Admiral Chester Nimitz
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
On March 27, 1942, the government of Australia declares a state of emergency in the northern portion of the continent. Heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis (now a private in the Army) knocks out Abe Simon in the sixth round of their military-charity exhibition fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The match nets $36,150 for the Army Relief Society.
The German-occupied French port of St.-Nazaire is wrecked on March 28 in a raid by 611 British commandos and Royal Navy sailors. 169 of the attackers are killed and 215 are taken prisoner. The damage caused by the raiders, however, is so extensive that the port cannot be re-opened until 1947. The RAF bombs Lübeck, Germany, a cultural center, dropping mainly incendiaries. The resulting firestorm damages or destroys some 12,800 buildings, including three main churches, representing over 60% of the buildings in the Medieval town. Some 300 people are killed and over 780 are injured. 15,000 residents are left homeless. Hitler is outraged over the destruction. In France, the first deportation train departs for the extermination camps at Auschwitz, in Occupied Poland.
In Burma, the Battle of Toungoo ends in a Japanese victory on March 29. The city controls the road north to Mandalay. Its capture threatens the flank of the Allied defensive line in Burma and opens the way for a Japanese move into the central part of the country.
In Washington, D.C., on March 30, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff divide the Pacific Theater into three commands: Pacific Ocean Areas, headed by Adm. Chester Nimitz; South West Pacific Areas, commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur; and South East Pacific Areas (based at Balboa, Panama, to protect American shipping from attacks by submarines), led by Rear Adm. Abel Bidwell.On March 31, the Imperial Japanese Navy initiates “Operation C,” a sortie by a fast-carrier strike force against Allied ships and bases in the Indian Ocean.
At the same time, the Japanese launch an 850-man invasion of Christmas Island, ideally located as a control point in the eastern Indian Ocean. It is also a source of phosphates needed by Japanese industry. Defending the island is a 6-inch gun manned by a British artillery detachment, comprising one British officer, one Indian officer, four British non-commissioned officers and 27 Indian gunners. Apparently believing Japanese propaganda that India has been liberated from British rule, eight of the gunners mutiny and kill the British commander and non-coms, allowing the Japanese to occupy the island unopposed.
On April 1, 1942, Japanese troops in force attack Prome, Burma, on the Irrawaddy River about 160 miles northwest of Rangoon. As part of “Operation C,” Japanese warships, centered on the carrier Ryujo, enter the Bay of Bengal to prey on Allied merchant vessels in the Indian Ocean. Off Cape Henry, near Virginia Beach, Virginia, the American tanker SS Tiger — carrying 64,300 barrels of fuel oil belonging to the U.S. Navy — is torpedoed and sunk by German sub U-754.
The Japanese make landings on New Guinea on April 2, most importantly at Hollandia, a regional capital in the Dutch portion of the island. British troops begin retreating from Prome, Burma. The American coastal steamer SS David H. Atwater, fully loaded with 4,000 tons of coal, is attacked and sunk by gunfire from surfaced German sub U-552 off the Delmarva Peninsula. Only three of Atwater’s 27-man crew survive. The survivors’ testimony and evidence found on the scene by Coast Guard rescue vessels indicate that the German submarine deliberately machine-gunned surviving sailors in the water and in lifeboats and life rafts.
