26 March 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: The St. Nazaire Raid. At 1500 hours, a small Royal Navy force consisting of three destroyers, a gunboat, and motorboats and motor torpedo boats carrying British Commandoes departs Falmouth Bay, Cornwall, England, for the French port of St. Nazaire located at the mouth of the Loire estuary.

FRANCE: During the day, 20 of 24 RAF Bomber Command Boston attack the port area at Le Havre with the loss of one aircraft. Hits were reported on ships in the harbor. During the night of the 26th/27th, eight aircraft attack the port area at Le Havre.

VICHY FRANCE: Pierre Laval warns Petain that there must be more collaboration if Hitler is not to appoint a Gauleiter to run the country.

NETHERLANDS: During the night of the 26th/27th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 11 Blenheims on an intruder mission; five hit Schipol Airfield (with the loss of two) and individual aircraft hit the port area of Rotterdam and Leeuwarden and Soesterburg Airfields.

GERMANY: A decree orders that all Jewish homes in the Reich must be clearly marked.

During the night of the 26th/27th, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 104 Wellingtons and 11 Stirlings to attack Essen using Gee; 10 Wellingtons and a Stirling are lost. The bombing force encountered heavy Flak at the target and many night fighters on the routes. Hits on the Krupps works and fires in Essen were claimed but the raid was actually another failure on this difficult target. Only 22 high-explosive bombs were counted in Essen, with two houses destroyed, six people killed and 14 injured. The bombers had suffered nearly 10 per cent casualties. Additional targets hit include Oberhausen by two aircraft and individual aircraft attacks on Duisburg and Kempin.

POLAND: Auschwitz: The first deportees, 999 Slovakian Jewesses, arrive at the camp.

Whilst escorting the oiler Slavol to Tobruk to refuel the 5^th. Destroyer flotilla, destroyer HMS Jaguar is torpedoed and sunk by U-652 off Sidi Barrani at 31 53N 26 18E.. There are 53 survivors who are rescued by the South African whaler Klo. Two hours later, U-652 sinks Slavol..

Destroyer HMS Legion which had been damaged in an air attack on convoy MW.10 on 23 March is bombed by aircraft whilst in the dock at Malta, and sinks alongside the jetty. Her crew had previously been evacuated from Malta.

U class submarine P.39 which was in the dockyard awaiting to have her damaged battery removed is bombed during an air raid and split into two halves with only the keel holding the ship in one piece. Regarded as too seriously damaged to be repaired, P.39 is towed up the harbour to Kalkara, beached and ostentatiously camouflaged (alongside the submarine base at Manoel Island ?) as a decoy. She then receives considerable attention from the Axis air forces which otherwise would have been directed elsewhere! (Alex Gordon)(108)

Two of the freighters from the recent relief convoy that arrived from Alexandria, Egypt, are sunk in port by the Luftwaffe. These two ships were still almost fully loaded as damage to the docks at Valletta has prevented their swift unloading. Of the 26,000 tons (23 587 metric tonnes) of supplies that had been sent from Egypt on this latest convoy, only 5,000 tons (4536 metric tonnes) are eventually unloaded.

BURMA: Continuing pressure against the Chinese in Toungoo, the Japanese seize the town as far as the railroad line. The Chinese 22d Division, which has previously been ordered to the Pyinmana-Yedashe area, north of Toungoo, to counterattack in support of the Chinese 200th Division, arrives in position but fails to take the offensive.

AVG personnel arriving here at odd hours, including 10 RAF enlisted ranks. Have nothing but the clothes on their backs;Included were:

Pete Hutton, Fred Creke, Richard Balis, Sgt. Ernest Hudson, Thomas Hadon and James McCarthy.

These men were rationed and billeted by the AVG and they in turn worked with the AVG flight line P-40 mechanics and armorers from Lowing to Kunming until Gen Chennault arranged transportation for them to rejoin the RAF some time later. I have no records of them being paid by the AVG. (Chuck Baisden, AVG Veteran)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Three B-17s of the 40th Reconnaissance Squadron based at Townsville, Queensland, Australia evacuate Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon and his family to Australia.

NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: A Japanese carrier force leaves the naval base at Kendari on Celebes Island for the Indian Ocean.

AUSTRALIA: At a meeting with the Australian Advisory War Council, General Douglas MacArthur"> MacArthur gives his views on the situation in Southeast Asia and the southwest Pacific. He doubts that the Japanese are able to undertake an invasion of Australia, and believes that it would be a great blunder on their part if they attempted it. However, he believes that the Japanese “might try to overrun Australia in order to demonstrate their superiority over the white races.” He suggests that the main danger is from isolated raids and attempts to secure air bases in the country and therefore, the first step is to make Australia secure.
General Douglas MacArthur receives the citation for his Medal of Honor at a formal dinner in Melbourne, Victoria. He tells the audience, "I have come as a soldier in a great crusade of personal liberty as opposed to perpetual slavery. My faith in our ultimate victory is invincible, and I bring you tonight the unbreakable spirit of the free man's military code in support of our joint cause." The Australians are delighted. MacArthur continues, that the medal is not "intended so much for me personally as it is a recognition of the indomitable courage of the gallant army which it was my honor to command."
Three USAAF B-17s of the 40th Reconnaissance Squadron based at Townsville, Queensland, evacuate Philippine President Manual L Quezon and his family to Australia.

U.S.A.: The motion picture "Song of the Islands" is released in the U.S. This musical, directed by Walter Lang, stars Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jack Oakie, Thomas Mitchell and Billy Gilbert. The plot concerns a man (Mature) who goes to a idyllic Pacific Island and falls in love with a beautiful woman (Grable).

Admiral Ernest J. King relieves Admiral Harold R. Stark as Chief of Naval Operations and thus becomes Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations; Vice Admiral Frederick J. Horne (Vice Chief of Naval Operations) and Vice Admiral Russell Willson (COMINCH Chief of Staff) are his principal assistants.
     Rear Admiral John Wilcox commanding Task Force 39 with the battleship USS Washington (BB-56), the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7), the heavy cruisers USS Wichita (CA-45) and Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and six destroyers, sails from Portland, Maine, for Scapa Flow, the major British fleet base in the Orkney Islands. These ships will protect British home waters for the duration of Operation Ironclad -- the British invasion of Vichy French controlled Madagascar. This is a reflection of the heavy Allied losses in capital ships to Japanese action in the Pacific.
     Commander of the USN’s Eastern Sea Frontier is given operational control of certain USAAF units for antisubmarine patrol duty in the Atlantic. Unity of command over Navy and USAAF units operating over water to protect shipping and conduct antisubmarine warfare is thus vested in the Navy.
    The presidents of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) promise to do all they can to curb the rash of strikes that has slowed industrial production. They oppose strikes for the duration.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two ships are torpedoed and sunk by German submarines off the coast of the U.S.: (1) U-71 sinks an unarmed U.S. tanker about 45 miles south southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; the ship breaks in half and sinks; and (2) U-160 sinks a Panamanian freighter about 107 miles east southeast of Norfolk, Virginia.