March 1944

March

• 01

  • The keels of the carriers Tarawa and KearsargeOn 1 March 1944 the keels of two Essex-class carriers were laid at Norfolk and New York. Tarawa and Kearsarge entered service only after the war, in 1945–46.
  • The strikes in northern ItalyOn 1 March 1944 a general strike began in Turin, Milan, Genoa and other cities of occupied Italy. The Germans and the Salò Fascists replied with deportations.
  • The second bombing of the VaticanOn 1 March 1944 six small bombs fell just outside the Vatican wall, killing a workman and damaging the Holy Office. The British privately admitted a mistake.
• 03

  • The Germans go on the defensive at AnzioOn 3 March 1944 the Germans gave up further attacks on the Anzio beachhead. After the failed assault at Cisterna the front froze into static warfare until May.
• 06

  • Operation Thursday – the second Chindit expeditionOn the night of 5–6 March 1944 gliders of the US 1st Air Commando landed Wingate's Chindits deep in Burma. The second expedition behind Japanese lines began.
  • The destruction of NarvaOn the night of 6–7 March 1944 Soviet bombers reduced the emptied town of Narva to rubble. Yet the Leningrad Front's March attacks failed to break the defence.
  • The alarm in Western AustraliaOn 6 March 1944 the submarine USS Haddo reported Japanese warships near the Lombok Strait. The Allies put Perth and Fremantle on alert – in vain.
• 07

  • Key eventOperation U-Go beginsOn the night of 7–8 March 1944 the Japanese 33rd Division moved on Tiddim. So began Operation U-Go – the Fifteenth Army's thrust on Imphal and Kohima in India.
• 08

  • The fighting for Hill 700On 8 March 1944 the Japanese struck the US beachhead at Torokina on Bougainville. They attacked Hill 700 until 13 March; the whole counter-offensive failed.
  • The offensive in Right-Bank UkraineIn early March 1944 three Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army struck west of the Dnieper. In the spring mud the Germans fell back towards the Bug and the Dniester.
• 09

  • The raid on TallinnOn the evening of 9 March 1944 Soviet bombers attacked Tallinn. 757 people were killed, most of them civilians, and some 20,000 were left homeless.
• 10

  • The Political Committee of National Liberation in GreeceOn 10 March 1944 EAM set up the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA) in the mountain village of Viniani – a “mountain government” for Free Greece.
• 14

  • The isolation of IrelandIreland rejected a US demand to expel the German minister and Japanese consul. Britain halted travel to the island, and Churchill announced its isolation.
• 15

  • The third battle of Monte CassinoOn 15 March 1944 bombers flattened the town of Cassino and the New Zealand Corps attacked. Until 23 March German paratroopers held the ruins and the abbey.
  • The capture of ManusOn 15 March 1944 US cavalry landed on Manus. Lorengau fell on 18 March, and Seeadler Harbour became one of the largest fleet bases in the Pacific.
  • The programme of the National Council of the ResistanceOn 15 March 1944 the National Council of the Resistance adopted a programme of struggle and reform – a purge, nationalisation and universal social security.
• 16

  • XI Corps in the PacificIn March 1944 the headquarters of Major General Charles P. Hall's US XI Corps sailed for the South West Pacific. Aitape, Morotai, Bataan and Luzon lay ahead.
• 17

  • The raid on ViennaOn 17 March 1944 more than 200 Liberators from Italy attacked the Vienna area for the first time – a city regarded until then as the “Reich's air-raid shelter”.
• 19

  • Key eventThe Germans occupy HungaryOn 19 March 1944 the Wehrmacht occupied Hungary in Operation Margarethe. Horthy remained regent, but real power passed to Veesenmayer and the SS.
  • Yugoslav partisans near TriesteIn spring 1944 Slovene partisans fought on the Karst near Trieste, but an attack on the city on 19 March 1944 is unconfirmed; the Germans held it until 1945.
• 20

  • The Red Army at the Romanian borderOn 17–20 March 1944 Konev's troops crossed the Dniester into Bessarabia and Zhukov's took Vinnytsia. The German front in Ukraine was falling apart.
• 21

  • Finland rejects the Soviet termsOn 21 March 1944 Moscow announced that Finland had not accepted its peace terms. That same day Helsinki agreed to send a delegation to Moscow.
• 22

  • The Japanese cross into IndiaIn late March 1944 Japanese divisions entered Manipur. At Sangshak a parachute brigade held them for a week, and the 17th Division fought its way to Imphal.
  • The raids on FrankfurtOn the night of 22/23 March 1944, 816 RAF aircraft burned Frankfurt's old town. About 1,000 people died that night, over 1,400 in the two March night raids.
• 24

  • Key eventThe Ardeatine Caves massacreOn 24 March 1944 the Germans shot 335 prisoners and hostages in the quarries on the Via Ardeatina near Rome in reprisal for the Via Rasella attack.
  • The death of Orde WingateOn 24 March 1944 a B-25 bomber carrying General Wingate crashed in the hills of Manipur. The Chindits' creator died in the middle of his second expedition.
• 26

  • Strachwitz's counter-attack at NarvaOn 26 March 1944 Hyazinth Strachwitz's battle group struck the Soviet bridgehead at Krivasoo, south of Narva, and destroyed its western part.
• 30

  • Key eventThe raid on NurembergOn the night of 30/31 March 1944 the RAF sent 795 bombers to Nuremberg. German night fighters shot down 95 – Bomber Command's heaviest loss of the war.