SS STRUMA (February 24, 1942) The Romanian ship Struma sailed from Constansa under the command of a Bulgarian captain, G.T. Gorbatenkoin, and flying the Panamanian flag. There were 769 Romanian Jews on board, including 269 women and children, many from the town of Barland, their hope was to reach Palestine. After three days at sea, the Struma anchored off the outer harbour at Instanbul, with engine trouble. Here she awaited British permission to proceed to Palestine, permission which the British refused (a mistake they were to regret) one reason given was 'It will encourage a flood of refugees'. Turkey, for some unknown reason, likewise refused them to disembark although the local Jewish community, who were already running a camp for Displaced Persons, were quite willing to take the Struma's passengers and were in the meantime supplying them with food and water. One of the passengers, Medeea Marcovici, suffered an embolism and was transferred to the Jewish hospital in Instanbul. She was granted a visa for Palestine and died there in 1996. After two months at Istanbul with engines that were damaged beyond repair, conditions on board became appalling, many of the passengers now suffering from dysentery and malnutrition. Eventually the Turkish police arrived to tow the Struma out into the Black Sea. The British had exerted strong pressure on Turkey to pursue this course. The enraged passengers fought then off but a second attempt, where force was used, succeeded and the Struma was towed out and cast adrift outside Turkish territorial waters. This inhuman decision by the Turkish and British governments was to destroy the special relationship between Britain and the Zionist Jews. On the water for 74 days since leaving Conatansa, the Struma, hopelessly overcrowded, and with no country willing to accept them, was suddenly torpedoed and sunk by the Russian submarine SHCH-213 commanded by Lt. Col. Isaev, just ten miles from Istanbul. All on board, a total of 769 persons, perished except one, nineteen year old Romanian Jew David Stoljar who today (1999) lives in Oregon, USA. The British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, stated: "The fate of these people was tragic, but the fact remains that they were nationals of a country at war with Britain, proceeding direct from enemy territory. Palestine was under no obligations towards them".
1945 : Corregidor's last gasp On this day, an ammunition dump on the Philippine island of Corregidor is blown up by a remnant of the Japanese garrison, causing more American casualties on the eve of U.S. victory there. In May 1942, Corregidor, a small rock island at the mouth of Manila Bay, remained one of the last Allied strongholds in the Philippines after the Japanese victory at Bataan. Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could not hold the invader off any longer. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese Gen. Masaharu Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops--he had already lost 800 men. He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila. But the Americans returned to the Philippines in full strength in October 1944, beginning with the recapture of Leyte, the Philippines' central island. It took 67 days to subdue, with the loss of more than 55,000 Japanese soldiers during the two months of battle, and approximately another 25,000 mopping up pockets of resistance in early 1945. The U.S. forces lost about 3,500. Following the American victory of Leyte was the return of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the struggle for Luzon and the race for Manila, the Philippine capital. One week into the Allied battle for Luzon, U.S. airborne troops parachuted onto Corregidor to take out the Japanese garrison there, which was believed to be 1,000 strong, but was actually closer to 5,000. Fierce fighting resulted in the deaths of most of the Japanese soldiers, with the survivors left huddling in the Malinta Tunnel for safety. Ironically, the tunnel, 1,400 feet long and dug deep in the heart of Corregidor, had served as MacArthur's headquarters and a U.S. supply depot before the American defeat there. MacArthur feared the Japanese soldiers could sit there for months. The garrison had no such intention, though, and ignited a nearby ammunition dump--an act of defiance, and possibly of mass suicide. Most of the Japanese were killed in the explosion, along with 52 Americans. Those Japanese who survived the bl! ast were forced out into the open and decimated by the Americans. Corregidor was officially in American hands by early March.
1942 : U.S. aircraft carrier Langley is sunk On this day, the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, is sunk by Japanese warplanes (with a little help from U.S. destroyers), and all of its 32 aircraft are lost. The Langley was launched in 1912 as the naval collier (coal transport ship) Jupiter. After World War I, the Jupiter was converted into the Navy's first aircraft carrier and rechristened the Langley, after aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpoint Langley. It was also the Navy's first electrically propelled ship, capable of speeds of 15 knots. On October 17, 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane, a VE-7-SF, launched from the Langley's decks. Although planes had taken off from ships before, it was nevertheless a historic moment. After 1937, the Langley lost the forward 40 percent of her flight deck as part of a conversion to seaplane tender, a mobile base for squadrons of patrol bombers. On December 8, 1941, the Langley was part of the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked. She immediately set sail for Australia, arriving on New Year's Day, 1942. On February 22, commanded by Robert P. McConnell, the Langley, carrying 32 Warhawk fighters, left as part of a convoy to aid the Allies in their battle against the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies. On February 27, the Langley parted company from the convoy and headed straight for the port at Tjilatjap, Java. About 74 miles south of Java, the carrier met up with two U.S. escort destroyers when nine Japanese twin-engine bombers attacked. Although the Langley had requested a fighter escort from Java for cover, none could be spared. The first two Japanese bomber runs missed their target, as they were flying too high, but the Langley's luck ran out the third time around and it was hit three times, setting the planes on her flight deck aflame. The carrier began to list. Commander McConnell lost his ability to navigate the ship. McConnell ordered the Langley abandoned, and the escort destroyers were able to take his crew to safety. Of the 300 crewmen, only 16 were lost. The destroyers then to sank the Langley before the Japanese were able to capture it.
DE RUYTER (February 27, 1942) Dutch light cruiser (7,548 tons) sunk during the seven hour Battle of the Java Sea. Flagship of the Allied Force Commander, Rear Admiral Karel Doorman RNN, the ship was hit by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro at 23.32pm and sank taking the lives of 366 men including Admiral Doorman. There were 70 survivors. Also sunk in this battle were the Dutch light cruiser Java (7,205 tons) and the destroyer Kortenaer 1,640 tons) The Java was struck by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi (14,980 tons, commanded by Rear Admiral Takagi) and sank in fifteen minutes taking 530 crewmembers to their deaths. There were 35 survivors. This was the greatest loss of life on any Dutch warship. The destroyer Kortenaer (Lt. Cmdr. Kroese) hit amidships at 17:13pm by a torpedo from the Haguro, broke in two and sank almost immediately, losing 59 men from her crew of 171. The destroyer HMS Encounter rescued 113 from the stricken vessel but one survivor died on board. During the battle, 152 torpedoes were fired from the Japanese warships, but only three found their targets. In this, the saddest of days for the Royal Netherlands Navy, a total of 955 brave men gave their lives. (The Battle of the Java Sea, the greatest surface engagement since Jutland, took the lives of 6,339 sailors from both sides and the loss of many Allied warships. Only four ships were sunk on the Japanese side).
1944 : Test pilot Reitsch pitches suicide squad to Hitler Hannah Reitsch, the first female test pilot in the world, suggests the creation of the Nazi equivalent of a kamikaze squad of suicide bombers while visiting Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Hitler was less than enthusiastic about the idea. Reitsch was born in 1912 in Hirschberg, Germany. She left medical school (she had wanted to be a missionary doctor) to take up flying full time, and became an expert glider pilot--gliders were motorless planes that the Germans developed to evade strict rules about building "war planes" after WWI. In addition to gaining experience with gliders, Reitsch also did stunt flying for the movies. In 1934, she broke the world's altitude record for women (9,184 feet). An ardent Nazi and admirer of Hitler, she was made an honorary flight captain by the Fuhrer, the first woman to receive such an honor. In 1937, the Luftwaffe, the German air force, put her to work as a test pilot. Reitsch embraced this opportunity to fly as part of what she called Germany's "guardians of the portals of peace." Among her signal achievements was the testing of a proto-helicopter in 1939. Reitsch came closer than any other woman to seeing actual combat during World War II, depositing German troops along the Maginot Line in France during the Germans' 1940 invasion by glider plane. She won an Iron Cross, Second Class, for risking her life trying to cut British barrage-balloon cables (the balloons were unmanned blimps, tethered in one place, from which steel cables dangled so as to foul the wings and propellers of enemy aircraft). Among the warplanes she tested was the Messerschmitt 163, a rocket-power interceptor that she flew 500 mph. While testing the ME 163 a fifth time, she spun out of control and crash-landed (even though she was injured during the crash, she nevertheless managed to write down exactly what happened before she passed out from her injuries). For this, Hitler awarded her an Iron Cross, First Class. It was while receiving this second Iron Cross from Hitler in Berchtesgaden in 1944 that she pitched the idea of a Luftwaffe suicide squad of pilots who would fly specially designed versions of the V-1. Hitler was initially put off by the idea, only because he did not think it an effective or efficient use of resources. But Reitsch's commitment persuaded him to investigate the prospect of designing such planes, at which point she put together a Suicide Group and was the first to take the following pledge: "I hereby...voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death." The squad was never deployed. Reitsch was one of the last people to see Hitler alive. On April 26, 1945, she flew to Berlin with Gen. Ritter von Greim, who was to be given command of the Luftwaffe. Greim was wounded when Reitsch's plane was hit by Soviet antiaircraft fire. After saying farewell to the Fuhrer, tucked away in his bunker, she flew Greim back out of Berlin. After the war, Reitsch was captured and interned by the U.S. Army. She testified to the "disintegration" of Hitler's personality that she claimed to have witnessed during the last days of the war. When released, Reitsch continued to set records, including becoming the first woman to fly a glider over the Alps. In 1951, she published her autobiography, Flying Is My Life, and from 1962 to 1966 she was director of the national school of gliding in Ghana. She died in 1979, at 65 years old, only one year after setting a new women's glider distance record. In her career, she set more than 40 world records for flying powered and motorless planes.
USS JACOB JONES (DD-130) (February 28, 1942) This old four stack 1,340 ton destroyer (Lt. Cmdr. Hugh Black) left New York to take up anti-submarine patrol duties off the coast of New Jersey. At 5am on the 28th, disaster struck. Two torpedoes fired from the U-578 streaked towards the unsuspecting destroyer and struck with a shattering roar the port side of the ship. It took only a few seconds for the ship to break up, the forward section plunging to the bottom. All the occupants of her living quarters were killed when one of the torpedoes struck the stern. By now, only 35 crew members of her complement of 149, were left alive on the mid section but managed to lower life rafts and abandon the sinking vessel. No sooner had the ship disappeared than her depth charges exploded killing many of the men on the rafts. Hours later one of the rafts was sighted but only twelve men in it were alive and one died on the way to shore. The survivors on the other rafts were never found. From the Jacob Jones, 138 crewmembers had died. The destroyer USS Black (DD-666) was later named in honour of the Jacob Jones' commander.
1941 : Bulgaria joins the Axis On this day, the southeastern European nation of Bulgaria joins the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact. When the Second World War broke out, Bulgaria declared its neutrality. But Bulgaria's King Boris was eager to expand his country's borders, and Germany had already coerced Romania to restore south Dobruja--which had been lost in World War I--to Bulgaria. Bulgaria had chosen the wrong side in World War I, deciding that its territorial needs then would best be met by joining the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and the German Empire). They were wrong, and King Boris was determined not to make the same mistake again. Believing Hitler's boasts that he had already won the war, King Boris chose to pitch his country's tent on the Axis side of the war. Hitler needed a compliant Bulgaria through which to march his troops en route to offensives against both Yugoslavia and Greece. If the Germans were victorious in Greece, Bulgaria hoped, as a new war partner, to gain access itself to the Aegean by claiming Greek territory to its south. On March 1, the Germans came marching through the Balkans, as the Bulgarian king signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna with Hitler looking on. Bulgaria benefited in the short term from the alliance; it made territorial gains in both Greece and Yugoslavia. But Hitler was not through exploiting its "partner"-the Fuhrer wanted Bulgaria's help in its war with the Soviet Union. While King Boris prepared Bulgarian troops for the Eastern Front in 1943, communists and agrarian reformers mounted a vigorous resistance campaign, assassinating more than 100 pro-Nazi officials. King Boris also died at this time-from a heart attack. A Regency Council was formed, which remained loyal to Germany. Successive governments rose and fell until the Soviet Union's invasion of Bulgaria in September 1944 resulted in an armistice and a postwar, pro-Soviet Bulgaria.
HMAS PERTH (March 1, 1942) Australian cruiser of 6,830 tons launched in 1934 under the name HMS Amphion. Transferred to the Australian Navy in 1939 and renamed HMAS Perth. During the Battle of the Java Sea the Perth's commander, Captain Hector Waller, pulled his ship out of line when the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter was hit and placed it between the Japanese warships and the Exeter to save it from further damage (the Exeter later sank). The Perth, accompanied by the American cruiser Houston, was later sunk in the Sunda Strait half an hour after midnight about four miles from St. Nicholas Point in Java as the two ships attempted to escape southwards from the battle area and into the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately they ran straight into a Japanese invasion fleet of destroyers and troop transports in Banteng Bay and after a long running battle during which all ammunition was expended, both ships were sunk by torpedoes. On board the Perth were 45 officers, 631 ratings, 4 civilian canteen staff and six Royal Australian Air Force personnel, a total of 686 men. Casualties were 23 officers and 329 ratings killed. There were 334 survivors who were taken prisoners of war. Of these, around 106 died in captivity. Not one of the Perth's officers died while a prisoner of war, due no doubt to the privileges granted to men of officer rank. For this heroic act, Captain Waller never received the equivalent of the British VC as did the captain of the Houston. The Dutch government offered its highest award, the Militare Willems-Orde posthumously to Captain Waller, but to its everlasting shame, the Australian government turned it down. In World War II, twelve Victoria Crosses were awarded to members of the Australian forces engaged in operations against Japan but not a single VC was awarded to the Royal Australian Navy. The Australian cruiser HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean, 1941 USS HOUSTON (March 1, 1942) Sunk in the Sunda Strait by torpedoes from the same warships that sunk HMAS Perth The Houston went down just twenty minutes later about a mile from the Perth, taking 643 men to their deaths. The 368 survivors made their way to Bantam Bay on the western shores of Java, only to be captured by the Japanese who had already occupied the area some hours before. Of the survivors, seventy-seven died while in Japanese captivity. Both captains of the Perth and Houston went down with their ships. Captain Robert Rooks, the commander of the Houston , was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously. The Houston lies in approximately 107 feet of water just north of Panjang Island.
1943 : The Battle of the Bismarck Sea On this day, U.S. and Australian land-based planes begin an offensive against a convoy of Japanese ships in the Bismarck Sea, in the western Pacific. On March 1, U.S. reconnaissance planes spotted 16 Japanese ships en route to Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea. The Japanese were attempting to keep from losing the island and their garrisons there by sending 7,000 reinforcements and aircraft fuel and supplies. But a U.S. bombing campaign, beginning March 2 and lasting until the March 4, consisting of 137 American bombers supported by U.S. and Australian fighters, destroyed eight Japanese troop transports and four Japanese destroyers. More than 3,000 Japanese troops and sailors drowned as a consequence, and the supplies sunk with their ships. Of 150 Japanese fighter planes that attempted to engage the American bombers, 102 were shot down. It was an utter disaster for the Japanese--the U.S. 5th Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force dropped a total of 213 tons of bombs on the Japanese convoy. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill chose March 4, the official end of the battle, to congratulate President Franklin D. Roosevelt, since that day was also the 10th anniversary of the president's first inauguration. "Accept my warmest congratulations on your brilliant victory in the Pacific, which fitly salutes the end of your first 10 years."
I.J.N. ASASHIO (March 2/7, 1943) The Japanese destroyer Asahio was one of eight on escort duty guarding a convoy of eight crowded transports carrying 5,954 soldiers of the Japanese 20th and 51st Infantry Divisions of the Japanese Imperial Army, plus 400 naval marines, from Rabaul to Lae, New Guinea, a distance of 260 miles. The convoy was spotted and attacked in relays by a force of 268 American and Australian fighters and bombers of all types from airfields around Milne Bay in Papua. The convoy was spotted while crossing the Huon Gulf and heading towards Lae, about eighty miles away. The attack turned out to be pure slaughter in one of the biggest air attacks of the Pacific war. All the troop transports, including the 5,000 ton Kyokusei Maru, and the 3,800 ton Shinai Maru, and four destroyers were sunk in this concentrated and persistent attack. Some of the transports were scuttled, the troops making their way to shore in lifeboats and rafts. On the way, most were destroyed by bombing and strafing by Allied fighters, many of the troops being taken by sharks as they struggled in the water like drowning rats. The slaughter continued for days until nothing more lived on the waters of Huon Gulf. (A legitimate act of war to prevent those enemy troops from reaching land and being rearmed to fight another day). The destroyer Arashio 1,500 tons (sister ship of the Asashio) was sunk, as were two others, the Tokitsukaza, 2,000 tons, and the Shirayuki, 1,700 tons. It was believed that 2,890 Japanese troops and ships crews perished. Around 850 were rushed to Lae at the start of the attack, the destroyers then returning to the battle zone to rescue more survivors. Some 3,145 men were picked up from the water by the Japanese destroyers and a couple of Japanese submarines and taken to Rabaul. Ninety two men managed to reach the shore of New Guinea and a small number made it safely to nearby islands. Only three allied fighters and two bombers were shot down, the Japanese lost 63 aircraft.
1945 : Finland declares war on Germany On this day, Finland, under increasing pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, finally declares war on its former partner, Germany. After the German invasion of Poland, the USSR, wanting to protect Leningrad more than ever from encroachment by the West--even its dubious Nonaggression Pact partner Germany--began demanding control of various disputed areas from Finland, including part of the Karelian Isthmus (the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad). Finland resisted the Soviet pressure. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin responded by enacting the "small print" of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Nonaggression Pact the USSR had signed with Germany back in August, which gave the USSR free reign in its "sphere of influence." The Soviets invaded Finland on November 30, 1939. (Stalin claimed that Finnish troops opened fire on Soviet troops.) The Finns stunned everyone by beating back the initial Soviet offensive. Although their resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers (on skis and bicycles!) the refusal to submit made headlines around the world. President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. In March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland signed the Treaty of Moscow, which handed over control of the Karelian Isthmus. As tension increased between Germany and the USSR, Finland saw in Hitler a possible ally in gaining back its lost territory. German troops were allowed on Finnish soil as the Germans prepared for their invasion of the Soviet Union-a war that the Finns joined. Although Finnish troops captured large areas of East Karelia back from the Soviet Union, they were reluctant to trespass the old borders of 1939 and help Germany in the siege of Leningrad. But repeated German setbacks resulted in putting the Soviet Union on the offensive again. Shortly after the Red Army broke through to the Karelian Isthmus in June 1944, the Finnish president, Risto Ryti, resigned. (Around this same time, the United States broke off relations with Finland after repeated demands that Ryti renounce his alliance with Germany were rebuffed.) Ryti's successor, Gustaf Mannerheim, immediately sued for an armistice with the Soviet Union. This was signed on September 19, 1944; Finland agreed to the terms of the 1940 Treaty of Moscow and to throw all German troops off Finnish soil. The final act of capitulation came on March 3, 1945, with a formal declaration of war against the already dying Germany.
1941 : Britain launches Operation Claymore The British navy raids a German position off the coast of Norway and inside the Arctic Circle-the Lofoten Islands. The raid, code name Operation Claymore, proved highly destructive of its target--an armed German trawler--but ultimately a failure in achieving its objective, the capture of an Enigma decoding machine. The Brits severely damaged the trawler, called the Krebs, and killed 14 German sailors, took another 25 prisoner, and destroyed the Germans' local stockpile of oil. While the attack boosted British public morale temporarily, the Enigma machine still eluded the British military. The commander of the Krebs, Lieutenant Hans Kupfinger, threw it overboard before he was killed in the raid, but the Brits were able to recover documents that gave clues to the Enigma's workings. British intelligence was able to piece together enough of the German coding system to track German naval activity for about five weeks. CMBINEDOPS Lofoten
HMAS YARRA (March 4, 1942) Australian Navy destroyer which, in January, took part in the rescue of 1,804 persons from the blazing liner Empress of Asia. On March 4, while escorting a small convoy on its way to Darwin, Australia, she was attacked by three Japanese cruisers, the Atago, Maya and Takao. Their gunfire was directed by a float plane that was circling overhead. In spite of being outgunned the Yarra headed straight for the enemy ships, her guns blazing. Badly damaged, the destroyer began to sink. Eighteen men managed to get into rafts but only 13 were alive when rescued four days later. The gallant ship took 138 crewmen to the bottom.
1945 : Dutch Resistance ambushes SS officer--unwittingly Members of the Dutch Resistance who were attempting to hijack a truck in Apeldoorn, Holland, ambush Lt. Gen. Hanns Rauter, an SS officer. During the following week, the German SS executed 263 Dutch in retaliation. The Dutch Resistance was one of the fiercest of all the underground movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. "The Dutch never accepted the German contention that...the war was over," wrote the Dutch foreign minister in a postwar account of life under Nazi occupation. "[T]heir acts of resistance and sabotage grew more audacious as time passed." Those acts of resistance and sabotage included harboring Allied soldiers and pilots who either parachuted or crash-landed within Dutch territory, harboring Dutch Jews, and killing German troops. The Resistance was composed of representatives from all segments of Dutch society, ranging from the most conservative to communists. Rauter was head of the SS in Holland and answered directly to Heinrich Himmler, the SS commander. In 1941, during a strike that broke out in Amsterdam among Dutch workers to protest the round-up of almost 400 Dutch Jews, Hauter ordered the SS and German troops to open fire on the strikers, killing 11. The Jews, whom the strikers were trying to protect, were deported to Buchenwald. All were dead by the fall. Rauter was riding in an SS truck, filled with food destined for the Luftwaffe (the German air force) based near Apeldoorn on March 6, 1945, when some young members of the Dutch Resistance ambushed the truck. The closing days of the war had left much of occupied Holland close to famine conditions, and the guerrillas were determined to co-opt the food. They did not know Rauter was in the truck when it was attacked; Rauter was shot during the heist attempt but lived. In retaliation, the SS proceeded to round up and execute 263 Dutchmen, some of whom were Resistance fighters who were already being held in prison. Rauter was tried for war crimes by the Dutch court Den Haag. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed the sentence at Nuremberg in 1949, but the sentence was upheld and he was executed that year.
SS HARRY LUCKENBACK (March 7, 1943) American freighter torpedoed by the U-91 (Walkerling) while part of Convoy HX-229 sailing from New York to the United Kingdom. On board were 54 crewmembers and 26 Naval Armed Guard. Three lifeboats were seen to get away from the sinking vessel but were never seen or heard from again.
1941 : British forces arrive in Greece On this day, a British expeditionary force from North Africa lands in Greece. In October 1940, Mussolini's army, already occupying Albania, invaded Greece in what proved to be a disastrous military campaign for the Duce's forces. Mussolini surprised everyone with this move against Greece, but he was not to be upstaged by recent Nazi conquests. According to Hitler, who was stunned by a move that he knew would be a strategic blunder, Mussolini should have concentrated on North Africa by continuing the advance into Egypt. The Italians paid for Mussolini's hubris, as the Greeks succeeded in pushing the Italian invaders back into Albania after just one week, and the Axis power spent the next three months fighting for its life in a series of defensive battles. Mussolini's precipitate maneuver frustrated Hitler because it opened an opportunity for the British to enter Greece and establish an airbase in Athens, putting the Brits within striking distance of valuable oil reserves in Romania, which Hitler relied upon for his war machine. It also meant that Hitler would have to divert forces from North Africa, a high strategic priority, to bail Mussolini out of Greece-and postpone Hitler's planned invasion of the Soviet Union. The Brits indeed saw an opening in Greece, and on March 7, 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill diverted troops from Egypt and sent 58,000 British and Aussie troops to occupy the Olympus-Vermion line. But the Brits would be blown out of the Pelopponesus Peninsula when Hitler's forces invaded on the ground and from the air in April. Thousands of British and Australian forces were captured there and on Crete, where German paratroopers landed in May.
1942 : Dutch surrender on Java On this day, Dutch forces surrender to the Japanese after two months of fighting. Java is an island of modern-day Indonesia, and it lies southeast of Malaysia and Sumatra, south of Borneo, and west of Bali. The Dutch had been in Java since 1596, establishing the Dutch East India Company, a trading company with headquarters at Batavia (modern-day Jakarta), which the Dutch commandeered in 1619. The Dutch East India Company began to assert greater and greater control over the Muslim kingdoms of the East Indies, transforming them into vassal states, with peasants growing rice, sugar, pepper, and coffee for the Dutch government. The company was dissolved in 1799 because of debts and corruption, and the Dutch government took control of the East Indies directly. The British supplanted the Dutch in Java for a brief period (1811-1816), but the Dutch returned to power, slowly granting native Javanese more local control, even giving them a majority on the People's Council. But on January 11, 1942, the Japanese declared war on the Royal Dutch government with its invasion of Borneo and the Island of Celebes, a date that also marked the beginning of the end of the Dutch presence in the East Indies. Sumatra was the next site of Japanese occupation, with paratroopers and troops landing from transports on February 14-16. Seven thousand British and Australian troops reinforced the Dutch fighters on Java, but the Allies pulled out of the fight in late February at the approach of two more large Japanese invasion forces that arrived on March 1. The Dutch finally ended all resistance to the superior Japanese forces on March 8, surrendering on Java. Java's independence of colonial control became a final fact of history in 1950, when it became part of the newly independent Republic of Indonesia.
1945 : Firebombing of Tokyo On this day, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber-and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. "You're going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen," said U.S. Gen. Curtis LeMay. The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this "paper city" was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called "shadow factories," that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories. The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting. The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. "In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal," recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost-considered acceptable losses.
1940 : Sumner Welles makes a "peace proposal" On this day, U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, after a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, visits London to discuss a peacemaking proposal with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to prevent a widening of the European war. Sumner Welles, a diplomat and expert on Latin America, spent his early professional life promoting the United States' "Good Neighbor" foreign policy as attache to the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, chief of Latin American affairs of the State Department, and commissioner to the Dominican Republic. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him assistant secretary of state, sending him to Cuba, where Welles successfully mediated opposing groups attempting to overthrow the government of Gerardo Machado. He was promoted to undersecretary of state in 1937, serving as a delegate to several Pan-American conferences. But in 1940, the stakes were raised for Welles. War had broken out in Europe with the German invasion of Poland, and Welles was sent on a fact-finding tour of Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, in the hopes of keeping the war contained, at the very least, and ideally brought to an end. After a trip to Rome to chat with Benito Mussolini, Welles met with Hitler on March 1-3. Hitler feared that Welles would try to drive a wedge between himself and Axis partner Italy by convincing Mussolini to keep out of the conflict completely. As a result, the Fuhrer bombarded Welles with a propagandistic interpretation of recent events, putting the blame for the European conflict on England and France. Welles informed Hitler that he and Mussolini had engaged in a "long, constructive, and helpful" conversation, and that the Duce believed "there was still a possibility of bringing about a firm and lasting peace." Hitler agreed that there would be peace-after a German victory in Europe. Welles left Berlin and arrived in London on March 10. He briefed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on Hitler's intransigence, arguing that the only hope for a lasting peace was the progressive disarmament of the belligerents, primarily Germany. Chamberlain's foreign ministers were less than impressed with the suggestion, believing that even a "disarmed" Germany could still invade a smaller, weaker nation. In short, Welles' trip accomplished nothing.
1942 : MacArthur leaves the Philippines On this day, following President Franklin D. Roosevelt's orders, Gen. Douglas MacArthur pulls out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapses. The Philippines had been part of the American commonwealth since Spain ceded it at the close of the Spanish-American War. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937 and signed the Tripartite Pact with fascist nations Germany and Italy in 1940, the United States responded by, among other things, strengthening the defense of the Philippines. General MacArthur was called out of retirement and took command of 10,000 American Army troops, 12,000 Filipino enlisted men who fought as part of the U.S. Army, and 100,000 Filipino army soldiers, who were poorly-trained and -prepared. MacArthur radically overestimated his strength and underestimated that of Japan's. The Rainbow War Plan, a defensive strategy for U.S. interests in the Pacific drawn up and refined by the War Department, required that MacArthur withdraw his troops into the mountains of the Bataan Peninsula and await better-trained and equipped American reinforcements. Instead, MacArthur decided to take the Japanese head on-and! never recovered. The day of the Pearl Harbor bombing also saw the Japanese destruction of almost half of the American aircraft based in the Philippines. Amphibious landings of Japanese troops along the Luzon coast followed. By late December, MacArthur had to pull his forces back defensively to the Bataan Peninsula-the original strategy belatedly pursued. By January 2, 1942, the Philippine capital, Manila, fell to the Japanese. President Roosevelt had to admit to himself (if not to the American people, who believed the Americans were winning the battle with the Japanese in the Philippines), that the prospects for the American forces were not good--and that he could not afford to have General MacArthur fall captive to the Japanese. A message arrived at Corregidor on February 20, ordering MacArthur to leave immediately for Mindanao, then on to Melbourne, Australia, where he was to assume command of all United States troops. MacArthur balked; he was fully prepared to fight alongside his men to t! he death, if necessary. MacArthur finally obeyed the president's order on March 11.
