This day in WW II.....

Thanks! I've got Anna Reid's Leningrad waiting for me. But I'll add Jones to my list.

 

Same with me.

 

21 March 1940:





P-66 Vanguard


The German cargo ship SS Heddernheim is torpedoed and sunk in the Skaggerak, north east of Skagen, Denmark, by HMS Ursula .




Early in the war, HMS Ursula's commander, Lt.Cdr. G.C. Phillips, and the crew “had become dissatisfied with the conventional garb of oilskins and designed a special form of clothing more suitable for submarines. Ursula's navigating officer, Lt Lakin, was a keen motorcyclist and wore a one-piece waxed cotton motorcycling suit made by Barbour. Philips asked the company to adapt the suit, splitting it into jacket and trousers and adding a hood. The suit became standard watch-keeping clothing in Royal Navy submarines.” — wiki



Phillips wearing the ‘Ursula Suit’

 

22 March 1941:





After raiding an Atlantic convoy, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau slip back into the French port of Brest for repairs.





The Admiralty has lost track of the two warships, but is searching....



War Cabinet Weekly Résumé No. 82

 

23 March 1939:




In the early hours of 23 March 1939, after an oral ultimatum had caused a Lithuanian delegation to travel to Berlin, the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Juozas Urbšys and his German counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany in exchange for a Lithuanian Free Zone for 99 years in the port of Memel, using the facilities erected in previous years.

Hitler had anticipated this aboard a Kriegsmarine naval ship and at dawn sailed into Memel to celebrate the return heim ins Reich of the Memelland. — wiki


Deutschland, 1935

 

24 March 1944:








General Orde Wingate is killed when the 1st Air Commando B-25 in which he is flying crashes. He had been inspecting Chindit bases in Burma.





1st Air Commando B-25

 

Served in the famous 9th Division.

 

25 March 1938:








On 25 March, the Japanese launched an all-out attack on Tai’erzhuang, with a 300-strong contingent successfully breaching the north-eastern gate. However, they were then forced into the Chenghuang temple. The Chinese then set fire to the temple, killing the entire Japanese force. — wiki

The Gazette, 25 March 1938​

 

26 March 1945:





“Veterans of the Philippines fighting, they were involved with the conquest of Leyte and were ramrodded by Major General Andrew D. Bruce. As the operation unfolded, the 77th would break up into four Battalion Landing Teams (BLTs) and assault each island in the Kerama group simultaneously.”
— Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa








“At 6:00 am, the first Americans waded ashore at various beaches of the target islands, but they were not infantrymen––they were frogmen of [Rear Admiral William “Spike”] Blandy’s Amphibious Support Force. The underwater demolitions teams (UDTs) broke up into three units, each delivered to its proper beach by an LCVP that churned its way to the islands’ outlying reefs, deposited its load of frogmen, and then turned back out to open water.”
— Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa

Amphibious tractors carrying the 1st Battalion, 305th Infantry, 77th Division, head for the beaches of Zamami Shima, March 26, 1945.​

Members of 3d Battalion Landing Team, 305th Regiment, 77th Division land in the Kerama Islands [at 8:04 am], the first Americans to step foot in the Ryukyus. — CMH Pub 72-35 Ryukus: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II

Troops of the U.S. Army’s 306th Regimental Combat Team, 77th Infantry Division, come ashore at tiny Geruma Shima, one of the Kerema Retto group of islands near Okinawa, during Operation Iceberg, March 26, 1945.​

 

1st Cavalry was our only division to fight in the old "square" organization: two brigades, each with two regiments, each with two squadrons. Squadrons were comparable to infantry battalions; AFAIK the organization was similar, anyone know for sure? The regiments were the 5th, 7th, 8th, and 12th Cavalry, and I assume the intent was to preserve the heritage and esprit de corps of the units. This did mean six intermediate headquarters to control eight battalion equivalents, compared to a "triangular" infantry division with three regiments to command nine battalions. The one thing I wonder about is whether the brigade HQs were really necessary. I would think a division could directly manage four small regiments.

 

German Prisoners Complain Yanks Don't go fast enough...Theres a discussion topic right there! "Fast enough so the war will end"..? or fast enough to beat the Russians?

 

Both?

War weariness must have been acute at that point.

 

27 March 1940:






U-22, a Type IIB U-boat, goes missing in the North Sea.


Peter Fraser becomes Prime Minister of New Zealand.

 

28 March 1939:




On March 28, 1939, the victorious Nationalists entered Madrid, and the bloody Spanish Civil War comes to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history.

 

29 March 1945:








The last enemy action on British soil occurs this day, when a V-1 hits Datchworth in Hertfordshire. ref: wiki



Datchworth crossroads, c. 1936

 

30 March 1944:




USAAF 57th Fighter Group moves to Corsica. Along with No.326 “Nice” Squadron (GC II/7, Free French), the DAF and the “Fighting Cocks”, they will target railway lines and targets of opportunity to interdict German supplies and reinforcements as the Italian campaign grinds on.



GC II/7 Spitfire






Target map for Operation STRANGLE