Merrill’s Marauders and Chinese soldiers march side-by-side down the Ledo Road, Feb. 1944.
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.
The British government on March 3, 1944, says that British civilian casualties total 50,324, with military deaths at 50,103. The Allies announce that the Soviet Union is to receive a third of the Italian fleet, or the equivalent in British and American warships. Under pressure from the Western Allies to withdraw all remaining Spanish troops from the Eastern Front, the Franco government orders members of the so-called “Blue Legion,” attached to the German 121st Infantry Division, to return home, and outlaws service by Spanish citizens with Axis forces. Still, a handful of fanatically anti-communist Spaniards defy orders and volunteer for service with the Waffen SS, some of them fighting suicidally to the end in the ruins of Berlin.
“Merrill’s Marauders” — officially, the U.S. Army’s 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), commanded by Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill — fight their first major action in Burma on March 4. In Ukraine, Soviet Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov renews his attacks against the forces of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South.
Attacks by Zhukov’s 1st Ukrainian Front on March 5 make rapid progress, fracturing the defenses of German Army Group South. In the Pacific, U.S. Marines assault Talasea on New Britain island in the Bismarck Archipelago of the Solomons chain.
British Acting Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate’s Chindits on March 6 conduct the first of several successful operations harassing the Japanese in northern Burma. Over Germany, U.S. planes drop 2,000 tons of bombs on Berlin in the first full-scale daylight bombing of the Third Reich’s capital.
On March 7, 100,000 troops of the combined Azad Hind Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) and the Japanese Fifteenth Army, both under the command of Lt. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi, begin crossing the Chindwin River in northern Burma, with the aim of invading northeastern British India (“Operation U-Go”). The targets are the cities of Imphal and Dimapur, both being depots for holding and transferring supplies to Allied forces in China and in Burma. In the Solomon Islands, Japanese forces on Bougainville are preparing to assault the American beachhead. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. government, in response to Arab protests, states that the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine (as mentioned in a petition by members of the House of Representatives) has no official sanction. In Germany, members of the Nazi organization for women make house-to-house calls to recruit females between the ages of 17 and 45 to work “in the service of the community,” an attempt to bolster the depleted German labor force.
Japanese troops attack American forces on Bougainville, Solomon Islands, on March 8, making some initial gains. The fighting will last five days until the Americans repel the attack. Talasea, on New Britain, is secured by the U.S. 5th Marine Regiment. In northern Italy, the general strike against the Italian Social Republic ends; the Germans arrest and deport around 1,200 workers and labor leaders.
The first American planes begin operating on March 9 from Momote Airfield in the Admiralty Islands, off Papua-New Guinea. Forces of the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front reach the outskirts of Tarnopol, in western Ukraine. Adolf Hitler orders that the German-held city be defended until the last round is fired.
