Handley Page Hampdens in flight, seen from the ventral gun position of one of the aircraft. The bombing began with the RAF attack on Mannheim, Germany. For more information, click on this link.
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 RAF launches a heavy, 300-bomber attack against Mannheim, Germany, on March 2, 1945, causing a devastating firestorm. Units of the U.S. Third Army capture Trier, the oldest city in Germany, while elements of the U.S. Ninth Army reach the Rhine River opposite Düsseldorf.
The Battle of Meiktila, Burma, comes to an end on March 3, with British Lt. Gen. William Slim’s British and Indian troops overwhelming the Japanese. The road to Rangoon is now open. In Europe, the Germans conduct “Operation Gisela:” 100 Luftwaffe Ju-88 night-fighters attack 27 RAF airfields in England, in what is the last night-intrusion raid of the war. Six German planes are downed (16 others crash during combat maneuvers or because they have run out of fuel), but 23 RAF aircraft are destroyed. Finland declares war on Germany.
The Soviet 1st Belorussian Front on March 4 establishes a new bridgehead across the Oder River south of Frankfurt an der Oder, in northeastern Germany. In the United Kingdom, the 18-year-old elder daughter of King George VI, HRH Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II), enlists in the British Army and is trained as a driver and mechanic. Bombs from a USAAF plane fall on Zürich, Switzerland, killing five people.
Units of VIII Corps of the U.S. First Army enter Cologne, Germany, on March 5. Germany begins conscripting youths as young as 15 into the regular army.
The U.S. Third Army reaches the River Rhine northwest of Koblenz, Germany, on March 6, as Cologne falls to the U.S. First Army. In Hungary, German forces launch a major counteroffensive north of Lake Balaton, with the goal of recapturing the territory between Lake Balaton and the Danube to the east. In Romania, a communist-led government is formed; Petru Groza remains the prime minister. In Burma, the Chinese First Army captures Lashio, the Burmese terminus of the Burma Road. In Poland, Soviet authorities begin to arrest anyone connected with the Armia Krajowa (Polish Home Army) or the Polish government-in-exile in London.
On March 7, American troops begin crossing the Rhine into Germany via the Ludendorff Bridge, at Remagen, the only bridge across the Rhine left standing by the Germans. (The Germans were trying to keep the bridge open long enough for it to be used as an escape route for their 15th Division, which was trapped on the west side of the river. The Allies beat the Germans to the bridge and were able to capture it before it could be destroyed.) In Hungary, the German counteroffensive gains ground. Romania declares war on Japan.
A German V-2 rocket on March 8 hits Farringdon Market, on the western edge of the City of London, killing 110 and injuring 123. Secret negotiations begin in Bern, Switzerland, between Allan Dulles, director of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) branch in Switzerland, and SS Lt.-Gen. Karl Wolff, supreme commander of SS troops in Italy. The topic: an early surrender of the German military in Italy before communist forces can reach Trieste, in northeastern Italy on the Adriatic Sea near the Yugoslavian (Slovenian) border.
On March 9, 334 U.S. B-29 Superfortresses from the Mariana Islands firebomb Tokyo with 2,000 tons of napalm and incendiaries. Hurricane-force winds are created as the temperature within the resulting firestorm reaches 1,800°F. Some 16-1/2 acres of the downtown residential area are burned out and over 130,000 civilians are killed. Raids against Tokyo continue for 10 more nights before the bombing switches to other Japanese cities, including Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe. U.S. troops invade Mindanao, in the southern Philippines. The Japanese proclaim the “independence” of Indochina, depose the Vichy French government there, disarm Vichy French troops stationed around the country, and establish the Empire of Annam. The Australian 14th/32nd Infantry Battalion comes ashore at Wide Bay, New Britain island, and engages Japanese troops in forward outposts. After six weeks of fighting in continual heavy rains, the Australians are victorious in pushing the forward garrisons back, and isolate and contain the 93,000 troops of the Japanese Eighth Area Army around Rabaul, on the eastern end of the island. German troops from the Channel Islands (a group of islands in the English Channel off the coast of France that include Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark) raid Granville, France, on the Normandy coast. They blow up port installations, damage several ships, free 67 German POWs, capture as many as 30 Allied personnel, and kill 33 U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines before retreating.
As a result of his troops allowing the Allies to capture the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Army Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt on March 10 is replaced as Commander-in-Chief of German forces in the West by Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. German troops evacuate Wesel on Germany’s lower Rhine, their last foothold on the west bank of the river. The U.S. Third Army captures Bonn, Germany.
Nagoya, Japan, is firebombed by several hundred American B-29s on March 11. Over Germany, 1,000 Allied bombers drop 4,662 tons of bombs on Essen, in the Ruhr. Adolf Hitler visits with Ninth Army commander Lt. Gen. Theodor Busse at Bad Freienwalde, on the Oder River near the Polish border. Der Führer pleads with Busse and his officers to hold back the Soviets until his “new weapons are ready.” However, he never elaborates on what these are.
There is heavy fighting at Remagen, Germany, on March 12 as the German Seventh Army counterattacks the Allied bridgehead at the Ludendorff Bridge. In Italy, the Communist Party calls for an armed uprising. The Soviet Union returns Transylvania to Romania (from Hungary). In northern Italy, near Lake Garda, Benito Mussolini narrowly escapes injury when an Allied fighter plane strafes a convoy of automobiles in which he is riding.
A surprise armored thrust by the British in central Burma on March 13 cuts off 30,000 Japanese troops in Mandalay. In Europe, following a 600-bomber raid by the U.S. 8th Air Force, the RAF, with 800 bombers, attacks Swinemünde (Świnoujście, in Polish) on the Baltic Sea in northwestern Poland, a major port of disembarkation for German refugees from eastern Germany. The raid causes heavy damage to the docks and kills between 20,000 and 23,000 civilians. Queen Wilhelmina returns to the Netherlands from her refuge in England, a stay which began in May 1940 when the Germans invaded Holland.
The U.S. Third Army crosses the Moselle River, southwest of Koblenz, Germany, on March 14. In Hungary, German counterattacks to recapture oilfields near Lake Balaton fail and come to an end.
In Germany on March 15, the U.S. Third Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, and the U.S. Seventh Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, engage in a joint effort to eliminate German forces from the area bounded by the Saar, Moselle and Rhine Rivers. On Iwo Jima, Japanese forces are confined to a small area in the northwest of the island. In California, the 17th Academy Awards ceremony is broadcast over radio for the first time. The musical comedy-drama “Going My Way” wins seven Oscars, including Best Picture.
