In this classic photograph, Brigadier General Orde Wingate is next to Brigadier Derek Tulloch at the far right. Majors Philip Cochran (back, facing camera) and John Alison are on the left. Major Alison is holding a map with Brigadier Scott, who wrote an account of this informal gathering. Air Marshal Baldwin and Brigadier Michael Calvert stand between Scott and Wingate. Source: Warfare History Network. 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.
After inspecting three forward bases in Burma on March 24, 1944, British Acting Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, commander of the Chindits, is killed when the USAAF B-25 Mitchell bomber in which he is riding crashes into jungle-covered mountains in Manipur State, India. In response to the killing of 33 German police in Rome by the Italian Resistance the previous day, SS Col. Herbert Kappler conducts the execution of 335 Italian men and boys — at least 255 of whom are civilians and not prisoners or Resistance fighters — in reprisal. The executions are approved by Hitler personally. Those chosen are taken to the Fosse Ardeatine caves outside of Rome and shot. The Nazis then seal the caves. Not yet knowing of the Ardeatine massacre, President Roosevelt issues a statement condemning ongoing German and Japanese “crimes against humanity.” In the Pacific, the last Japanese organized resistance on Bougainville ends.
On March 25, 200 Allied aviation officers attempt to escape from the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Lower Silesia, Prussia, about 100 miles southeast of Berlin. (The camp holds almost 11,000 Allied pilots and aircrewmen.) Only 76 make it outside the camp (the escape tunnel is discovered before all 200 can make the break). Of these, 73 are recaptured and, on Hitler’s orders, 50 are executed. The three not caught successfully make it to safety — two to Sweden and one to Spain and then Gibraltar. Known as “The Great Escape,” the breakout inspires two books (in 1950) and a movie (in 1963).
The RAF sends 705 bombers to attack Essen, Germany, on March 26. In Ukraine, a large part of the German 1st Panzer Army (part of Army Group South) is cut off by advances by the Soviet 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts. In Greece, a Political Committee of National Liberation is founded, which is in opposition to both the Nazi-collaborationist government in Athens and the royal government-in-exile in Cairo.
A British torpedo-boat squadron on March 27 destroys a small German coastal convoy in the Ligurian Sea off Vado, near Savona, in northern Italy. Allied convoy JW.58 sets sail from Iceland heading for Murmansk, Russia, carrying vital war materiel to the Soviet Union.
In Ukraine, at Odessa, in the Crimea, a seaborne evacuation of German and Romanian troops and Axis wounded begins on March 28.
The U.S. Navy on March 29 bombards the Palau Islands, part of the Carolines group, to the east of the Philippines, destroying 150 Japanese planes, six naval vessels and 100,000 tons of merchant shipping.
A siege of Imphal, Manipur, India, begins on March 30 as Japanese troops surround the city and cut the road north to Kohima. Imphal can now only be supplied by air. On the Eastern Front, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group South, and his subordinate, Field Marshal Paul von Kleist, commander of Army Group A, are sacked by Hitler for unauthorized retreats along the Dnieper River. They are replaced, respectively, by Field Marshal Walter Model and Col. Gen. Ferdinand Schörner. The RAF attacks Nuremberg, Germany, with 795 aircraft but suffers its greatest loss in a single raid: 545 airmen, with 95 planes lost and 71 damaged.
