President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged Americans to ration food so that nations that were impoverished by World War II would have more food. Pictured above is a food rationing book plus items that were rationed. Wikimedia Commons
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.
In the Pacific, Iwo Jima is declared secured on March 16, 1945, after a month’s fighting, although sporadic skirmishing continues as isolated Japanese soldiers emerge from caves and tunnels. Halfway around the world, in Europe, the German offensive in Hungary ends in another victory for the Soviet Red Army. In a news conference in Washington, D.C., President Roosevelt says that as a matter of decency, Americans should tighten their belts so that food could be shipped to war-torn countries to feed people there who are starving.
The U.S. Third Army takes Koblenz, Germany, on March 17. The Ludendorff bridge, at Remagen, Germany, seized by U.S. troops on March 7, collapses suddenly, killing 25 U.S. Army engineers working to reinforce it. (It had likely been weakened by the battle fought around it as the Germans tried to recapture it. By this time, however, engineers of the U.S. First Army had already built other crossings.) Allied ships bombard the northern coast of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies.
The Red Army on March 18 approaches Danzig, on the Baltic Sea. About 1,300 American bombers drop 3,000 tons of bombs on Berlin despite heavy anti-aircraft resistance, including numerous jet fighters. The U.S. Eighth Air Force loses six fighters and 13 bombers, while the Luftwaffe loses only two fighter planes. In the Ligurian Sea, off Genoa, Italy, British and German naval forces clash. Two German torpedo boats are sunk, and a destroyer is damaged. One British destroyer takes light damage.
Important bases of the Imperial Japanese Navy at Kobe and Kure, in Japan, are heavily bombed by American planes on March 19. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler issues what comes to be known as his “Nero Decree,” ordering that all of Germany’s infrastructure — industrial complexes, machine shops, military installations, transportation facilities and communications centers — be destroyed, so that it cannot be used by invading Allied forces. Aghast at the dictum, Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, — who is made responsible for the decree’s implementation by Hitler — deliberately disobeys the order and works hard to prevent the decree from being carried out by others. Most German army commanders in the field either ignore or circumvent der Führer’s command. Off the coast of Japan, Japanese bombers attack the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing about 800 of her crew, wounding 486 and crippling the ship. (Franklin’s casualty numbers are the highest of any U.S. fleet carrier that survives the war.) Franklin’s Catholic chaplain, Lt. Cmdr. Joseph T. O’Callahan, S.J., provides extraordinary leadership in saving the ship — in addition to administering the last rites to the dead and dying, he organizes and directs firefighting and rescue parties and leads men below to wet down magazines that are in danger of exploding from the heat. In 1946, he is awarded the Medal of Honor for his work, the first of only two Navy chaplains ever to be so honored and the only chaplain of 464 individuals awarded the Medal of Honor during the war. Lt.(j.g.) Donald Gary is also awarded the nation’s highest military honor for his work on Franklin in rescuing 300 crewmen trapped below decks, organizing and leading firefighting parties on the hangar deck, and working his way below to the engineering spaces to raise steam in one boiler to power fire-fighting pumps.
After 12 days of fighting, Mandalay, in central Burma, is liberated by the (British) Indian Nineteenth Army on March 20 and is firmly under the control of British and Indian troops. Tokyo is firebombed again by American bombers. Lt. Gen. Patton’s U.S. Third Army troops capture Mainz, Germany. The U.S. Seventh Army captures Saarbrücken, in southwestern Germany. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler makes a rare public appearance, awarding medals to Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) soldiers. He also replaces Heinrich Himmler (who had declared himself “sick” and abandoned his post) as commander-in-chief of Army Group Vistula with Gen. Gotthard Heinrici, considered the best defensive tactician in the German Army. Heinrici is tasked with arranging defenses along the Oder River in anticipation of the Red Army’s expected offensive towards Berlin.
The Japanese attempt to attack Allied ships off Okinawa with the first Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka flying bombs on March 21. The piloted, rocket-powered bombs, essentially kamikaze rockets, carried by and launched from Mitsubishi “Betty” bombers, can reach speeds up to 650 miles per hour in a dive. The flight of 16 Bettys carrying the Ohkas is intercepted by American carrier-based planes 60 miles from the task force and all are shot down. (The pilots note that the Bettys are flying unusually slowly and are carrying some sort of unusual payload, but the significance of this is not understood at the time.) The RAF conducts a precision airstrike on Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Although the target building is destroyed, disrupting anti-resistance operations, the surrounding neighborhood suffers collateral damage, including a school where 86 students and 18 adults die. Also killed are 21 other civilians in the area.
U.S. and British troops cross the Rhine at Oppenheim, Germany, on March 22. In Cairo, Egypt, representatives from Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria sign a charter creating the Arab League. In Madrid, Infante Juan de Borbon of Spain, Count of Barcelona and heir-apparent to the Spanish throne, demands the resignation of Francisco Franco and the restoration of the Spanish monarchy.
U.S. Marines on March 23 seize islands off the coast of Okinawa, south of Japan. Col.-Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff is named supreme commander of German forces in Italy, replacing Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who had earlier been named as head of German Army Command West, in France. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler approves the withdrawal of German troops across the Rhine, but by the time this permission is granted, any German troops who were going to make it across were already across.
On March 24, two Allied airborne divisions capture bridges across the Rhine River to aid the Allied advance. British Field Marshal Montgomery’s troops cross the Rhine, at Wesel. Provisional President Charles de Gaulle announces in Paris that France intends to retain control of Indochina.
The U.S. Navy begins the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa on March 25, firing more than half a million shells and rockets in the space of a week. In a symbolic act, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, accompanied by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and a military escort, crosses the Rhine River into Germany near Wesel in an Allied landing craft. The group ventures as far as a bridge that is under enemy fire, then returns. (Gen. Eisenhower later says that if he had been there, he never would have let Churchill cross the river because of the obvious danger.) American troops capture Darmstadt, Germany, about 15 miles south of Frankfurt am Main; they find that about 60% of residents who are still there are homeless.
The last organized Japanese troops on Iwo Jima launch a suicide attack on March 26. In a pitched, 90-minute battle, Army pilots, Navy Seabees and Marines fend off the 300 Japanese attackers, suffering 53 killed and 126 wounded. Total U.S. casualties on Iwo Jima number 6,891 killed and 19,217 wounded. Japanese casualties number 18,300 killed and 216 captured. (Another 867 Japanese are captured by the U.S. Army after the marines leave the island.) Medals of Honor are awarded to 22 marines and five sailors for their efforts during the battle, the only one of the war where U.S. Marine casualties are higher than those of the Japanese. The Red Army captures two German strongpoints covering approaches to the Austrian border.
On March 27, the 1,115th V-2 launched — and the last to reach England — lands in Orpington, Kent, England, killing one person. There is bitter street fighting in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland, as the Red Army forces its way into the city’s defenses. Argentina declares war on Germany and Japan.
The British Second Army on March 28 begins a drive towards the Elbe River in Germany as the U.S. First Army captures Marburg, 60 miles northeast of Koblenz. The U.S. Third Army captures Limburg on the River Lahn. The 1st Belorussian Front, after a long struggle, captures Gotenhafen (Gdynia), Poland, on the Baltic coast northwest of Danzig, along with 9,000 prisoners. After a heated argument with Hitler over the conduct of the war on both fronts, Col.-Gen. Heinz Guderian is replaced by Lt. Gen. Hans Krebs as chief of the German High Command. In Asia, Burmese politician and military leader Aung San leads his small Burma National Army in a revolt against the Japanese, with whom, until recently, he has been allied. On Bougainville Island, in the Solomons, the Australian 7th Brigade engages troops of the Japanese 6th Division in the start of the Battle of Slater’s Knoll.
On March 29, the Red Army enters Austria. The U.S. Seventh Army captures Mannheim and Heidelberg, both in Germany. Other Allied troops capture Frankfurt am Main. The Germans are in general retreat throughout the center of the country. The Soviets seize oilfields south of Komorn, Hungary, the last possible source of petroleum for the German war effort.
