In order to help the crews, several navigation systems were created. For accurate blind bombing, the systems Oboe and Gee-H (radio-based systems) were used, although these could only be used by a very small number of planes at once. This limited them to being used by the pathfinder force, which used dedicated planes to drop targeting flares in order to improve accuracy for the rest of the bombers. For more information click 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.
RAF Bomber Command on March 5, 1943, reports the “first effective attack on Essen [a major German industrial center],” due primarily to the use of a new navigation aid called “Oboe.” The system uses ground-based and airborne transponders to guide airplanes and keep them on course even when the skies are cloud-covered. A force of 367 bombers using Oboe strikes the Krupp Works munitions factory; 14 aircraft are lost, but significant damage is done, and 160 acres of the city are flattened.
In North Africa, the Battle of Medenine, Tunisia, takes place on March 6 as Axis forces launch an offensive to delay the British Eighth Army’s attack on the Mareth Line. The British, however, had decrypted German communications, and rushed reinforcements forward from Tripoli and Benghazi. The Axis attack fails, at a cost of 635 casualties and 52 precious tanks, against Allied casualties of 130. As Rommel cannot afford to lose men needed to defend the Mareth Line, the attack is called off. In Moscow, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin promotes himself to the rank of Field Marshal.
On March 7, 100,000 troops of the Japanese 15th Army cross the River Chindwin and invade India, defended by the British 15th Army under the command of Lt. Gen. William Slim. In London, the Polish government-in-exile registers the first reports of prisoner executions at the Nazi concentration camp at Oświęcim, Poland, (known by the Germans as “Auschwitz”).
In China, the Japanese advance across the Yangtze River on March 8. They are stopped by Chinese forces five days later.
The German submarine U-510 on March 9 torpedoes eight ships in three hours off the coast of Brazil, in what is the most successful single U-boat action of the war. Col.-Gen. Jürgen von Arnim replaces Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as commander-in-chief of Axis forces in Tunisia. Rommel, whose health is deteriorating, has been ordered by Hitler to leave Africa. “The Desert Fox” will never return.
The Soviet Union on March 10 establishes “Laboratory No. 2 of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences,” a secret atomic-energy research facility near Moscow. The lab is under the direction of nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov. Germany begins new rationing of non-essential goods, the prohibition of the manufacture of suits, and restrictions on the use of telephones and photography.
March 11 starts several days of difficulty for North Atlantic convoys. Convoy ON 169 (Liverpool to New York; 63 freighters) is attacked by wolfpack “Raubgraf” (Robber Baron) between 11 and 12 March, losing 2 ships for 10,531 gross tons. Convoys SC 121 (Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool; 69 merchant ships) and HX 228 (New York to Liverpool; 87 merchant ships) are also attacked in the next days by other wolfpacks, and lose 17 ships collectively against the loss of just two German U-boats. In Washington, President Roosevelt signs legislation extending the Lend-Lease program for one more year.
