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March 2nd, 1942 (MONDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: The second U.S. Army increment (8,555 personnel) of the MAGNET Force, the movement of the first U.S. forces to Northern Ireland, arrives in Belfast in a 21-ship convoy plus escorts which sailed from Brooklyn, New York on 19 February. Among the arriving troops is the 34th Infantry Division headquarters and parts of the 133d and 168th Infantry. American strength in Northern Ireland on this date is reported as 10,433 (including 534 officers, 70 nurses, and 2 warrant officers). 

Destroyer ORP Orkan (ex-HMS Myrmidion) launched.

Escort carrier HMS Avenger commissioned.

NETHERLANDS: Four RAF Bomber Command Bostons attacked ships off Den Helder without loss. 

GERMANY: U-185, U-520 launched.

HUNGARY:  The government breaks diplomatic relations with Brazil. 

U.S.S.R.: Minsk: The Germans shoot dead 5,000 Jews.

TURKEY: The government closes the Dardanelles to all ships without Turkish captains. 

BURMA: The Japanese continue to infiltrate westward between the Burmese 1st and Indian 17th Divisions and are swinging southwest on Rangoon, bypassing Pegu. 

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: The Japanese gain further ground in Java, where the Dutch are continuing to resist; the Japanese claim the capture of Batavia, from which Dutch Government has been forced to move to Bandoeng. Actually,  a hastily organized Australian-Dutch-American-British infantry unit commanded by Australian Brigadier Arthur Blackburn, General Officer Commanding Australian Imperial Force Java, stops the Japanese 16th Army's advance on Batavia, the island's capital. 
     Many ships are scuttled off Java to prevent them from failing into enemy hands but the Japanese Main Body, Southern Force overtakes fleeing Allied ships southwest of Java; heavy cruiser HIJMS Maya and destroyers HIJMS Arashi and Nowaki sink British destroyer HMS Stronghold; heavy cruisers HIJMS Atago and Takao attack what they initially identify as a "Marblehead-class" cruiser and sink her with gunfire; their quarry is actually destroyer USS Pillsbury (DD-227), which is lost with all hands in the Indian Ocean about 270 miles (435 kilometres) south-southeast of Christmas Island. 
     In Surabaja, three ships are scuttled in drydock, the damaged Dutch destroyers HNMS Witte de With and Banckert and the American destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224). Stewart had entered the floating drydock on 22 February, however, she was inadequately supported in the dock, and, as the dock rose, the ship fell off the keel blocks onto her side in 12 feet (3,7 meters) of water bending her propeller shafts and causing further hull damage. With the port under enemy air attack and in danger of falling to the enemy, the ship could not be repaired and
demolition charges were set off within the ship, a Japanese bomb hit amidships further damaging her; and, before the port was evacuated on 2 March, the drydock containing her was scuttled. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 25 March 1942 and her name was soon assigned to a new destroyer escort, DE-238. Later in the war, U.S. pilots began reporting an American warship operating far within enemy waters. The ship had a Japanese bunked funnel but the lines for her four-piper hull were unmistakable. After almost a year under water, Stewart had been raised by the Japanese in February 1943 and commissioned by them on 20 September 1943 as Patrol Boat No. 102. She was armed with two 3-inch (7,62 centimeter) guns and operated with the Japanese Southwest Area Fleet on escort duty until arriving at Kure, Japan, for repairs in November 1944. There her antiaircraft battery was augmented and she was given a light tripod foremast. She then sailed for the Southwest Pacific, but the American reconquest of the Philippines blocked her way. On 28 April 1945, still under control of the Southwest Area Fleet, she was bombed and damaged by USAAF aircraft at Mokpo, Korea. She was transferred on 30 April to the control of the Kure Navy District; and, in August 1945, was found by American occupation forces laid up in Hiro Bay near Kure. In an emotional ceremony on 29 October 1945, the old ship was recommissioned as simply DD-224 in theUSNat Kure. On the trip home, her engines gave out near Guam, and she arrived at San Francisco in early March 1946 at the end of a tow line. DD-224 was struck from the Navy list on 17 April 1946, decommissioned on 23 May 1946, and sunk a day later off San Francisco, California, as a target for aircraft.
     At Jogjakarta Airdrome, the last airbase on Java still occupied by the Allies, 260 officers and enlisted men are crammed aboard five USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses and three LB-30 Liberators for the final flight to Broome, Western Australia.  (James Paterson and Jack McKillop)
 

LOMBOK STRAIT:  Submarine USS Sailfish (SS-192) torpedoes and sinks Japanese aircraft transport HIJMS Kamogawa Maru about 10 miles (16 kilometres) off the northeast coast of Bali. 

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Four P-40s based on Bataan attack Japanese ships in Subic Bay, Luzon, with 500-pound (227 kilogram) bombs sinking an auxiliary submarine chaser. One P-40 is shot down and the other three are destroyed in crash landings. 
     The rations of the U. S.-Filipino army on Bataan are reduced again, this time to one-quarter of the normal daily food allowance. The trapped troops supplement their diet with horse and water buffalo meat and even lizards. Disease is taking a heavy toll on the 95,000 men on Bataan and Corregidor -- especially malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea. Many men are so weak they can hardly crawl to their foxholes and lift their rifles. 
     Elsewhere in the Philippines, Japanese warships bombard Cebu and Negros Islands in the central archipelago and Japanese troops land at Zamboanga on Mindanao Island. 

NEW GUINEA: The Japanese Navy begins heavy air strikes against Allied bases in preparation for invasion of the Huon Gulf area. 

AUSTRALIA: The government declares war on Thailand. 

Minesweeper HMAS Glenelg laid down.

 

U.S.A.:  Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief United States Fleet, proposes that 353 square mile (914 square kilometer) Efate Island in the central New Hebrides Islands be established as a place “from which a step-by-step advance could be made through the New Hebrides, Solomons, and Bismarcks.” 
     Regularly scheduled operations by the U.S. Naval Air Transport Service are inaugurated with an R4D Skytrain flight from NAS Norfolk, Virginia, to NRAB Squantum, Massachusetts. 

The Western defence Command issues a proclamation which designates the western halves of California, Oregon, and Washington, and the southern third of Arizona as a military area and states that all persons of Japanese descent are to be removed from this area. Through the month of March 1942, people affected by this proclamation are allowed to move to new homes of their own choosing outside the military area, and about 8,000 people in fact move outside the military area during the month. (Scott Peterson) More...

Destroyer USS Aulick launched.

Destroyer USS McKee laid down.

Submarine USS Kingfish launched.

 

ATLANTIC OCEAN:

At 2047, the unescorted Gunny was torpedoed by U-126 about 400 miles south of Bermuda and sank within one minute. The ship had been missed at 1215 by a first torpedo. 13 survivors climbed on a raft, but had no food and water. The injured chief engineer died on the fourth day. On 9 March, Swedish MS Temnaren picked up the remaining survivors.


 

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