This day in the war in the Pacific 65 years ago.

[syscom3]

CHINA: Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell establishes HQ, American Army Forces, China, Burma, and India, at Chungking, using his U.S. Task Force in China and American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA) personnel as a nucleus.

SWPA, (5th Air Force): 11th and 22d Bombardment Squadrons, 7th BG (Heavy), arrive at Melbourne, Australia from Jogjakarta, Java, NEI with B-17's and LB-30's. Air echelon of 14th Bombardment Squadron, 7th BG [attached to 19th Bombardment Group (Heavy)] begins operating from Melbourne, Australia with B-17's, B-24's and LB-30's; ground echelon is at Bugo, Mindanano, Philippines attached to 5th Interceptor Command (Provisional). Air echelon of 28th Bombardment Squadron, 19th BG (Heavy), transfers from Singosari, Java, NEI to Melbourne, Australia with B-17's, B-24's and LB-30's. Ground echelon remains in Luzon and Mindanano , Philippines attached to the 5th Interceptor Command (Provisional).

EAST INDIES: The Dutch continue fighting on Java and report that the destruction of principal installations has been completed. The Australian Blackforce begins withdrawing from Buitenzorg to Sukabumi, about 30 miles to the south.

HAWAII: Japanese Operation K: during the night of the 4th/5th, two Kawanishi H8K1, Navy Type 2 Flying-Boats of the Yokohama Kokutai (Naval Air Corps) based at Wotje
Atoll in the Marshall Islands and refueled by submarines HIJMS I-15 and I-19 at French Frigate Shoals, fly 2,300 miles each way to drop four bombs near Punch Bowl crater on Oahu causing no damage. Overcast conditions prevent successful pursuit by U.S. aircraft.

INDIAN OCEAN: The Australian sloop HMAS Yarra, escorting a convoy of three ships from Tjilatjap, Java, Netherlands East Indies, to Fremantle, Western Australia, is attacked by the Japanese heavy cruisers HIJMS Atago, Maya and Takao and the destroyers HIJMS Anashi and Nowaki. The three other ships in the convoy are sunk first while HMAS Yarra, armed with three 4-inch guns, attempts to engage the Japanese force but they just stay out of range and pound the ship into a blazing wreck
and she sinks shortly after 0800 hours. Only 13 of the 151 men aboard Yarra survive; they are rescued by a Dutch submarine on 10 March.

JAPAN: The Japanese Imperial General Staff decides to expand its conquest to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Fiji Islands and American Samoa. Taking the Fijis and Samoa would cut America's supply line to Australia.

PACIFIC: Carrier-based aircraft of TF-16 attack Marcus Island beginning at 0630 hours. USS Enterpris launches 32 SBD Dauntlesses and six F4F Wildcats against the island located 725 miles northwest of Wake Island. Despite intense antiaircraft fire, only one SBD is shot down; the two-man crew is captured by the Japanese.
Submarine USS Grampus torpedoes and sinks a Japanese tanker 145 miles south of Truk Island in the Caroline Islands.
Submarine USS Narwhal torpedoes and sinks a Japanese army cargo ship in the Ryukyu Islands.
Submarine USS S-39 torpedoes and sinks a Japanese oiler 170 miles northeast of Batavia, Java, NEI

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE), begins reorganizing his forces in the Philippines in preparation for his departure.
The Composite Visayan-Mindanao Force is divided into two commands. Brigadier General William F. Sharp retains command of forces on Mindanao; the Visayan forces are
placed under Brigadier General Bradford G. Chynoweth. MacArthur's plans envisage the formation of two more commands. Major General George F. Moore's harbor defense forces on Corregidor and other islands in Manila Bay will constitute one, the forces on Luzon the other.
General MacArthur informs Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, Commandant of the Sixteenth Naval District, that he has been instructed to leave Corregidor. The plan is for him and his party to board the submarine USS Permit which is scheduled to leave Corregidor on 14 March.

 

[syscom3]

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: The Japanese convoy bound for Huon Gulf, New Guinea, sails from Rabaul, New Britain Island, during the night of the 5th/6th.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelon of 30th Bombardment Squadron, 19th BG (Heavy), arrives at Melbourne,Australia from Singosari, Java, NEI with B-17's, B-24's and LB-30's. Theground echelon is on Luzon and Mindanao , Philippines attached to the 5th Interceptor Command.

BURMA: British Lieutenant General Sir Harold Alexander arrives in Rangoon to become General Officer Commanding Burma Army. General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief India, has given Alexander orders to hold Rangoon at all costs. Alexander immediately orders the 1st Burma Division to counter-attack the Japanese from the north and the 17th Indian Division, which has be reinforced, to attack east of Pegu. Meanwhile, the Japanese capture Pegu, a railroad junction 50 miles north of Rangoon, and threaten to trap Alexander's forces.

EAST INDIES: The Dutch continue a losing battle for Java. At dusk, the Dutch troops in the vicinity of Batavia, the capital, surrender to the Japanese and, by 2130 hours that night, the city has been occupied. The Allies retreat toward Bandung in Java's central highland.
Carrier-based Japanese aircraft mount a damaging raid on the naval base at Tjilatjap, Java sinking 17 ships and completely destroying the harbor.

INDIA: Major General Lewis H. Brereton takes command of the USAAF 10th Air Force with HQ at New Delhi. The 10th Air Force has eight tactical aircraft, all B-17's.

JAPAN: Imperial General Headquarters issues Navy Directive No.62 ordering Commander-in- Chief, Combined Fleet, upon completion of the Java operation, to annihilate the remaining enemy force in Dutch New Guinea and to occupy strategic points of that territory. The objectives of the occupation are to survey the country for possible sites for air bases, anchorages and oilfields, as well to secure a good communication and supply line with British New Guinea.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Japanese transport Takao Maru, damaged and driven aground off Vigan, Luzon, on 10 December 1941, is destroyed by Filipino saboteurs.

U.K.: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound is replaced by Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, as Chairman of the British Chiefs of Staff Committee. This appointment improves relations between Prime Minster Winston Churchill and the Committee as Admiral Pound was noted for a strictly maritime point of view.
Winston Churchill proposes to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that a U.S. division be sent to New Zealand on the condition that the New Zealand Expeditionary Force remains in the Middle East.

 

[syscom3]

BURMA: The newly arrived British 63d Brigade, under command of the Indian 17th Division, makes a futile effort to clear the block on the Rangoon-Pegu road and relieve the Pegu garrison, which is isolated.
Lieutenant General Sir Harold Alexander, General Officer Commanding Burma Army, orders Rangoon evacuated since the situation in lower Burma is deteriorating rapidly; a denial program is to be put into effect at 0001 hours tomorrow.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): HQ 8th Pursuit Group and 35th, 36th and 80th Pursuit Squadrons arrive at Brisbane, Australia from the US with P-39's; first mission in Apr.

CHINA: U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma, and India, confers for the first time with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in Chungking.

EAST INDIES: On Java, the Japanese advance has sealed the Australian, British, Dutch and U. S. defenders into two pockets, one in the central highlands, the other near Surabaya, the Dutch naval base.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: USN Patrol Wing 10, which was based in the Philippines in December 1941, completes withdrawal from the Netherlands East Indies, and establishes headquarters in Perth, Western Australia, for patrol operations along the west coast of Australia. Sixty percent of the wing personnel are either dead or captives of the Japanese. Three of the four wing squadrons, Patrol Squadron VP-21, VP-22 and VP-102 are officially disestablished, and the remaining personnel and aircraft assets, PBY-4 and -5 Catalinas, are combined to bring up to full strength the remaining squadron, VP-101.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): HQ 22d BG (Medium) transfers from Brisbane to Ipswich, Australia.

BURMA: The British Army evacuates Rangoon, moving along Prome road except for demolition forces, which are removed by sea. The loss of Rangoon seriously handicaps supply and reinforcement of the Burma Army, which must now depend on air for this. Withdrawal from Rangoon is halted at Taukkyan by an enemy roadblock. The bypassed Allied force in Pegu is ordered to withdraw.

EAST INDIES: The Japanese conquest of Java is virtually complete. Radio and cable communications with Bandoeng cease. Final reports indicate that the Japanese are still advancing on all fronts, that the defenders are completely exhausted, and that all Allied fighter planes have been destroyed. The Japanese also capture Tjilatjap, the naval base on the south coast, and Surabaja was being evacuated in the face of strong Japanese forces.

NEW CALEDONIA: Major General Alexander M. Patch, commander- designate of the New Caledonia Task Force (6814), arrives on New Caledonia Island.

NEW GUINEA: While returning from a reconnaissance mission over Gasmata and Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago, the crew of an RAAF Hudson of No. 32 Squadron, based at Seven Mile Airstrip, Port Moresby, sights a convoy of 11 ships heading for Salamaua.

U.S.: The practicability of using a radio sonobuoy in aerial anti-submarine warfare was demonstrated in an exercise conducted off New London, Connecticut, by nonrigid airship (or blimp) K-5 and submarine USS S-20 . The buoy could detect the sound of the submerged submarine's propellers at distances up to 3 miles, and radio reception aboard the blimp was satisfactory up to 5 miles
The Tuskegee flying school graduates its first cadets. This US school was segregated for Black students. They joined the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Names: Capt. Ben Davis Jr.; 2LT Mac Ross, Charles DeBow, LR Curtis, and George Roberts.

 

[syscom3]

ALASKA: Brigadier General William O. Butler assumes command of the USAAF 11th Air Force with HQ at Ft Richardson, Anchorage. The 11th AF is assigned to the Alaska Defense Command (Major General Simon B. Buckner, Jr.) and the Alaska Defense Command is in turn assigned to the Western Defense Command (Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt), which was designated a theater of operations early in the war.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS (10th Air Force): HQ 10th Air Force begins moving from Patterson Field, Fairfield, Ohio to India. Between this date and 13 Mar, the 8 B-17's in India transport 474 troops and 29 tons (26.3 metric tonnes) of supplies from India to Magwe, Burma and on the return flights evacuate 423 civilians.

JAVA - The last mission by the Allied air force in Java is flown by two Hurricanes. On the next day the island commander surrenders to the Japanese.

SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelons of 16th and 17th Bombardment Squadrons, 27th Bombardment Group, cease operating from Batchelor Field, Northern Territory and begin a movement to Brisbane with A-24s; ground echelon is on Bataan. 89th and 90th Bombardment Squadrons, 3d BG transfer from Brisbane to Charters Towers with A-20's; first mission is in Apr. Following units transfer from Brisbane to Ballarat, Australia: HQ 38th BG (Medium) and 15th Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium) with B-26's. Ground echelon of 69th Bombardment Squadron (Medium) also transfers; air echelon of 69th remains in US until May 42. 39th Pursuit Squadron, 35th Pursuit Group with P-39's.

USN - Inshore Patrol Squadron VS-2-D14, which had arrived at Bora Bora on 17 February, inaugurated air operations from the Society Islands.

BURMA: Elements of the Japanese 33rd Division enter Rangoon which was abandoned by the British yesterday.
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's and a B-17 begin moving a British infantry battalion and supplies to the American AVG, base at Magwe. A total of 474 troops and 29 tons of supplies are transported and on the return flights, the crews evacuate 423 civilians.

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 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 further 10,500 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.

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.

NEW ZEALAND: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1, "Glen" to reconnoiter Wellington.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, issues a communique 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."

U.S.: HQ of the USAAF 10th Air Force begins a movement from Patterson Field, Fairfield, Ohio to India.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: A leading brigade of the 7th Division Australian Imperial Force arrives in Adelaide, South Australia, from the Middle East. Elements of the division had been sent to Java where they soon became prisoners of the Japanese.
Submarine USS Swordfish disembarks U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands Francis B. Sayre and his party at Fremantle, Western Australia.

BURMA: Burma Army forces at Taukkyan continue a withdrawal northward without serious difficulty.

CANADA: An advance construction team of U.S. Army engineers arrives at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to begin work on the 1,522 mile Alcan Highway between Dawson Creek and Fairbanks, Territory of Alaska, U.S.A.

EAST INDIES: At 1430 hours on Java, in compliance with the demands of Lieutenant General IMAMURA Hitoshi, Commander of the Japanese 16th Army, Dutch Lieutenant General Hein Ter Poorten makes a second radio broadcast in which all British, Australian and American units are ordered to lay down their arms.

NEW CALEDONIA: American troops, Task Force 6814 consisting of the HQ of the 51st Infantry Brigade and the 132d and 182 Infantry under the command of Major General Alexander M. Patch, land at Noumea on New Caledonia Island. A brief diplomatic scuffle ensues after Patch takes a dissident group of local militiamen under his command but the matter is quickly resolved in favor of the French and a new governor is appointed for the island.

NEW GUINEA: Land-based aircraft attack a Japanese convoy in Huon Gulf with unobserved results. Japanese aircraft continue the neutralization of points in New Guinea.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, announces that General YAMASHITA Tomoyoki has replaced Lieutenant General HOMMA Masaharu as Commander of the Japanese 14th Army in the Philippines.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt again radios MacArthur to leave the Philippines and MacArthur agrees he will leave Corregidor by 15 March. The question is how. The original plan was for MacArthur and party to leave in the submarine USS Permit) on 14 March. However, the radio press in the U.S. began broadcasting demands that MacArthur be placed in command of all Allied Forces in Australia and the Japanese, realizing that he will flee, increase the size and frequency of naval patrols in Subic Bay and off Corregidor. A destroyer division is sighted in the southern Philippines heading north at high speed. Tokyo Rose is broadcasting that MacArthur will be captured within a month, and U.S. Navy officers give MacArthur a one-in-five chance. Therefore, It is decided not to wait for the submarine but to leave by motor torpedo (PT) boat as soon as preparations can be completed. The PT boats will take him to Mindanao Island and the party will then board three USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses at Del Monte Field for a flight to Australia.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Australian coastwatcher P. Good is executed by the Japanese on Buka Island, north of Bougainville. He had been betrayed by an Australian news broadcast reporting enemy shipping movements.

U.S. A major U.S. Army reorganization, implementing an Executive Order of 28 February, becomes effective today. General Headquarters is abolished and three autonomous commands, Army Ground Forces under Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, Army Air Forces under Lieutenant General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, and Services of Supply (later designated as Army Service Forces) under Major General Brehon B. Somervell, are given responsibility for Zone of Interior (ZI) functions under General George C. Marshall as Chief of Staff. The field forces remain under control of the War Department General Staff. The Air Corps and the US Army Air Force Combat Command, which previously had made up the Army Air Forces (AAF), are discontinued.

 

[syscom3]

CHINA: Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India, is appointed Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army, and spends most of the war arguing with Chinese Leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek.

MIDWAY ATOLL: A Kawanishi H6K4, "Mavis", is shot down southwest of Midway by a VMF-221 F2A Buffalo fighter pilot. The flying boat, based at Wotje Atoll in the Marshall Islands, had been refueled at sea by a Japanese submarine.

SWPA, 5th Air Force: HQ 3d Bombardment Group and 13th Bombardment Squadron transfer from Brisbane to Charters Towers with A-20's; first mission is 6 Apr. Arriving at Brisbane are the A-24 air echelons of the following 27th BG units: 16th and 17th Bombardment Squadrons from Batchelor Field, Australia, and 91st BS from Malang, Java. Ground echelon of all 3 squadrons is on Bataan.

NEW GUINEA The Japanese make a landing at Finschhafen on the Huon Peninsula. The Japanese needed to capture towns such as Finschhafen and Salamaua to protect their forward air base at Lae.
USN TF 11 (Vice Admiral Wilson Brown Jr.), which includes ships of TF 17 (Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher), on the heels of initial nuisance raids by RAAF Hudsons, attacks the Japanese invasion fleet (Rear Admiral Kajioka Sadamichi) off Lae and Salamaua. Sixty one SBD Dauntlesses of Bombing Squadron Two, Scouting Squadron Two, VB-5 and VS-5, and TBD Dauntlesses of Torpedo Squadron Two and VT 5, supported by F4F Wildcats of Fighting Squadrons Three and VF 42 from the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and Yorktown fly over the 15,000-foot Owen Stanley Mountains on the tip of New Guinea to hit Japanese shipping.
They sink armed a merchant cruiser, an auxiliary minelayer, and a transport; and damage light cruiser HIJMS Yubari; destroyers HIJMS Yunagi, Asanagi, Oite, Asakaze, and Yakaze; a minelayer; seaplane carrier; a transport; and a minesweeper. One VS-2 SBD is lost to antiaircraft fire.
Eight USAAF B-17E's and RAAF Hudsons conduct follow up strikes but inflict no appreciable additional damage.
Japanese Navy aircraft based at Rabaul, New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago, attack targets around Huon Gulf and in the Port Moresby area.
In a message to British Prime Minister Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt hails the raid as"the best day's work we've had." The success of the U.S. carrier strike (the first time in which two carrier air groups attack a common objective) convinces Japanese war planners that continued operations in the New Guinea area will require carrier support, thus setting the stage for confrontation in the Coral Sea.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright, Commanding General I Corps, visits General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, on Corregidor and learns that he (Wainwright) will head Luzon Force and that his I Corps will be turned over to Brigadier General Albert M. Jones, Commanding General Philippine 51st Division. General MacArthur, after his withdrawal from the Philippines, plans to remain in control of Philippine operations from Australia through Colonel Lewis C. Beebe, who will be deputy chief of staff of USAFFE.
Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, Commandant Sixteenth Naval District, gives Lieutenant John Bulkeley, Commander of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three (MTBRon 3) based on Bataan, his orders regarding the evacuation of General MacArthur and his party from Corregidor Island to Mindanao Island. Bulkeley, with PT-41, is to pick up his passengers, including General and Mrs. MacArthur and their son, and Major General Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur's Chief of Staff, at North Dock at Corregidor at 1930 hours tomorrow. PT-34 and PT-35 are to remain at their base on Bataan so that the Japanese do not observe any unusual activity; these two boats will transport Admiral Rockwell and his Chief of Staff, Captain Ray, USN, who will be transported from Corregidor to Bataan by launch. The fourth PT boat, PT-32, will pick up passengers at Quarantine Dock at Mariveles at 1915 hours. The plan is for the four boats to rendezvous at the entrance to Manila Bay at 2000 hours tomorrow night.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Japanese troops land on Buka Island, the 190 square mile island just north of Bougainville Island. The two islands are separated by Buka Passage.

U.S.: The House of Representatives votes to increase the U. S. national debt from US$65 billion to US$125 billion. (Considering inflation, that is from US$792 billion to US$1.524 trillion in 2002 dollars.)

USN - A contract with the Office of Scientific Research and Development became effective whereby the Johns Hopkins University agreed to operate a laboratory which became known as the Applied Physics Laboratory. This was one of several important steps in the transition of the radio-proximity fuze from development to large scale production. Other steps taken within the next 6 weeks included the organizational transfer of Section T from the National Defense Research Committee directly to the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the relocation of most of the Section T staff from the Carnegie Institution of Washington to the Applied Physics Laboratory at Silver Spring, Md.

 

[syscom3]

BURMA: The Burma Army regroups in preparation for the defense of upper Burma. In the Irrawaddy Valley, the Indian 17th Division is disposed in the Tharrawaddy area. In the Sittang Valley, the Burma 1st Division, after successful diversionary attacks against Shwegyin and Madauk, east of Nyaunglebin, withdraws, except for the 13th Brigade, to positions north of Kanyutkwin. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India and Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army, is placed in command of the Chinese 5th and 6th Armies (actually the size of a Western division). The Chinese 6th Army is holding Shan States; the Chinese 5th Army, except for the 200th Division disposed in the Toungoo area, is to concentrate at Mandalay.

CANADA: Canadian and U.S. representatives meet in Ottawa to discuss the construction of buildings and facilities on the Northwest Staging Route, the air route that will be established between Edmonton, Alberta, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to permit flying aircraft from the continental U.S. to the Territory of Alaska.. The meeting ends tomorrow.

EAST CHINA SEA: Submarine USS Pollack, operating in the East China Sea about 270 miles east of Shanghai, China, sinks a Japanese merchant cargo ship and a passenger-cargo.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, his family, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell and their staffs embark from Corregidor and Bataan in four PT boats, PT-32, PT-34, PT-35 and PT-41, of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three (MTBRon 3). The plan is that the boats will make for Tagauayan Island, in the Cuyo Group, and arrive by 0730 hours tomorrow morning.
Three USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses takeoff from Australia to fly to Del Monte Field on Mindanao to pick up the MacArthur party. One turns back due to mechanical problems, the second crashes at sea off Mindanao and the third lands at Del Monte however; it is in poor mechanical condition.
Major General Jonathan Wainwright assumes command of the 95,000 Americans and Filipinos on Bataan and Corregidor.

 

[syscom3]

ANDAMAN ISLANDS: The garrison (a British company and a Gurkha battalion) of this group of islands in the Bay of Bengal is withdrawn, since the loss of Rangoon, Burma, makes it unfeasible to maintain this seaplane base.

BURMA: The Burma Army establishes headquarters at Maymyo.

EAST INDIES: On Java, the senior American, Australian and British officers sign a formal surrender document with the Japanese at their headquarters in Bandoeng.

INDIA: Three transports arrive at Karachi after sailing from Australia. Aboard the three ships are the ground echelons of the USAAF's 7th BG (Heavy) and 88th Reconnaissance Squadron (Heavy) arriving from Australia and the 16th and 25th Pursuit Squadrons, 51st Pursuit Group from the U.S. Cargo aboard the ships includes ten crated P-40s. The 51st Pursuit Group's P-40s had been aboard the seaplane tender USS Langley when she was sunk on 27
February.

JAPAN: Japanese Prime Minister General TOJO Hideki urges Australia to submit to Japanese rule or face an invasion like the recently conquered Dutch East Indies.

NEW CALEDONIA: U.S. Army troops (Brigadier General Alexander M. Patch) land on New Caledonia Island to establish a base at Noumea. The Army unit is Task Force 6814 consisting of 17,500 men of the 51st Infantry Brigade headquarters and the 132d and 182d Infantry Regiments plus supporting units.
One of the soldiers landing that day was Bill McLaughlin. He writes, "We had been about 37 days from Brooklyn, New York, to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and then about a week or ten days in Bendigo, Victoria, 40 miles inland from Melbourne. Back on the ship for another ten days to New Caledonia. It was found that the harbor was too shallow to allow our ship to dock, and we had to go over the side into small boats to take us ashore. There, we were marched through the streets (sea legs and all), and another long haul out to our first bivouac area, and a horde of mosquitoes. Many years later, writing a native of Noumea, Henri Daly, I mentioned that the sullen faces we saw all thru our march in Noumea, showed most of them were pro Vichy French.
He wrote back, 'Oh, Bill, did you ever think how most of the adults felt seeing some 15,000 lusty American youth, coming into our small country?' I still think I was right..the next month we saw the countrymen moving on to Noumea, in protest with their rifles, and driving out the Vichys."

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Three-quarters of the Americans and Filipinos troops defending Bataan and Corregidor now have major health problems. An estimated 500 to 700 per day are coming down with malaria and dysentery is rampant from drinking tainted water. Meanwhile, the Japanese are bringing in fresh infantry and artillery units from China.
During the night of the 12th/13th, the four motor torpedo (PT) boats carrying General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, his family, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, Commandant Sixteenth Naval District, and their staffs from Luzon to Tagauayan Island in the Cuyo Group became separated. PT-32 could only use two of its three engines and the other boats had to stop from time to time to clean gasoline strainers. The first boat to arrive at Tagauayan was PT-34 at 0930 hours, two hours late; in the late afternoon, PT-41 and PT-42 arrive in the cove from other islands where they had hidden during the morning hours. PT-35 was missing. Because of the condition of PT-32, the passengers on this boat were divided between the other two boats and these two refueled using fuel drums carried as deck cargo. The crew of PT-32 was ordered to remain at Tagauayan to await the arrival of the submarine USS Permit and PT-35 and give directions to the captains of both vessels and then the PT-32 could get underway for Panay Island to obtain fuel. At 1800 hours, PT-34 and PT-41 get underway for Cagayan on Mindanao Island.

U.S.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order combining the duties of Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet and the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Admiral Ernest J King, Commander-in- Chief U.S. Fleet, is designated to replace Admiral Harold R Stark as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) effective 26 March.

 

[syscom3]

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: A Japanese force from the 4th Fleet sails from Rabaul, New Britain Island, for Buka Island, Solomon Islands, which is eventually seized together with other positions in the northern Solomons.

INDIA: The first detachment of U.S. troops (USAAF personnel) to reach the China-Burma- India Theater arrive at Karachi, having been diverted from Java, Netherlands East Indies.

NEW GUINEA: The Japanese, having gained firm positions in the Lae-Salamaua area, replace infantry with naval forces.

NEW ZEALAND: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a "Glen" submarine launched patrol plane to reconnoiter Auckland.

PACIFIC: Submarine USS Gar torpedoes and sinks a Japanese victualling stores ship between 6 and 10 miles SW of Mikura Jima, south of Tokyo Bay.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: The two motor torpedo (PT) boats carrying General Douglas MacArthur, his family, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell and their staffs, PT-34 and PT-41, arrive at Cagayan on Mindanao Island in the early morning. Later in the day, a third boat, PT-35, arrives at Cagayan. The three boats had made the 560-mile voyage in heavy to moderate seas in two days.
The next leg of MacArthurâs journey to Australia is to be by B-17's but only one B-17 has reached Del Monte Field and it had wheezed in to a wobbly landing. MacArthur, furious, will allow no one to board the "dangerously decrepit" aircraft, and demands the "three best planes in the U.S. or Hawaii," manned by "completely adequate, experienced" airmen be flown to Del Monte.
Unfortunately, Major General George Brett, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces in Australia, has neither. The party must now await the arrival of three additional B-17 Flying Fortresses from Australia.
The submarine USS Permit arrives at Tagauayan Island and finds the fourth motor torpedo (PT) boat involved in the evacuation of the MacArthur party, PT-32, there. The PT boat is not seaworthy and the submarines takes the boat's crew aboard and PT-32 is destroyed by gunfire.

U.S.: HQ USAAF activates HQ XII Bomber Command at MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS (10th Air Force): 26th Pursuit Squadron, 51st Pursuit Group, arrives at Karachi, India from the US with P-40's; first mission is 15 Oct.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): 36th Pursuit Squadron, 8th Pursuit Group, transfers from Brisbane to Lowood, Australia with P-39's.

RAAF - During a Japanese strafing attack, a Ford Trimotor A45-2 is destroyed on the ground at 7-Mile Drome.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Japanese aircraft bomb Horn Island located 10 miles off the northern coast of Queensland. Horn Island, in the Torres Strait between Queensland and New Guinea, will become the main tactical base for Allied air operations in the Torres Strait. The island will be subject to nine Japanese air raids during WWII.

CHINA-BURMA-INDIA (CBI) THEATER OF OPERATIONS (10th Air Force): HQ 51st Pursuit Group arrives at Karachi, India from the US. 9th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 7th BG (Heavy), arrives at Karachi, India from Australia with B-17's; first mission is 2 Apr.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): 13th Reconnaissance Squadron (Heavy), 43d BG (Heavy), transfers from Melbourne to Laverton, Australia with B-17's; the 13th will be redesignated 403d BS on 22 Apr; first mission is Oct 42. Air echelon of 14th BS (Heavy), 7th BG (Heavy), ceases operating from Melbourne, Australia with B-17's; men and equipment are transferred to other units; the ground echelon is at Bugo, Mindanano and fights as infantry; the unit is carried as an active unit but is not manned or equipped after the surrender of the Philippiness in May 42.
Detachment of the 22d BS (Heavy), 7th BG, ceases operating from Townsville and returns to base at Melbourne with B-17's. 40th Reconnaissance Squadron is formed at Townsville, Australia with LB-30's and assigned to 19th BG (Heavy); first mission is today; squadron is redesignated 435th BS (Heavy) on 22 Apr. Air echelon of 88th Reconnaissance Squadron (Heavy), 7th BG (Heavy), ceases operating from Townsville, Australia with B-17's and begins moving to Karachi, India; squadron is redesignated 436th BS on 22 Apr; first mission in CBI is 4 Jun.

U.S.: The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff decide to continue on the defensive in the Pacific with forces already there and to build up forces in United Kingdom for an offensive against Germany. German submarines have sunk so many tankers during the past two months that the War Production Board orders gasoline deliveries be cut 20 percent in 17 eastern states and the District of Columbia.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks the 48 state governors to set speed limits at 40 mph to conserve tires.

 

[syscom3]

1942: ALASKA: The XI Interceptor Command is activated at Elmendorf Field, Anchorage. Its operational components are the 11th and the 18th Pursuit Squadrons.

BURMA: Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India, is notified that British General Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief India, is responsible for operations In Burma.

NEW CALEDONIA: The 67th Pursuit Squadron, the first USAAF tactical unit in the theater, arrives from the U.S. with 45 crated P-400 Airacobras.

NEW ZEALAND: Car and bicycle tire shortages become apparent.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: In the Manila Bay area the Japanese, having emplaced additional artillery along the southern shore of Manila Bay southwest of Ternate, renew intensive bombardment of fortified islands in the bay. The shelling is conducted daily and in great force through 21 March, despite U.S. counterbattery fire. Forts Frank and Drum are particularly hard hit.
At Del Monte Airfield on Mindanao, General Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General U.S. Army Forces, Far East, and his party wait for B-17's to take them to Australia. Officers in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, are trying to scrape together the necessary aircraft. While MacArthur waits, his aide, Sid Huff, takes Jean MacArthur's mattress off motor torpedo (PT) boat PT-41 which leads to a wild story that the mattress is supposedly full of gold bars. In fact, it's full of feathers.

 

[syscom3]

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): 3 B-17's of the 40th Reconnaissance Squadron (Heavy), 19th BG begin evacuating General Douglas MacArthur, his family, and his staff from Del Monte, Mindanao, Philippines to Australia. 39th Pursuit Squadron, 35th Pursuit Group, transfers from Ballarat to Mount Gambier, Australia with P-39's; first combat is 2 Jun. 64th Bombardment Squadron, 43d BG, arrives at Sydney, Australia from the US with B-17's; first mission is 13 Aug. 68th Pursuit Squadron, 58th Pursuit Group, arrives at Amberly Field, Australia from the US with P-39's.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Japanese siege guns bombard American forts in Manila Bay. One 240 mm shell detonates beneath a Fort Frank powder room, breaking up the concrete and hurling some 60 (filled) powder cans about. Miraculously, none of them explode or catch fire.
Submarine USS Permit delivers ammunition to Corregidor Island, and evacuates the second increment of naval radio and communications intelligence people.
On Mindanao Island, two B-17's arrive just before 2400 hours, the runway lit by two flares, one at each end. Lead pilot Lieutenant Frank P. Bostrom drinks eight cups of coffee to fortify himself for the return flight while mechanics repair his defective supercharger. Bostrom tells General Douglas MacArthur his party must abandon their luggage and Jean MacArthur boards carrying only a silk scarf and a coat with a fur collar.

U.K.: British Lord Privy Seal Sir Stafford Cripps leaves London to negotiate with Indian leaders who want independence. Cripps will offer freedom after the war. Hindu leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharal Nehru demand immediate independence for a unified India while Moslem League President Mohammed Ali Hinnah wants a separate Pakistan.

U.S.: The Maritime Commission places orders for another 234 "Liberty" ships -- slow-moving 10,500-ton merchant vessels.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: The USAAF 9th Pursuit Squadron arrives at Darwin, Northern Territory, with P-40Es to provide air defense for the port. Shortly after 0001 hours at Del Monte Field on Mindanao Island, Philippine Islands, the two B-17 Flying Fortresses that picked up General Douglas MacArthur and his party, take off for the 1,500 miles flight to Darwin, Northern Territory. The General sits in the radio operator's seat, his chief of staff, Major General Richard K. Sutherland, squeezed into the bomb bay. Lieutenant Bostrom's overloaded B-17 staggers into the air with one engine spluttering. It is MacArthur's son's first airplane flight, and he is excited until turbulence renders him airsick. When the plane reaches Darwin, the city is under Japanese attack, and the aircraft are diverted to the emergency strip, Batchelor Field, 50 miles away. They deplane at 0900 hours, barely able to stand. MacArthur spots an American officer and asks him about the buildup to reconquer the Philippines. The officer says, "So far as I know, sir, there are very few troops here." Startled, MacArthur turns to Sutherland, and says, "Surely he is wrong." MacArthur and his party breakfast on canned peaches and baked beans. The General demands a motorcade to the nearest train station in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, 1,000 miles away because his wife is exhausted from air travel. But MacArthur's son, also exhausted is now on intravenous feeding. The doctors cannot guarantee "little Arthur will make it over a long desert drive without shelter or food." MacArthur and his party board two DC-3s borrowed from a local airline, and take off as a Japanese air raid is starting. They reach Alice Springs, which resembles an Old West town replete with saloon, wooden boardwalks, and flies, without further incident. MacArthur watches a double feature at the local movie theater, his first film since leaving Manila, and the party sleeps on cots on the hotel's verandah.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Australia to assume command of United Nations forces in the SWPA. He actually assumed command on 18 Apr. 8th Bombardment Squadron, 3d BG, transfers from Brisbane to Charters Towers with A-20's; first mission is 1 Apr. 9th Pursuit Squadron, 49th Pursuit Group transfers from Williamstown to Darwin, Australia with P-40's; first mission is 18 Mar.

INDIA: Air Vice Marshal Donald F. Stevenson, commanding Allied air forces, moves HQ from Burma to Calcutta. India.

PACIFIC: Submarine USS Grayback sinks a Japanese collier 6 miles west of Port Lloyd, Chichi Jima, Bonin Islands.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: The submarine USS Permit, which was originally scheduled to evacuate General Douglas MacArthur and party from Corregidor, is damaged by depth charges off Tayabas Bay, Luzon, but remains on patrol.

US: The United States, in agreement with Allied governments, assumes responsibility for the strategic defense of entire Pacific Ocean.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: On the day after General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia, the USAAF operational strength consists of about 213 combat aircraft, i.e., 12 B-17 Flying Fortresses, 27 A-24 Dauntless dive bombers, several miscellaneous light and medium bombers, 33 P-39 and 52 P-400 Airacobras, 92 P-40s and miscellaneous transport and other noncombat aircraft. Approximately 100 additional aircraft are being repaired or assembled. Very few of the fighter pilots are experienced or well trained and most of the bomber crews are exhausted and have low morale.
In the morning, General Douglas MacArthur sends his staff officers by plane south from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, while he orders up a special train for himself and his family. Jean MacArthur will have no more flying. The MacArthurs board a three-car wooden train drawn by a steam locomotive, that scuttles down a narrow-gauge line. The train chugs off on a 70-hour journey down 1,028 miles of track to Adelaide, South Australia.

BURMA: Pilots of the 3d Fighter Squadron, AVG attack a Japanese airfield near Moulmein at 0755 hours destroying three bombers, two transports and 11 fighters on the ground.

CHINA: USN river gunboat Tutuila, decommissioned at Chungking, China, on 18 January, is leased to the Chinese government for the duration of the war.

NEW HEBRIDES: U.S. Army troops, two companies of the 182d Infantry and an engineer company, arrive on Efate Island to build an airfield.

U.K.: Vice Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Queen Victoria's grandson, is named Chief of Combined Operations.

U.S.: The government creates the War Relocation Authority to "Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war." As a result, 120,000 men, women, and children were rounded up on the West Coast. Three categories of internees were created: Nisei (native U.S. citizens of Japanese immigrant parents), Issei (Japanese immigrants), and Kibei (native U.S. citizens educated largely in Japan). The internees were transported to one of ten relocation centers in California, Utah, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. One Japanese American, Gordon Hirabayashi, fought internment all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that the Army, responsible for effecting the relocations, had violated his rights as a U.S. citizen. The court ruled against him, citing the nation's right to protect itself against sabotage and invasion as sufficient justification for curtailing his and other Japanese Americans' constitutional rights.

 

[syscom3]

ALASKA: Military Intelligence warns that a Japanese seizure of the Aleutian Islands, or a raid on Alaska, could be expected at any time. It is believed that the attack would be to prevent the U.S. from invading Japan from the north, or to obstruct Soviet/American communications.

AUSTRALIA: General Douglas MacArthur and his party endure traveling in a tiny railroad coach with two hard wooden seats running lengthwise. The second car is a diner with a long wooden table, washtubs full of ice, and an Australian army stove. Two Australian sergeants and an army nurse do the housekeeping. To switch from diner to passenger car, the train has to stop, and passengers have to get out of one car and walk along the ground to the other. MacArthur and his families sit in the car, besieged by flies. MacArthur goes to sleep. At one point, the engineer stops the train, surrounded by sheep ranchers. The general thinks they want a speech from the war hero but actually they want a doctor to assist one of the ranchers; after the surgery, the train leaves.

BURMA: Lieutenant General William J. Slim, former General Officer Commanding 10th Indian Division in Syria, arrives in Burma to take command
of Imperial troops, now formed into the Burma I Corps. In the Sittang Valley, Japanese troops attack Toungoo, the original training base of the American Volunteer Group. General Slim aims to hold the Japanese on the Prome-Toungoo line, blocking two roads. Between the roads is 80 miles of jungle and hills, with no connecting roads. Two Chinese armies move to Toungoo to block that route. While Chinese divisions are the strength of British brigades, they are good troops with years of experience in fighting the Japanese.
However, their top leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, more concerned with fighting rival Communist leader Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung), is reluctant to commit his troops. And communications between Slim and the American commanding the Chinese troops, Lieutenant General Jospeh Stilwell, are slow and complicated. British forces are in poor shape, too, demoralized and in retreat. The 17th Division has been on the run, and 1st Burmese is untested. Slim's HQ's radio batteries have to be recharged by operating a pedal-driven generator. Slim has one trump card, though, the 7th Armoured Brigade, superior to the tankless Japanese.

FIJI ISLANDS: Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a Yokosuka E14Y1,"Glen" to reconnoiter Suva on Vitu Levu Island.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Philippine President Manuel Quezon and 13 members of his party are transported from Dumaguete, Negros Island, to Oroquito, Mindanao Island, after a 240-mile voyage in motor torpedo boat PT-41.

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Japanese "Betty" medium bombers, attack the Broome Airfield, Western Australia, at high altitude. There are a number of craters off the end of the strip and in the tidal flats; one aboriginal is killed by a bomb splinter but no other casualties or damage was caused.

BURMA: Japanese troops, reinforced by the 18th and 56th Division which had arrived by sea at Rangoon a few days earlier, attack the Chinese 6th Army near Toungoo.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Major General Jonathan Wainwright learns that he has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and that Washington has placed him in command of all U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP).

 

[syscom3]

AUSTRALIA: Late in the afternoon, General Douglas MacArthur's train reaches Kooringa, 80 miles north of Adelaide, South Australia. One of his staff officers, Colonel Dick Marshall, who had been sent on ahead, boards the train and tells the general that there are fewer than 32,000 Allied troops, American, British, and Australian, in the whole country, most of them service forces. There is not a single tank in the nation and the only combat-ready force is one brigade of the Australian 6th Division. If the Japanese land, the Australians intend to withdraw to the "Brisbane Line," holding the settled southern and eastern coasts, abandoning the northern ports to the Japanese.
Supply lines to the rest of the Allied world, committed to defeating Germany first, are long. "God have mercy on us," MacArthur whispers. It is, he writes, his greatest shock and surprise of the whole war. In Adelaide, MacArthur swaps his little train for a luxurious private car provided by Australia's commissioner of railways. The press is there to greet him and seek a statement. MacArthur scrawls on the back of an envelope, "The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines ...for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary object of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return."
A single Mitsubishi Ki-15, Army Type 97 Command Reconnaissance Plane (later assigned the Allied Code Name "Babs") takes off from Koepang, Timor, to reconnoiter the defenses of Darwin, Northern Territory, in readiness for a larger strike force of Mitsubishi G4M, Navy "Betty" bombers. Coast watchers on Bathurst Island notify Darwin of the approaching reconnaissance aircraft at about 1200 hours and it is shot down by USAAF P-40 pilots of the 9th Pursuit Squadron. As anticipated, the Japanese bombers make a raid that same day but not on Darwin. They fly 200 miles further southeast and bomb Katherine, Northern Territory. They presumably were hoping to find Allied bombers at the Katherine Airfield but none were there and damage at the airfield is minimal.

BURMA: The Burma 1st Division, upon being relieved on the Toungoo front by the Chinese 200th Division, Chinese 5th Army, begins a movement to the Irrawaddy front, leaving a large area south of Toungoo undefended. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma and India and Chief of Staff of the Chinese Army, now in Burma, issues orders for Chinese participation in the defense of the line Toungoo-Prome. The Chinese 5th Army is charged with the defense of Toungoo; its 200th Division is reinforced by attachment of the Temporary 55th Division (T-55th ) of the Chinese 6th Army, which is to move to Pyawbwe. In army reserve, the Chinese 22d Division is directed to Taungdwingyi, where it is to be prepared to assist the British in the Prome area while the Chinese 96th Division is to move to Mandalay.
Japanese bombers and fighters open as 24-hour operation against Magwe Airdrome. Pilots of the 3d Fighter Squadron, AVG shoot down two "Nate's" at 1430 hours. The Japanese attack the airfield and destroy nine RAF Blenheim Mk. IV bombers and three AVG P-40s on the ground and three RAF Hurricane Mk. IIs in the air.

INDIA: The Assam-Burma-China Ferry Command is activated. It consists of 25 Pan-American World Airways DC-3 transports, which are soon diverted from mission of taking supplies to China in order to supply forces withdrawing from Burma.

JAPAN: In THE JAPAN TIMES newspaper, Rear Admiral SOSA Tanetsuga warns the Japanese people of American bases in Alaska and the Aleutians that could threaten the Homeland.

NEW GUINEA: The first four Curtiss Kittyhawks Mk. IAs of RAAF No. 75 Squadron arrive at Seven Mile Airdrome at Port Moresby. As they fly over the airdrome, they are fired on by anti-aircraft which damages three of the four aircraft; one never flies again. The remainder of the squadron arrives two hours later.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, as commander of U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP), which supersedes U.S. Army Forces, Far East (USAFFE), establishes headquarters on Corregidor Island and appoints Major General Lewis Beebe his chief of staff. Major General Edward P. King, Jr., is named commander of Luzon Force.


U.S.: The United States agrees to provide US$500 million in aid to China. (With inflation, US$500 million in 1942 is equal to US$5.5 trillion in year 2002 dollars.)

 

[syscom3]

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Army aviation engineers begin work on the secret Otter Point Airfield on the 675 square mile Umnak Island separated from Unalaska Island, site of NavalOperating Base Dutch Harbor and Fort Mears, by Unmak Pass. By the end of the month, a 100 by 5,000 foot runway has been completed using Marston matting.

ANDAMAN ISLANDS: The Japanese invade these islands in the eastern part of the Bay of Bengal without opposition.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Bataan, American and Filipino troops dig in for the next round. The I Corps fields 32,000 men and 50 guns on the west, while II Corps has 28,000 men and about 100 guns on the east, including 31 naval guns up to 3-inch. Troops have been trained in jungle warfare, trenches and dugouts built, mines laid, and a 12-foot palisade of bamboo erected across the front. The Japanese are having ration trouble, too, as the 14th Army has cut rations from 62 ounces to 23; about 13,000 Japanese troops are in the hospital. But General HOMMA Masaharu, commanding the Japanese 14th Army, enjoys an edge: two Army bomber regiments comprising 60 heavy bombers, plus naval air force units. Homma plans to seize the dominant Mount Samat, centerpiece of the American line, then drive southeast to Limay, ringing the mountains to turn west towards Mariveles, the peninsula's base. The attack will be led by the newly-arrived 4th Division and the 65th Brigade. Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft drop beer cans tied with ribbons, asking Wainwright to surrender. The appeal is ignored.

U.S.: In California, the first 1,000 Japanese-Americans arrive at the Manzanar Relocation Camp For Ethnic Japanese. The camp is located in the Owens Valley on the west side of U.S. Highway 395 about 50 miles south of Bishop and 12 miles north of Lone Pine. Today, this is a National Historic Site.

 

[syscom3]

BURMA: In a surprise attack on Kyungon Airfield, north of Toungoo, the Japanese rout the defenders (troops of Chinese 200th Division and rear elements of the Burma 1st Division) and cut the rail line and road, thus partially surrounding Toungoo. The Chinese fall back on Toungoo, while the Burmese succeed in withdrawing to the Irrawaddy front.

CHINA: British General Harold Alexander, General Officer Commanding Burma Army, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek meet to discuss plans for the cooperation of Chinese and British Forces.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: The Japanese begin an intense air and artillery bombardment of Bataan. Luzon-based Japanese Army and Navy aircraft begin a thorough bombardment of Corregidor, continuing through the end of March. During this period night air attacks are conducted for the first time. A Filipino patrol on Bataan kills a Japanese officer who brought his documents with him to the front. They include orders for a reconnaissance in force on Mount Samat, followed by an attack on 26 March so the Americans dig trenches on Mount Samat.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: On Guadalcanal, now menaced by the Japanese, Australian coastwatcher Don McFarland heads for the isolated west coast community of Lavor with Martin Clemens and Ken Hay to set up a new observation post.

THAILAND: Ten P-40s of the 1st Fighter Squadron, AVG, based at Kunming Airdrome, China, and staging through Loiwing and Namsang, Burma, strafe Chiengmai Airdrome between 0710 and 0725 hours. Fifteen Japanese Army bombers are destroyed on the ground but two AVG P-40s are shot down by ground fire; one pilot is killed and the second is taken prisoner after evading capture for 28 days.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREA (POA, 7th Air Force): 23d Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 5th BG, transfers from Hickam Field to Mokuleia, Territory of Hawaii with B-17's and continues flying patrols.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA (SWPA, 5th Air Force): Air echelon of 91st Bombardment Squadron, 27th BG, ceases operating from Brisbane, Australia and begins moving to Charters Towers with A-24s. Ground echelon is on Bataan.

U .S.: The Pacific Theater of Operations is established as an area of U.S. responsibility by the Combined Chiefs of Staff.