Opening of the Luftwaffe's spring blitz on London: Buckingham Palace targeted; St Paul's Cathedral survives.

Plymouth was also bombed. So many incendiaries were dropped during the city's fiercest raid of the war that they sounded like hail bouncing off the roofs. The bombers arrived shortly after the King and Queen had completed a visit to the shipyards. The bombs wrought havoc in residential areas and shopping streets. Many fires are started and Plymouth is still burning the next day.

Clydeside: Two men are rescued after being buried for a week in a wrecked tenement.

London:

Prime Minister to Minister of Food:

I hope the term "Communal Feeding Centres" is not going to be adopted. It is an odious expression, suggestive of Communism and the workhouse, I suggest you call them "British Restaurants". Everyone associates the word "restaurant" with a good meal, and they may as well have the name if they cannot get anything else.

Prime Minister to First Lord of Admiralty:

...No effort to destroy the Focke-Wulfs should be spared. If we could employ Radar methods to find their positions and direct long-range fighters or ship-borne aircraft to the attack. ...Might it not be feasible to place a Radar station on Rockall?

Minesweeping trawler HMS Asama Sunk by German aircraft off Plymouth.

GERMANY:

YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: Prince Paul's decision to sign up with the Axis powers led to a major cabinet crisis tonight, when three ministers resigned and a fourth threatened to do so.

Paul, the regent of Yugoslavia, tried to refuse the resignations; but the ministers were adamant that in no circumstances would they accept Germany as an ally or agree to German military rail transports crossing Yugoslavia.

The cabinet crisis threatens to delay the signing of the pact. Ministers who were due in Vienna today to meet Hitler have postponed the visit.

GREECE: 1st Armoured Brigade reaches its forward positions in the plain between the river Axios and the Olympus-Vermion mountain range, with orders to fight a delaying action there, and to cover the preparation of demolition's.

Mussolini flies back to Italy from the Albanian front. (Mike Yaklich)

Cruiser HMS York is attacked by Italian MT explosive torpedo boats in Suda Bay harbour, Crete which blow open the side of the ship and flood both engine and boiler rooms. Settling in 1,5 metres of water, she is subsequently damaged repeatedly by German air attacks and by 22 May is beyond salvage. (Alex Gordon)(108)

LIBYA: Jarabub: the longest siege so far in this desert war came to a quiet, though abrupt, end at this tiny outpost in the very heart of the Libyan desert today. For political reasons - Jarabub is sacred to the Senussi sect - neither the Italian garrison nor the British besiegers were anxious to upset the Arab people by desecrating the shrine. After 15 weeks of observation by a small detachment of British and Australian troops, the Allies moved in and took Jarabub with little or no resistance. No damage was done to either the shrine or the sacred relics, according to Allied sources.

Italian General Italo Gariboldi is named Governor-General of Libya and Commander in Chief of Italian forces in North Africa replacing General Rodolfo Graziani. Graziani had asked Mussolini on 8 February 1941 to be replaced. 

BRITISH SOMALILAND: Troops of the 11th African Division attack Italian positions in the Marda Pass west of Jijiga. After some resistance the Italians fall back despite the strength of their positions. 

U.S.A.: The motion picture "The Sea Wolf" premieres aboard the SS America cruising off the California coast. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the psychological drama based on a Jack London novel stars Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Gene Lockhart and Barry Fitzgerald.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-106 damaged SS Meerker in Convoy SL-68.