366 Days

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March

News Headlines

1

GOERING TO DIRECT GERMAN AIR FORCE

Berlin, Germany • March 1, 1935 On this date in 1935 Adolf Hitler appointed World War I air ace Her­mann Goering, last com­mander of the famous “Red Baron” Richt­hofen Fighter Squad­ron, to the posi­tion of Luft­waffe Com­man­der-in-Chief. Goering held the post until the final days of the Third Reich. A faith­ful Nazi from the earliest days […]

2

U.S.-AUSTRALIAN AIRMEN MAUL JAPANESE CONVOY

Bismarck Sea, Southwestern Pacific Ocean • March 2, 1943 The Battle of Midway (June 4–7, 1942) was America’s first stra­te­gic victory against the Japa­nese Navy and a devas­tating defeat for the war­lords ruling that Asian nation. Lost were four of the six Japa­nese air­craft carriers (the bulk of the Japa­nese carrier fleet) that had taken part […]

3

BATTLE OF MANILA ENDS IN GRIM VICTORY

Manila, Philippines • March 3, 1945 On this date the monthlong Battle of Manila ended when U.S. and Fili­pino forces cap­tured Manila’s Finance Build­ing. It was the last set of govern­ment offices in the Philip­pine capi­tal still occu­pied by a scrum of Japa­nese sai­lors and sol­diers serving under the fanat­ical ex-Rear Adm. Sanji Iwa­buchi, a […]

4

BRITISH ARMY IN FIERCE BATTLE IN BURMA

Central Burma • March 4, 1945 The British Fourteenth Army was a multinational force that took part in the Burma Campaign (January 1942 to July 1945). Units were drawn from the British Army and the Indian Army, with signi­fi­cant con­tri­bu­tions from Ghurkha and West and East African regi­ments. The Four­teenth Army has often been referred […]

5

POLISH NATIONALISTS TO DIE

Moscow, Soviet Union • March 5, 1940 In a proposal written on this date in 1940 to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and other members of the Soviet Polit­buro, Lavrentiy Beria, who was the unsavory head of the People’s Com­mis­sar­iat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet secret police, advo­cated exe­cuting all members of the Polish Offi­cer […]

6

CHURCHILL PROCLAIMS BATTLE OF ATLANTIC

London, England • March 6, 1941 By January 1941 the Allies had lost 1,300 merchant ves­sels, almost half of them to German U‑boats. Following the enslave­ment of 120 mil­lion peo­ple in seven West­ern and East­ern Euro­pean coun­tries by Nazi Germany in 1940, the British were reduced to fighting Adolf Hitler’s mili­tary jugger­naut alone. In alarm they watched […]

7

ALLIES SEIZE LUDENDORFF BRIDGE AT REMAGEN, CROSS RHINE

Remagen, Germany • March 7, 1945 By March 1945 the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) was reeling from hor­ren­dous person­nel and equip­ment losses incurred during the Battle of the Bulge (Decem­ber 16, 1944, to Janu­ary 25, 1945) in the Ardennes Forest, which lay mostly in Belgium and Luxem­bourg. The mili­tary momen­tum now clearly favored the Western Allies as […]

8

HITLER CALLS HITLER YOUTH INTO BEING

Munich, Germany • March 8, 1922 Adolf Hitler was just over a decade away from being appointed chan­cel­lor of Germany when he announced his inten­tion on this date in 1922 of forming a youth wing for his National­sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter­partei (NSDAP), or Nazi Party, of which he was party leader. At first the Nazi youth […]

9

HUGE B-29 RAID DESTROYS JAPANESE CAPITAL

Tokyo, Japan • March 9, 1945 Apart from Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s April 1942 raid on the Japa­nese capi­tal, Tokyo, early air raids on Japan focused on mili­tary and indus­trial tar­gets with dis­appointing results. So U.S. Army Air Forces Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, a vete­ran of the Eighth Air Forces’ hor­rific air cam­paign over Nazi Germany, […]

10

WOMEN AIRFORCE SERVICE PILOTS RECOGNIZED IN CAPITOL CEREMONY

Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. • March 10, 2010 On this date in 2010, 300 surviving members of the all-volun­teer Women Air­force Ser­vice Pilots accepted Con­gres­sional Gold Medals in a cere­mony at the U.S. Capitol. Six-and-a-half decades after the end of World War II, the first women to fly Amer­i­can mili­tary air­craft were offi­cially recog­nized for their […]

11

EISENHOWER SETS GOAL: CAPTURE NAZIS’ NATIONAL REDOUBT

SHAEF HQ, Reims, France • March 11, 1945 The hard-fought victories of the Western Allies between October 1944 and the Rhine River crossings in March 1945 held out the pro­mise of an immi­nent end to the war in Europe. Seven Allied armies were advancing north, east, and south into the German heart­land against bitter albeit […]

12

HITLER INVADES AUSTRIA

Linz, Austria • March 12, 1938 After abolishing Germany’s Ministry of War on Febru­ary 4, 1938, and creating in its place the Ober­kom­mando der Wehr­macht (OKW, or Supreme Com­mand of the Armed Forces) with him­self at its helm, Adolf Hitler now focused on a peace­ful take­over of Europe beginning with his native Austria, an Alpine country […]

13

FINNS, SOVIETS END 1939–1940 WINTER WAR

Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • March 13, 1940 (Finnish Time) On this date in 1940, in the Soviet capital of Moscow, Finnish and Soviet dele­gates ini­tialed the Treaty (or Peace) of Moscow. The terms of the agree­ment, dated March 12 (Moscow time), ended the so-called Winter War the Soviets had unleashed a little […]

14

FORMAL FLAG-RAISING OVER BATTERED IWO JIMA

Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands • March 14, 1945 On this date in 1945 the U.S. flag was raised over the 8.1‑sq‑mile/­21‑sq‑km island of Iwo Jima in a for­mal flag-raising cere­mony. The Battle of Iwo Jima (Febru­ary 19 to March 26, 1945)—a battle for the iso­lated and bar­ren Japa­nese-held island lying some 760 miles/­1,223 km south­east of Tokyo—was the most […]

15

761st BLACK PANTHERS TANK BATTALION CREATED

Washington, D.C. • March 15, 1942 On this date in 1942 the U.S. War Depart­ment estab­lished the second of three tank bat­tal­ions in what became the Fifth Armored Group, a pre­dom­i­nately African Amer­i­can armored for­ma­tion that served with dis­tinc­tion in World War II. The three black tank bat­tal­ions were the 758th, acti­vated in Janu­ary 1941; […]

16

FIRST LIQUID-FUEL ROCKET LAUNCHED

Auburn, Massachusetts • March 16, 1926 On this date in 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts, Dr. Robert Goddard (1882–1945) con­ducted his first suc­cess­ful rocket flight. His liquid-pro­pel­lant rocket rose 41 ft, tra­veled 184 ft, and burned no more than 3 sec­onds, but it proved the con­cept of rocket flight worked. God­dard, who received limited sup­port for his re­search and […]

17

U-BOAT SUNK, ACE SKIPPER CAPTURED

Aboard the HMS Walker in the North Atlantic • March 17, 1941 On this date in 1941 U-99, skippered by Otto Kretschmer, one of Germany’s most famous U‑boat com­manders, had just fired the last of her tor­pedoes when she was spotted by a British destroyer south­east of Ice­land in the North Atlantic. By this time Kretsch­mer, […]

18

ME 262 JETS FAIL TO REVERSE NAZI FORTUNES

Over Germany • March 18, 1945 On April 18, 1941 tests began of the world’s first oper­a­tional twin-engine turbo­jet fighter, the Messer­schmitt 262 Swallow (Schwalbe). The tests were really of the air­frame because the BMW turbo­jets were nowhere close to being ready. Over a year later, on July 18, 1942, a fully con­figured ver­sion flew—this almost […]

19

FIRST BLACK FIGHTER SQUADRON FORMED

Chanute Field, Rantoul, Illinois • March 19, 1941 Pressed on one side by Black news media and civil rights groups demanding that pilot training be opened up to Afri­can Amer­i­cans and on the other by an up­coming re-election, Pre­si­dent Franklin D. Roose­velt in 1940 autho­rized the crea­tion of a segre­gated flight school and an all-Black […]

20

USS MASON BREAKS NAVY COLOR BARRIER

Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts • March 20, 1944 On this date in 1944 the USS Mason, an Evarts-class destroyer escort, was com­mis­sioned at the Boston Navy Yard, five months after her keel was laid down. The next month, on April 25, 1944, the USS PC‑1264, a PC‑461-class sub­marine chaser, was com­mis­sioned six months after her keel […]

21

HITLER ESCAPES ASSASSIN’S BOMB

Berlin, Germany • March 21, 1943 Adolf Hitler was the target of assassins on at least 30 occa­sions. On this date in 1943 in the German Reich’s capital, Berlin, Army offi­cers made the second of two attempts in March to kill Hitler with a bomb. The week before, two staff offi­cers had planted a bomb aboard […]

22

PATTON’S THIRD ARMY CROSSES RHINE

Oppenheim, Germany • March 22, 1945 On this date in 1945, one day before the mixed British-Canadian 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Ber­nard Law Mont­gomery was due to launch Opera­tion Plunder, the long-awaited northern offen­sive across the Rhine River at Rees and Wesel in North Rhine-West­phalia, Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., sneaked sol­diers of […]

23

JAPAN PUSHES SOVIETS FOR NEUTRALITY PACT

Moscow, Soviet Union (USSR) • March 23, 1941 On this date in 1941 Japanese Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsu­oka (1940–1941) arrived in Moscow after a 7‑day jour­ney by train from the Sibe­rian port city of Vladi­vostok. On this his first of two visits to senior Soviet offi­cials, Matsu­oka met Soviet Pre­mier Vya­che­slav Molotov. At the top of […]

24

NEW MILITIA TO DEFEND JAPANESE HOMELAND

Tokyo, Japan • March 24, 1945 On this date in 1945 the Japanese Deputy Minis­ter of War, Lt. Gen. Kane­shiro Shiba­yama, in­formed the Japa­nese Diet (Parlia­ment) of the for­ma­tion of a mili­tia for the defense of the Home Islands. A home mili­tia was criti­cal to the nation’s sur­vi­val because 60 per­cent of the roughly 4.6 mil­lion Japa­nese com­bat […]

25

YUGOSLAVIA JOINS AXIS PACT

Vienna, Austria • March 25, 1941 On this date in 1941 in Vienna, the govern­ment of Yugo­slav regent Prince Paul signed a pro­to­col of ad­her­ence to the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Tri­par­tite Pact, there­by setting the stage for a com­plex guer­rilla war against Germans, Ital­ians, and their Yugo­slav allies, and within the Yugo­slav resis­tance forces them­selves. Not two […]

26

SUICIDE PILOTS MAKE LETHAL SHOW

U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands • March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Vice Admiral Taki­jirō Ōnishi, recently appointed com­man­der of the First Air Fleet in Japa­nese-held Manila, the Philip­pine’s capital, cham­pioned a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbre­vi­ated as tokkotai) that would inflict maxi­mum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s […]

27

FRANCE BEGINS TO EMPTY ITSELF OF JEWS

Paris, Occupied France • March 27, 1942 On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler, having ended Poland’s exis­tence in Sep­tem­ber 1939, turned his wrath on the demo­cra­cies in the West. The Nether­lands, Belgium, and Luxem­bourg capit­u­lated to his war machine in May. Repre­sen­ta­tives of 84‑year-old Marshal Philippe Pétain, who had recently been named presi­dent of the […]

28

EISENHOWER TO DIVIDE GERMANY IN MIDDLE

SHAEF HQ, Reims, France • March 28, 1945 On this date in 1945 Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisen­hower tele­grammed Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that he proposed, after encircling Germany’s Ruhr district, to advance on an west-east axis through the center of Germany to the Upper Elbe River, 50 miles west of Berlin, there to await […]

29

NAZI MINISTER TO QUASH HITLER’S “NERO DECREE”

Berlin, Germany · March 29, 1945 By 1945 everything was falling apart for the Nazi regime. Most of the con­quered areas in the Soviet Union and West­ern Europe had been re­cap­tured from the Germans. The Wehr­macht’s last gam­bit in the west, the Ar­dennes Offen­sive, better known as the Battle of the Bulge (mid-Decem­ber 1944 to […]

30

CHINESE “QUISLING” OUSTS CHIANG REGIME

Nanjing (Nanking), China · March 30, 1940 By 1940 Japan had close to a decade’s worth of expe­ri­ence in admin­is­tering con­quered Chi­nese terri­tory, having in­stalled a pup­pet govern­ment in 1932 in Man­churia, which the Japa­nese called Man­chu­kuo. On this date in 1940 in Nan­jing (Nan­king), China, the Japa­nese in­stalled Wang Jingwei (Ching-wei) as head of […]

31

POLAND’S INDEPENDENCE GUARANTEED

London, England · March 31, 1939 On this date in 1939, two weeks after Ger­man troops entered Prague and all of Czecho­slo­va­kia fell under the Ger­man boot, the Brit­ish govern­ment, followed a few days later by the French, pledged to guar­an­tee the inde­pen­dence (though inter­estingly not the terri­torial integ­rity) of Poland. A week later the […]

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