May. But Chamberlain claimed that while “Germanpublicity professed her neutrality,” it made every effort to prevent others from saving Finland. According to Chaberlain it was fear of Germany which prevented Norway and Sweden from giving us permission to pass our troops through their countries, the fear of Germany wich prevented her (Finland) from making her appeal to us for help.    Fifty R.A.F. bombers struck Hornum, the German Seaplane base on the Island of SyLt. Photo reconnaissance found no evidence of any damage inflicted.

1941 Hitler issued an ultimatum to Yugoslavia to accept German terms which would place the Yugoslavs under virtual total control of Belin.  Admiral Raeder met with the Japanese ambassador in Belin and expressed his desire for a Japanese attack on Singapore.

1942 The Germans renewed their campaign to break through to the besiegedIi Corps in the area of Staraya Russa.    Stilwell assumed command of the Chinese fifth and sixth armies operating with the British forces in Burma, the first time in history Chinese troops had ever been led by a foreigner.Lieutenant General William Slim arrived in Burma and became commander of Imperial troops in the country.    Japanese forces completed theit occupation of Sumatra and Timor.    President Ismet Inonu or Turkey vowed the country would remain neutral and that we will maintain our contractual relations with the belligerents and we mean to carry out those relations  with a strait heart and with royalty

1944 Russian troops of the Second Ukrianian Front swept into northern Rumania after crossing the Dniester at several points.      German paratroopers occupied the airfields of Hungary, while other units began crossing the frontier to take controll of the country.

1945 Hitler ordered the destuction of industrial, communications, and transportation facilities threatened by Allied capture, the so called “NeroDecree”. The U.S. 70th Division units began crossing the Saar River near Sarrbrucken.    Germany cancelled all army leaves, ordered the regisration of all refugees, and commanded civilians to inform the police of all Army Corps deserters.    Soviet troops recaptured all of Hungarian territory lost to the Germans since their counterattack was launched two weeks before.      U.S. Navy units attacked the Kobe-Kure area of Japan. Lieutenant Commander Joseph T. O’Callahan won the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism aboard the carrier Franklin when it was attacked by kamikazes off Kobe, Japan. He was the first naval chaplin ever to be so honored. A total of 772 men aboard Franklin were killed. The ship was severely crippled but it was able to make the 12’000 mile voyage to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs.    Japanese forces on Panay began withdrawing to the mountains.    The last surviving ship of a 21 vessel Japanese convoy was sunk off Singapore. The tanker Sarawak Maru ended up like the others picked off one by one over a 10 week period as the convoy attempted to bring supplies from Japan to forces in southeast Asia. Some were sunk in daylight attacks by carrier planes and in highttime attacks by submarines in the Chia seas, others were hit by mines strewn along their path in the Singapore Strait. Eventually all were lost, testament to the effectiveness of the Allied blockaid.

1939 Germany annexed predominantly German speaking Memel from Lithuania. It was accomplished by the simplest of means, Hitler sending a registered letter announcing the action to the Lithuanian government. An actual treaty was subsequently as the Lithuanian foreign minister went to Berlin to give part of his country away. In return for Memel Lithuania received German guarantees of independence and a flow of trade between the two countries.

Mar 20 1940 Daladier resigned as French premier and was succeeded by Paul Reynaud, who promised a vigorous prosecution of the war.    Moscow stated its strong opposition to a proposed Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Alliance because it would be “directed against the Soviet Union” and run counter to the Russo-Finnish peace treaty.

1941 Under Secretary of State Welles told Soviet Ambassador Constantine A. Oumansky that the U.S. had confirmed information Germany would shortly attack the Soviet Union. The knowlage was aquired by methods which could not be revealed to the Russians. U.S. Signal Inteligence Service analysts had predicted “a German attack on the U.S.S.R. within two months” . The estimate came from a reading of top secret Japanese diplomatic messages, primarily the dispatches to Tokyo from Baron Oshima, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin.      Four members of the Yugoslav cabinet resigned rather than face capitulation to the German demands, British agents kidnapped the pro German leader Milan Stoyadinovich  and spirited him away to Greece to eliminate his inflence in the political turmoil of Belgrade.    Hargeisa in British Somaliland was retaken by British forces who continued their advance westward into Ethiopia.

1942 Chinese troops entered the fighting in Burma, engaging Japanese troops along the Sittang River.    British Eighth Army raiding groups attacked Derna and Benghazi as a means to divert the Axis fromaction against a convoy bound for Malta which was desperately in need of resupply.

1943 For the second time in a week, anti-Hitler military officers tried and failed to kill him. Kluge’s chief of inteligence, Colonel Rudolf von Gertsdorff, carried a concealed bomb which he would detonate by acid while close to Hitler at the Zeughhaus in Berlin, blowing both of them to bits. Hitler left the exibit hall before the acid could act, and Gertsdorff flushed the fuse down a toilet in the mens room.    The British Eight Army unleashed a strong attack on the Mareth Line while American troops opened  new assults directed toward Maknassy, in what was the start of the last phase of the battle of Tunisia.    Belogrod was recaptured by the Germans, clearing the area north of Kharkov.

Germany completed its occupation of Hungary.    The road and rail junction of Vinnitsa fell to the Russians.    U.S. 4th Division Marines occupied Emirau Island in the Bizmark Archipelago. It was to be used as a naval and air base in the reduction of Rabaul.
      (1944)

1945 Nagoya was hit by B-29 incendiaries.    Japanese forces were found to have withdrawn from Fort Dufferin in Mandalay, leaving the Burmese city totally under Allied control. This marked the consummation of Slim’s victory over General Kimura’s Burma Area Army, which now retreated towards Rangoon with losses of up to a third of its strenth.    Iloilo was taken by units of the U.S. 40th Division.    The U.S. 70th Division captured Saarbrucken.    Hitler made his last public appearance, decorating children who had distinguished thenselves in combat

1939 Washington recalled the U.S. ambassador in Berlin to protest the German actions in Czechoslovakia.

Mar 21 1942 China and the U.S. completed arrangements for the $500 million in aid to the Chungking government.    The American defense of the Philippines was reduced to Corregidor in Manila Bay. General Jonathan Wainwright moved his headquarters to the heavily fortified Island as a further stand on Bataan would have been futile without real hope of reinforcements or resupply.    The depleted air defenses of Burma were further weakened when the Japanese attacked the air base at Magwe. A ferry command was activated in C>B.I. with 25 Pan-American transports being pressed into airlift service.    Some German aircraft were drawn off the Malta convoy, but the Allied ships came under attack despite the diversionary raids by the British in Libya.

1943 U.S. II Corps made strong gains in Tynisia. An encirclement operation at Djebel el Ank netted 700 Axis prisoners.    Mud caused by the spring thaw slowed action along the entire Russian front. Both sides were already drained by the intense and costly winter action and welcomed the spring respite. Russia found the forthcoming two month long lull advantageous because its military might was being replenished in part through U.S. and British aid, while Germany could mot match the mounting strenth of its rivals.

1944 The U.S. 34thDivision arrived as reinforcements at Anzio.    American cavalrymen began a drive to secure Los Negros

1945Japanese forces opened their drive to take the Laohokow air base in China.    Japanese piloted bombs made their first known appearance of the war while futiley attempting to attack the U.S. naval fast carrier task force whose planes were stiking targets on Honshu and Kyushu.    The 2nd British Division opened the road to Mandalay from Ava.    A flight of 18 R.A.F. Mosquitos bombed the Gestapo headquarters building in Copenhagen. While the building was hit (35 were killed including 9 Danish prisoners) Greater damage was done to a nearby Catholic grade school, killing 86 children and 17 adults.      Churchill told Britons food supplies were short in Britian because of the pressing need to feed liberated parts of the continent.

1939 Germany offered Polnd Slovakia in compensation for the return of Danzig and German control of overland routes between Germany and East Prussia.

Mar 22 1940 Russian forces assumed control over Hango

1941 Two U.S. grain-carrying ships were permitted to pass through the British blockade and deliver their cargos to Vichy France.

1942 Magwe airfield in Burma was evacuated by British and American flight units, leaving the retreating British without any close air support.      U.S. forces on Bataan were issued a surrender ultimatum by the Japanese

1944 Japan advanced its large scale offensive into India from Burma. Units of the Eighteenth Army reached a point 30 miles east of Imphal in the mountainous area of Manipur.      Tojo informed the Japanese Diet the war situation was  grave.      Alexander halted frontal assults at Cassino.    Frankfurt am Main was attacked in one of the deadliest bomber raids of the war against the city. One thousand and one people were killed.

1945 U.S. 90th Division forces cleared Mainz. Other U.S. units achieved total surprise in establishing a late night crossing of the Rhine at Oppenheim, south of Mainz.    U.S. aircraft completed a week long campaign in support of Allied ground forces in which bombers flew 21,692 missions throughout Europe.      Danzig and Gdynia came under Russian seige. Heavy fighting developed between Lake Balaton and the Danube in Hungary. Other Red Army units began an offensive directed at Vienna and Bratislava.    During the last five days U.S. Naval Task Force 58 accounted for 528 Japanese aircraft in battles around Okinowa and the home Isalands.

1945 March 21-24 In a major effort to draw off German planes from the Rhine area,U.S. and R.A.F. planes attacked Berlin and other targets. During this period, Allied aircraft from Britian,France,and Italy flew 42,000 sorties

Mar 23 1941 A small British relief convoy reached Malta, but two of the ships were bombed by German planes while unloading. The quantity of supplies actually delivered to the Islands defenders was meager.    A total of 59,141 tons of British shipping was lost the previous week, primarily in the North Atlantic where German U-Boats were marauding at will.      R.A.F. bombers raided Berlin.

1942 The Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal were occupied by the Japanese.

1943 Allied and Axis forces suffered heavy losses in hard fighting around El Guettar and Djebel Naemia.

1944 New Zealand forces broke off their costly attempt to take Monte Cassino.    Russian troops broke through German positions on the central front and encircled Tarnopol, the Wehrmacht stronghold and operational base.    Japanese troops made small advances on Bougainville after U.S. artillery halted the assaults.

1945 U.S. First Army troops broke out of the Remagen bridgehead and advanced to the Sieg River.    British and Canadian troops began assulting German positions on the Rhine north of the Ruhr. Wesel came under attack after the river was crossed by the British 1st Commando Brigade. U.S. units to the south continued breaching the Rhine fortifications on a broad front. The German First Parachute Army could offer only slight opposition th the advancing Allies.    A carrier task force of the British Pacific Fleet joined the U.S. in operations against the Japanese islands.      Russian units cut through to the Gulf of Danzig, cutting a wedge between the ports of Gdynia and Danzig.    De Gaulle announced that Indochina would be given a limited form of self-government after the war. He added, however, that Vietnam,Cambodia, and Laos would remain with the French Union.

1939 Germany signed a treaty with Slovakia guaranteeing the latters political independence and territorial integrity for 25 years, in effect extending the same kind of control over Slovakia that it had over Bohemia-Moravia (now known as Czechia ). With this formality completed, Germany maintained hegemony over the entire area of defunct Czechoslovakia.    Hitler made a triumphal entry into Memel aboard a German warship.    Under German pressure Rumania agreed to permit German participation in the development of Rumania’s mineral and agricultural resorces.

No post yet, doing a global with Gen. Dicenhower and 4 others, maybe later

Tanks, you guys are great. They left me alone in Russia and we didnt roll real well and they had the Victory Cities, but there was still alot of war left to go.
March 24-25 1941 Turkey and the Soviet Union signed a neutrality treaty, each pledging to remain neutral if the other were attacked.    German forces in North Africa under Rommel mounted their first major offensive operation and reached El Agheila, which fell without offering resistance.    Allied forces ousted the last of the Italian troops from British Somaliland.
    25th Yugoslavia yeilded to german pressures to join the Axis by adhering to the Tripartite Pact. The Belgrade government said it had no alternative save military occupation by Germany. Hitler did agree that somehow Yugoslav “neutrality” would be observed.      Germany announced its blockade of Britian would extend to within three miles of Greenland.

1942 The Japanese opened their final drive to occupy the Bataan peninsula. Corregidor came under heavy air attack.    Chinese and Burmese troops were badly mauled by the Japanese, isolating Toungoo and pushing the defenders back to the Irrawaddy River.
  25th Japanese troops inflicted heavy losses on the Chinese 200th Division around Toungoo.

1943 24th Wingated Chindits were ordered to leave their operational area in northern Burma. In seven weeks the group had endured extreme hardships and one of three menended up as a casualty. The most notable success was in Disrupting trafic along the Mandalay-Myitkyina rail line which was cut at 75 points.

1944 24 mar Los Negros was nominally secured when U.S. forces took over commanding high ground positions. Only small scale fighting followed.    Japanese forces were routed in a Bougainville counterattack. It was the last major fight in the Solomans although some sporatic engagements were fought through May.    British Major General Orde Wingate was killed when his plane crashed in Burma. The eccentric but effective Wingate had organized the Chindits  and was a leading proponent of irregular warfare. Because most of the other victims of the aircrah were American, and no bodies could be identified. Wingate is buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetary near Washington, D.C.

25th Organized Japanese resistance ended on Manus Island.

1945 24th Russian troops southwest of Budapest advanced 44 miles and occupied large numbers of towns and villages.    The Japanese pocket on Iwo Jima was reduced to 50 square yards.    British 6th an U.S.17th Airborne Division paratroopers were dropped north and northeast of Wesel They soon made contact with the British infantry units advancing from the west. It was the largest airborne operation of the war involving 5,051 aircraft and 40,000 men.

25th U.S. Third Army units began their attack across the Rhine, after a preliminary bombardment by 1,250 guns. The 6th Armored Division broke through and started driving toward Frankfurt along the Autobahn. The Remagen bridgehead was expanded to a 30 mile long front 10 miles deep. American forces moved inta Darmstadt. All organized resistance west of the Rhine had ended.    All instalations at the Laohokow air base in China were blown up before U.S. Fourteenth Air Force personnel withdrew. This was the last of the American airbases to fall to the Japanese

1939 For the first time Hitler said the Polish problem might have to be settled by military means. He ordered Generals Wilhelm Keitel and Walther von Brauchitsch, his top military advisors to develop plans for a war against Poland. He made it clear that he did not want war with Britain.    Italy issued an ultimatum to King Zog of Albania in which he was to request a treaty placing his country under Italian protection. Zog requested British aid but was told London would not help. British policy was to maintain stable relations with Rome.

March 26 1942 For reasons not readily apparent to most people at the time, Churchill declared “it seems very likely that we and our Allies cannot loose this war .  .  .except through our own fault”.      Roosevelt ordered a speedup in the shipment of supplies to the Soviet Union.    Admiral Ernest J King was named chief of Naval Operations, succeeding Harold R Stark as the renking U.S. naval officer. The army command was totally overhauled under General George C Marshal.    The Japanese occupied most of Toungoo.

1943 In one of the major misreadings of history Mussolini wrote to Hitler that Russia was so weakened after Stalingrad “she cannot hope, at any rate for a long time to come, to constitute a serious menance”.      New Zealand troops assulted the western flank of the Mareth Line under intense R.A.F. close air support. The defense line fell apart and the Axis forces began retreating.    A Japanese naval force en route to the Aleutians was turned back by U.S. ships. In the battle of the Komandorski Islands, the Japanese were unable to reinenforce their Atu garrison even though they possessed numerical combat ship superiority. Only one Japanese crusier was damaged ( to a damaged U.S. crusier and destroyer ) , but the task force had to return to Japan without putting men or material ashore.

1944 Red Army troops reached the Prut River in the Ukraine on a 53 mile front.    In one of the most bizarre and trajic incidents of the war the U.S. submarine Tullibee apparently torpedoed and sank itself. Operating north of Palau in the Carolines, the surfaced sub fired two torpedos at a Japanese transport. Shortly there after Tullibee expoded and sank. The only survivor, a gunners mate on the bridge, said one of the torpedos, equipped with a contact exploder made a circular run and hit the sub.

1945 The U.S. Seventh Army crossed the Rhine river near Worms and made contact with the Third Army which had reached the Main near Offenbach. The Rhine-Main airport was captured and Frankfurt was penitrated.    Red Army units made substantial advances through Hungary and Czechoslavakia.    The U.S. American Division landed on Cebu in the Philippines, to the west of Cebu City.    A final attack was made by the Japanese on Iwo Jima. About 200 of the trapped troops staged a suicidal assult from their tiny pocket. At least 196 were killed.

1939  Italy announced its intention to establish control over the Suez Canal, Tunisia, and Djibouti at the expense of Britisn and France.    Poland, politly but firmly, rejected Germany’s offer on Danzig and the rail and road corridor to East Prussia.

March 25 1936 The London Naval agreement was signed, with Britian France and the U.S. approving a 35,000 ton limitation on new war ships and restricting the size of guns on vessels. Italy refused to sign the final agreement, and Germany began construction of the 45,000 ton Bismark and Turpitz.

March 25 1937 Italy and Yugoslavia signed a treaty with each agreeing to honor the land and sea frontiers of the other and remaining neutral should either be attacked by a third country

March 25 1938  For the first time in the modern era, Japan suffered a major military defeat. The battle of Taierchuanng began this date when 3,000 Chinese troops attacked the Japanese garrison holding the walled town on the Grand Canal. For the next two weeks, with each side committing large numbers or troops in escalading combat, the Chinese were able to circle the town completly. Only 2,000 of the 18,000 Japanese survived. The rest were killed. About 15,000 Chinese troops died in the action.

March 27 1941 American and British staff officers concluded their conferences in Washington on a common strategy if the U.S. entered the war.    Britian and the U.S. reached an agreement for the transfer of British naval and air bases in Newfoundland, Burmuda, Jamaica, St Lucia, Antigua, Trinidad, British Guiana, and the Bahamas to the U.S.    Congress approved an appropriation of $ 7 billion for the U.S. lend-lease program.      Seventeen year old King Peter II assumed power in Yugoslavia after Army and Air force officers overthrew the government which had been forced to bring the country into the Axis. Churchill immediately promised British aid, but the new Belgrade government under General Dusan Simovich vowed to remain neutral. Hitler upon hearing of the coup, said to his military leaders “destroy Yugoslavia as a national unit . . .with unmercifal harshness.”  The decision forced a crucial month-long delay in the German invasion of Russia.    British forces captured the fortress of Keren in Eritrea. It was the main defense bastion for the Italians, who fought fiercely for seven weeks to keep it. The British overpowered the garrison but lost 4,000 men. The Italians suffered 3,000 losses. With Keren gone, all of Eritrea was open to the British.

1942  British forces raided the St Nazaire Naval facility in France. The German battle ship Tirpitz was in Norway, but the British feared it would break-out to menace the Atlantic convoys. If it did , it could only be docked at the St Nazaire lock which in peacetime had accommodated the French luxury liner Normandie. British Commandos were therefore given the task of destroying the huge lock. In the early morning hoursof the 28th a force of 260 men aboard a former American destroyer (Campbeltown ) loaded with explosives tried to ram the lock. eightteen coastal craft went in with her. The operation succeeded but only after the force was serverly mauled.All but two of the small ships were sunk, stranding many of the Commandos. In all, 170 of the men were killed or captured. But the old American destroyer, with its delayed action fuses , blew uparound noon before the Germans could disarm her, and the Tirpitzwas deprived of its base to prey on convoys

1944 Polish underground units were directed to make contact with the Russian Army in Poland.

1945 The U.S. First and Third Armies linked up near the Lahn River. About 20 towns were taken in the advance which carried the Allies to within 200 miles of Berlin. BritishXVII Corps forces advanced five miles through the Wesel Forest.    House-to-house fighting took place in Danzig and Gdynia.      Russian troops were 60 miles from Vienna.      Sixteen prominent anti-communist Poles, including the deputy premier of the government-in-exile, were invited to a conference with Russian officials on  political matters. When they arrived, all were arrested. The Poles were sent to Moscow and imprisoned, eliminating the last vestages of anti-communist leadership remaining in Poland.    Cebu City fell to the American Division.    B-29’s began night missions to mine the waters around Japan,eventually establishing a total blockade. More than 1,000 tons of mines were dropped into the Shimonoseki Strait alone within the next 4 days.    The last V-2 rocket bomb fell on Britian. inall the 1,115 V-2s launched against England killed 2,855 people and seriously injured 6,268.      Argentina, under U.S. presure declared war on Germany and Japan.

Mar 27 1937 Japan tuned down a 14 inch naval gun limitation proposal on the grounds that ships of other maritime powers were already equipped with more 15-inch guns than Japan’s and Russia had two ships with 16-inch weapons

March 28 1940 The Supreme War Council of the Allies agreed neither France or Britian would enter into separate peace arrangements. A study was ordered “for the bombing of the Russian oil area of the Caucasus,” a reflection of concern that the Germans would be fueled by Soviet oil. The council also ordered the mining of Norwegian waters.

1941 The Italians suffered a crushing defeat in the battle of Cape Matapan off the southern tip of Greece. Most of the Italian fleet was concentrated in these waters, but the British nontheless challenged the large enemy force with aircraft and surface forces. The crusiers Pola, Zara, and Fiume, and two destroyers were sunk by british gunfire. More than 2,400 Italians were lost aboard the five ships. The only British loss was a swordfish torpedo bomber airsraft.    Total air raid civilian casualties to date were 28,859 killed and 40,166 injured.

1942 28-29 lubeck was subjected to a devastating raid by the R.A.F., the opening of bomber command’s main offensive against Germany.    Bataan’s defense garisson was begining to experience severe problems as further efforts to break the Japanese blockade failed. Horses and mules were by now being slaughtered for food.    The Vatican established diplomatic relations with Japan.      The first trainload of Jews from Paris began being shipped to Auschwitz. Six thousand were earmarked for imprisonment.

1943 The British Eightth Army completed occupying the main positions on the Mareth line. Patton’s II Corps opened up an offensive directed at Gabes. French colonial camel corps troops of the southeast Algerian Command completed the capture of a string of towns to the south.

1944 Nikolayev was retaken by the Russians.    The Allies conceded the campaign to take Monte Cassino was a temporary failure.

1945 Hitler dismissed Guderian as chief of the Army General Staff after a violent quarrel in the Reich Chancellery.    Russian units reached the Austrian border. Gdynia was occupied inthe north.    British Second Army forces began an offensive to reach the Elbe. U.S. troops began occupying Frankfurt. Mannheim’s burgomaster sought th surrender the city. The American 4th Armored Division found a bridge over the Main intact. First army units reached Marburg and Giessen, advancing up to 40 miles a day.    Eisenhower confirmed plans for the final campaign to knock Germany out of the war choosing Leipzig instead of Berlin as the ultimate objective. Russia was to occupy the German capital. The decision had wide range political implications. Churchill futiley tried to change the thrust of the final Allied push, continuing to express his concern over Russian political gains after their military conquests.    Soldiers Of the Burma Natonal Army revolted against the Japanese in central and southern Burma and joined forces with the Allies.

1939 The civil war ended in Spain. Madrid was formally surrendered to General Franco

1933 The German Nazi party began an organized campaign to boycott Jewish stores and shops.

1938 The Japanese established the “Reformed Government of the Republic of China” in Nanking

Mar 29 1940 foreign Minister Molotov declared the Soviet Union would remain neutral in the European war.

1942 In an achievement that buoyed Allied hopes, a convoy reached the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk by evading German ships and planes. The Murmansk run remained the most dangerous of the war.    The Chinese withdrew from Toungoo, and the Japanese moved forward toward Prome.    Philippine guerrillas were organozed as the anti-Japanese Peoples Army ( the Hukbalahaps ) under communist leader Luis Taruc.    Britian offered India independence after the war.

1943 Montgomery’s forces pressed northward through Gabes and El Hamma.

1944 Japanese troops cut the road between Imphal and Kohima. Chinese troops occupied Shaduzup as part of an effort in northeast Burma to divert the Japanese forces from their main goal of moving into India.

1945 U.S, 5th Division forces comp,eted the capture of Frankfurt. Mannheim was abandoned by the Germans.    French forces crossed the Rhine near Germersheim.      U.S.3rd Armored Division units pursued disorganized German forces 50 miles northward toward Paderborn.    Fighting continued in the eastern section of Danzig.    The Kerama Islands in the Ryukyus were secured by the U.S.77th Division, clearing the approaches to projected landing beaches on Okinowa.    Goebbels said “The Germans must stay on their feet no matter how,  just stay on their feet, and then the moral and historical superiority of the German people can manifest itself.”

1939 Paris responded to the Italian demands of March 26 for controll of African territory held by France, saying it would not cede a foot of land.    Chamberlain announced the British territorial Army  would be doubled and placed on a war footing.    Poland declared any unilateral action to alter the status of Danzig would be considered an act of war.