March 8th, 1942 (SUNDAY)
FRANCE: Paris: A dynamite charge is set off at anti-Bolshevik exhibition.24 RAF Douglas Boston IIIs of No. 88 Squadron, based
at Swanton Morley, make an attack
on the Matford automobile works at Poissy, flying as low as possible to confuse
German defences. They have much support from RAF Fighter Command.
Twelve Bostons of No. 88 and 226 Squadrons make a low-level
attack on the Ford truck factory at Poissy, near Paris, a target beyond the
range of fighter cover. Two further formations, each of six Bostons, carry out
Circus operations to the Abbeville railway yards and Comines power-station at
times which would divert German fighter attention from the Poissy raid.
During the night of the 8th/9th, 13
Wellingtons and Stirlings bomb the port area at Le Havre, three Manchesters
lay mines off Lorient, and a Hampden drops leaflets. . (22)
BELGIUM: RAF Bomber Command dispatches six Blenheims to attack the port area at Ostend during the night of the 8th/9th; four aircraft bomb the target.
NETHERLANDS: RAF Bomber Command dispatches six Blenheims to attack airfields during the night of the 8th/9th; two bomb Soesterberg Airfield.
GERMANY: RAF Bomber Command dispatches 211 aircraft, 115 Wellingtons, 37 Hampdens, 27 Stirlings, 22 Manchesters and 10 Halifaxes, the leading aircraft equipped with the Gee navigational aid, to attack the Krupps factories in Essen during the night of the 8th/9th. It was a fine night but industrial haze over Essen prevents accurate bombing with only 168 aircraft attacking the target and the raid was a disappointment. Gee could only enable the aircraft to reach the approximate area of the target. Photographic evidence showed that the main target, the Krupps factories, was not hit but some bombs fell in the southern part of Essen. Essen reports only a 'light' raid with a few houses and a church destroyed, ten people killed and 19 missing. Individual aircraft bomb Dortmund, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Gelsenkirchen and Oberhausen.
U.S.S.R.: (Sergey Anisimov)(69)Polar Fleet and White Sea Flotilla: Shipping loss. SKR-26 "Mgla" (ex-RT-38 "Strelok") - at storm, close to Cape Zip-Navolok.
MIDDLE EAST: Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie, General Officer Commanding Eighth Army, is ordered by General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief Middle East Command, to provide a diversion in Libya for passage of convoy to Malta. The supply situation on Malta is very serious.
BURMA: Rangoon: Only the spire of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda rises above the smoke. The city is deserted as Colonel Harada Munaji's 215 Regiment picks its way through the ruined suburbs.
Rangoon has fallen to the Japanese, with much assistance from the Burmese nationalist supporters of the former prime minister, U Maung Saw (interned by the British), who are fighting a guerrilla war against the retreating British forces. For four days the British tried to defend Rangoon, even after most of the population had fled. But after the disaster at Sittang Bridge there was nothing to defend it with, and the British request for the 7th Australian Division was refused by the Australian government. The British were lucky to have got their army out in time. The new commander, General Alexander, and his staff were nearly captured on their way out.
The British 63d Brigade and elements of the 16th, with
tank and artillery support, clear the Japanese block on the Rangoon-Prome road
at Taukkyan.
During the period 8-13 March, the entire USAAF bomber force in India, two
LB-30 and two B-24 Liberators and a B-17 Flying Fortress begin moving a British
infantry battalion and supplies to the American Volunteer Group (AVG, aka, the
“Flying Tigers”) base at Magwe. A total of 474 troops and 29 tons (26.3 metric
tonnes) of supplies are transported and on the return flights, the crews
evacuate 423 civilians.
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: At 0900 hours on
Java, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces, Lieutenant General Hein Ter
Poorten, broadcasts a proclamation to the effect that organized resistance by
the Royal Netherlands East Indian Army in Java would end. The Governor-General
of the Dutch East Indies and General Ter Poorten, together with the garrison
commander of Bandoeng area, meet the Japanese Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant
General IMAMURA Hitoshi at Kalidjati that afternoon and agree to the
capitulation of all the troops in the Netherlands East Indies. As a result, the
Japanese occupy the naval base at Surabaja by 1800 hours.
On learning of the surrender, Australian Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur S.
Blackburn, the leader of “Blackforce,” moves his troops to a position around
Tjikadjang covering the roads leading to the south coast. That afternoon RAF Air
Vice-Marshal Maltby and Major General Hervey Sitwell, General Officer Commanding
British Troops Java, issues orders for all British units to comply and the
Japanese wisely did not pursue the Allies into the rugged hills. Yet the
Australians remain deployed and armed during the next three days with Blackburn
contemplating the decision to fight on, with the rainy season approaching, and
the health and medical facilities and survivability of his troops to consider
plus untrained and inadequately equipped for jungle guerilla actions and
mountain warfare, or surrender against all his soldiers desires to resist until
defeated. He informed General Sitwell that he'd join the surrender and with that
all weapons were thoroughly destroyed.
Over 100,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner on Java. More than 8,500
Dutch soldiers will die in captivity -- 25 percent -- and a further10,500 Dutch
civilian internees will perish, out of 80,000 interned. Many soldiers and
civilians will die while hiding on remote islands, hoping for rescue, or
building boats to flee to Australia.
Minesweeper HNLMS Eland Dubois scuttled near Gili Genteng after suffering water leakage making escape to Australia hopeless. The crew was transferred to the sister ship Jan van Amstel, but she was sunk by Japanese destroyers with heavy loss of life the same day in the Madoera Strait.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: General
Douglas
MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, issues a
communiqué saying that his opponent, General HOMMA Masaharu, has committed
suicide out of frustration. This story gets heavily embellished and just as
heavily repeated. Homma reads the report with some amusement. He is less amused
when inspecting officers from the Imperial General Staff in Tokyo arrive to find
out why he hasn't taken the Philippines on time. They reprimand Homma for
allowing his staff officers to live in plush hotels in Manila while their troops
fight in the jungle. Some of Homma's staff are shipped off to Manchuria.
However, the staff officers realize that Homma needs reinforcements, and ship in
the 65th Brigade of 3,500 men and the 4th Infantry Division from Shanghai. Homma
is not happy. The 4th's 11,000 men are the worst equipped division in the whole
Japanese army. However, the siege guns from China are most welcome, and they
hurl 240 mm shells at American islands in Manila Bay, including Fort Drum, the
"concrete battleship."
NEW GUINEA: A Japanese convoy
arrives in Huon Gulf during the night of the 7th/8th and under cover of a naval
bombardment lands assault forces at Salamaua and Lae without opposition. The 2nd
Maizuru Special Naval Landing Force and 400-men of a naval construction
battalion land at Lae while a battalion group of the 144th Regiment lands at
Salamaua. Members of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles stationed in the two towns
carried out demolition work and then withdrew westward.
During the day, the crew of an RAAF Hudson of No. 32 Squadron, based at
Seven Mile Airstrip, Port Moresby, attacks the transports and scores a direct
hit on an 8,000-ton ship which is later seen to be burning and listing.
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Wagga is laid down.
NEW ZEALAND: Japanese submarine
HIJMS I-25 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane
(later assigned the Allied Code Name “Glen”) to reconnoiter Wellington.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: Brigadier General William O. Butler assumes command of the USAAF 11th Air Force with HQ at Ft Richardson, Anchorage. The 11th Air Force is assigned to the Alaska defence Command (Major General Simon B. Buckner, Jr.) and the Alaska defence Command is in turn assigned to the Western defence Command (Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt), which was designated a theater of operations early in the war.
U.S.A.: HQ of the USAAF 10th Air Force begins a movement from Patterson Field, Fairfield, Ohio to India.
Destroyer USS Franks is laid down.
USCG plane locates lifeboats of SS Arubutan off the North
Carolina coast and direct USCG Calypso to them.
CARIBBEAN SEA: About 0900, the unescorted tanker Esso Bolivar was attacked by U-126 with gunfire about 30 miles SE of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Shells struck the after house, wheelhouse and the midship house. The third shell exploded in the afterhouse starting a fire in the galley which soon spread and blazed upward like a flaming torch driving the gun crew from the after gun. Bulkheads caved from the intense heat. About one hour later the engines were stopped because the steering gear was shot away and the deck cargo was set on fire. At 1117 hours, a torpedo struck on the starboard side blowing part of the deck cargo several hundred feet into the air and making a hole 50 x 35 feet next to the pumproom. She took a heavy list to port but stayed afloat. Of the 44 crewmembers and six armed guards on board (the ship was armed with one stern gun and four .30cal guns), seven crew members, including the master and chief mate and one armed guard died and ten crewmen and four armed guards were injured. The survivors abandoned ship in four rafts and one lifeboat, which picked up the men swimming in the water. All were picked up by minesweeper USS Endurance and taken to Guantanamo Naval Base. The abandoned tanker was towed to Guantanamo Bay and left on 25 March under her own power with a Naval escort, arriving Mobile five days later. The permanent repairs were completed on 24 July and the ship returned to service on 6 August, when the tanker left Corpus Christi with a full cargo for New York. The chief mate Hawkings Fudske was awarded the Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal (MMDS) posthumously and a Liberty ship was named after him. The chief engineer William McTaggart, Fireman Arthur Lauman and AB Charles Richardson also awarded the MMDS for bravery in the attack on this ship.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1917, the unescorted
SS Hengist was torpedoed by U-569
NW of Cape Wrath and sunk by a coup de grâce at 2004 hours. Two crewmembers and
one gunner were lost. The master, 24 crewmembers and four gunners were picked up
by French trawler Groenland and landed at Loch Ewe.
ASW trawler HMS Northern Princess was
torpedoed and sunk by U-587
off Newfoundland. The vessel was reported missing after she was seen for the
last time at 2043 hours on 7 March in 45°22N/55°59W.
At 1241, the unescorted SS Baluchistan was torpedoed and damaged by
U-68 30 miles SW of Grand Cess,
Liberia. At 1328 and 1409, the vessel was hit by two coups de grâce and was
finally sunk by gunfire between 1431 and 1440 with 21 high explosive and 14
incendiary shells. Three passengers were lost. The master, 61 crewmembers, four
gunners and two passengers landed near Cape Palmas, Liberia.
ASW trawler HMS Notts County torpedoed and
sunk by U-701 south of
Iceland.