UNITED KINGDOM: London: Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet is appointed to serve on the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee in Washington D.C. relinquishing his command in the Mediterranean.
FRANCE: During the day, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 12 Bostons to attack a “Q-ship” at Boulogne; clouds are encountered and the dock area is bombed instead. A Boston is lost. During the night, two targets are hit: (1) 34 Wellingtons and 22 Hampdens are dispatched to attack the port area at Le Havre; 46 bomb and successful bombing is claimed. One Wellington is lost. (2) Twenty four Whitleys and 17 Wellingtons are dispatched to bomb the Ford Motor Co. factory in the Paris suburb of Poissy; 34 aircraft attack and crews claim accurate bombing but this is not confirmed by a later photographic flight. A Wellington is lost. Other missions during the night are (1) 11 aircraft laying mines off Lorient and in the mouth of the River Gironde and (2) five aircraft dropping leaflets.
GERMANY: Berlin: The Nazis have drawn up a set of rules for disposing of the possessions looted from Jews, down to the last fountain-pen.
They have decreed that German Mark are to be paid into the bank account of the SS's administration department, which runs the concentration camps. Foreign currency, precious metals, jewellery and dental gold are to be handed over to the SS for transfer to the Reichsbank. Alarm clocks, pocket knives, scissors, wallets and fountain-pens will be sold to troops at the front.
During the night of the 1st/2nd, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 35 Wellingtons and 14 Hampdens to carry out low-level attacks on railway targets. Nine aircraft attack the marshalling yard at Hanau but 12 Wellingtons and a Hampden are lost en route. In other attacks, three aircraft attack the city of Darmstadt and one hits Frankfurt-am-Main. No 57 Squadron based at Feltwell, Norfolk, England, lost five of the 12 Wellingtons dispatched while No. 214 Squadron at Stradishall, Suffolk, England, lost seven of 14 Wellingtons.
SWEDEN: Operation Performance kicks
off as eleven Norwegian merchant ships in the port of Gothenberg try to flee
through the Skagerrak (the body of water between Norway and Denmark) to Britain.
Five are sunk before they clear the Skagerrak, one is too badly damaged to
continue, two turn back, only two reach Britain.
U.S.S.R.: A stalemate exists along
the entire line. The Germans of Army Group North are largely concerned during
the month with extricating II Corps of the Sixteenth Army from a pocket
southeast of Staraya Russa.
Murmansk: The battered
convoy PQ-13 arrived here today. Five of the 19 merchant ships which began the
voyage had been sunk, two by U-boats, two by aircraft and one by a destroyer.
The problems began on 24 March when a violent storm off Bear Island separated
them from the escort of a cruiser, HMS TRINIDAD, and two destroyers.
The Luftwaffe found the unprotected ships and called in the U-boats and three destroyers from Kirkenes. The escort found its charges too late to save five of them, but it managed to destroy on of the German destroyers, Z26.
HMS TRINIDAD was crippled by a torpedo but managed to limp into Kola Inlet near Murmansk. It was only when her sailors were examining the debris in the boiler rooms that they discovered that the torpedo that hit her was her own. The severe cold had affected the steering mechanism so that it circled back.
The incident shows the hazards of the Arctic route. Sailors work in ice spray which freezes on the deck. But the improving weather now also means a bigger threat from the Germans. This spring the convoys have to cope with attacks from Germany's most powerful battleship, the TIRPITZ, sent to these waters a few weeks ago. Yesterday a force of 34 Halifaxes set out to bomb her but failed even to find the target.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS Urge sinks the Italian light cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere near Stromboli Island north of Sicily.
MALTA: LAC Albert Matthew Osborne (b.1906), RAFVR, died while tackling a burning plane with the courage shown in his many similar operations on Malta. (George Cross)
MALTA: Two submarines are sunk in harbour by an air attack.
U class submarine P.36 is bombed in an air attack whilst
alongside the jetty at Manoel Island, Malta and has a hole blown in her pressure
hull. An attempt was made to keep the submarine afloat, but when it seemed as if
the weight of the submarine might cause the arches of the submarine base
structure to collapse, she was cut free and allowed to sink. In August 1958,
P.36 was raised and scuttled at sea.
Submarine HMS Pandora which had brought vital stores to Malta and was being unloaded, receives two bomb hits in an air attack and sinks within four minutes. The wreck was later raised and sent to join P. 39 at Kalkara Creek. In 1957 it was being broken up when two skeletons of her crew were found in the compartment where they had died, which were then buried at sea on 1 July 1957 from HMS Tudor. (Alex Gordon)(108)
BURMA: General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief India, visiting the front, agrees to the immediate withdrawal of Burma I Corps to the Allanmyo area, north of Prome. The Japanese continue to press in on Prome. Wavell sends a message to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stating that the Japanese command of the air is setting the Allied command in Burma an extremely difficult task. Lieutenant General William J Slim, General Officer Commanding Burma Corps, and Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India and Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army, meet for the first time and are impressed with each other.
CHINA: After meeting with British General William J Slim in Burma, Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell flies to Chungking to meet with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. The meeting is stormy. Stilwell tells Chiang he will resign because the Chinese generals won't obey his orders. "What a gag," Stilwell writes. "I have to tell Chiang Kai Shek with a straight face that his subordinates are not carrying out his orders, when in all probability they are doing just what he tells them. In justice to all of them, however, it is expecting a great deal to have them turn over a couple of armies in a vital area to a foreigner."
JAPAN: Japanese Combined Fleet Headquarters submits a draft of an operational plan for the Second Phase of operations, in which the Aleutian Operation (AL-GO) will be followed by a Midway Operation.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The Japanese Army resumes major attacks against the US and Filipino forces on Bataan. The 24,000 men there are on 1/4 rations and ill from food shortages and tropical diseases.
NEW GUINEA: Japanese
troops from the Netherlands East Indies land at a number of points on the Dutch
New Guinea coast, from Sorong on the north-western tip to Hollandia, during the
period 1-20 April; the landings are virtually unopposed.
Six USAAF A-24 Dauntlesses based at Port Moresby attack the Japanese at Lae.
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: During the night of
31 March/1st, the Japanese land on Ceram Island, Netherlands East Indies. The
1st Detachment occupies the town of Fakfak and the small Dutch garrison
surrenders without a fight.
RAAF Hudsons of Nos. 2 and 13 Squadrons operating from Darwin, Northern
Territory, Australia, bomb Penfui Airfield on Dutch West Timor Island. The
Australians destroy six and damage six aircraft on the ground.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Seawolf (SS-197) torpedoes Japanese light cruiser HIJMS Naka 50 miles (80 kilometres) northwest of Christmas Island south of Java. British submarine HMS Truant sinks two Japanese merchant cargo ships in Malacca Strait, 60 miles (97 kilometres) off the coast of Sumatra.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Japanese forces occupy Buka Island off the north coast of Bougainville Island.
U.S.A.: New York: Admiral Ernest J. King, the commander-in-chief of the US Navy, who has his headquarters in downtown Manhattan, has finally accepted the British view on convoys. The devastating successes of the U-boats has convinced his of this.
Ironically, the Allies have been doing less well since the US entered the war. Before then the British had established the convoy system with help from Canada and, despite its neutrality, from the US. Once the US joined the war, Admiral King took the view that "inadequately escorted convoys are worse than none". Hundreds of ships were allowed to sail unescorted from US ports before joining convoys in mid-ocean. U-boat commanders simply moved closer to the well-lit US shore. So easy did they find it to pick off sitting targets that they called it "the American turkey-shoot."
The US Navy has not got sufficient escort ships to guard all the shipping all the way, however. The new system requires ships to sail in convoy as close to the shore as possible during daylight hours, and to anchor at night in harbour.
US Marine Corps Photo Reconnaissance Squadrons VMD-1 and VMD-2 are organized at Naval Air Station San Diego.
The Pacific War Council holds its first meeting
at Washington, D.C. Presided over by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
attended by representatives of Australia, Canada, China, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, the Philippines and the U.K., this is the first of more than 30
meetings held during the war.
The USAAF’s Air Corps Proving Ground is redesignated Proving Ground
Command, with its main base at Eglin Field, Valpariso, Florida. The command
performs operational tests and studies of aircraft and aircraft equipment.
As a result of the immense loss in shipping along the U.S. eastern
seaboard, since January 1942, the U.S. authorities institute a partial convoying
system, known as the “Bucket Brigade.”. This meant that ships will sail in
convoy as close to the coast as possible during daylight hours and anchor in
protected harbours at night. Due to the shortage of escort vessels, continuous
convoying is not possible and the “Bucket Brigade" system did not apply to the
Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico.
Transport Squadron Two (VR-2), the first Naval Air Transportation Service (NATS)
squadron for Pacific operations, is established at NAS Alameda, California.
The US Navy Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet is renamed to the Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet. (Gordon Rottman)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The Allies suffered their worst shipping losses of the war last month. No fewer than 273 merchant ships were sunk, totalling 834,184 tons. The total for the first three months of the year was 1.93 million tons lost, and the vast majority of these - 1.34 million tons - were sunk by the U-boats.
GERMANY, now has 121 operational U-boats, compared with 91 at the beginning of the year, Because of the long distances they have to travel to the main battleground on the eastern seaboard of the US, there are rarely more than a dozen in position at any one time. Nevertheless, their effect has been devastating, In the first quarter of the year U-boats sank 216 ships in the North Atlantic, most of them in the area patrolled by the US Navy.
Admiral Dönitz ordered them to go for the easiest targets amongst ships which were strategically important, particularly oil tankers carrying essential fuel for the war in Europe.
More than half of the sinkings have been oil tankers. Moreover, the Germans are stepping up their efforts. The submarine building programme is being accelerated and in six months time the Allies will be reckoning with the menace of at least another 100 U-boats.
ICELAND: Nineteen merchant ships
of Convoy PQ 13 set sail for the Soviet Union. They will lose five ships and one
of their escorting light cruisers, HMS Trinidad, will be crippled by German
torpedoes.