Home Fleet is bombed in its Scapa Flow base and cruiser HMS Norfolk damaged by 15 Ju-88's of 1st Group, 30th Bomber Wing (1st Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 30).

The first civilian to be killed in an air raid during the present war died today during a German raid on the naval base at Scapa Flow.

James Isbister, aged 27, who lived in the village of Bridge of Waithe on Loch Stenness, was standing in the doorway of his home. An enemy aircraft that had turned tail dropped 19 bombs wounding seven civilians and killing Mr. Isbister. Apparently he had been about to run across the road to help a neighbour whose cottage had been hit. He leaves a widow and an infant son. According to an Admiralty communiqué, the raid on Scapa Flow began at 7.50 pm. "About 14 enemy aircraft reached the objective. A considerable number of bombs was dropped, one hitting a warship [HMS Norfolk] which sustained only minor damage." Six crew were killed in the raid and seven injured. The raid was the first on Scapa Flow since 17 October when the old battleship Iron Duke was hit.

None of the enemy aircraft was shot down, although several were claimed to have been damaged in fights with RAF machines. It was reported, but not confirmed, that the raiders also tried to reach the Forth Bridge, but failed. [At the time one enemy aircraft was claimed destroyed and is still in my 1940 sources, but post-war sources disclaim this.]

RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group. Leaflets and Reconnaissance - Prague. 10 Sqn. Two aircraft from Villeneuve. No opposition.

Reconnaissance - Ruhr. 10 Sqn. Six aircraft. Heavy opposition over Dusseldorf.

Reconnaissance of Heligoland Bight.

RAF Coastal Command: One German aircraft damaged in combat with one Coastal Command aircraft.

NETHERLANDS: Destroyer HNLMS Isaac Sweers launched.

GERMANY: A second directive is issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior authorising the establishment of medically supervised brothels throughout Reich territory. (Russell Folsom)U-334 laid down.

U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov states that Soviet Union is absolutely opposed to a defensive alliance between Finland, Sweden and Norway.

ITALY: Rome: Sumner Welles today had talks with Mussolini, Count Ciano and King Victor Emmanuel III on the last leg of his mission to discuss conditions for mediation or peace talks in Europe. He received a cordial welcome from the Italians which contrasted with the cool welcome he got in Berlin from Göring  and Hess. He left Germany via Switzerland for talks with French and exiled Polish leaders in Paris, and was in London before leaving for Rome, via Paris again.

PANAMA: The President of Panama transmits a protest to King of England over British violation of the Pan-American Neutrality Zone in the Wakama Incident that took place off the coast of Brazil on 12 February. On that date, the British heavy cruiser HMS Dorsetshire stopped the German freighter SS Wakama 12 miles (19 kilometres) off Cabo Frio, Brazil and Wakama's crew scuttled her so that their ship will not fall into British hands. 

ARGENTINA: The government deports the German crew of the armored ship Admiral Graf Spee into the interior and forbids them to wear their uniform. 
 

GERMANY: Berlin: Hitler predicts that Britain will fall by 1942, no matter how much aid it gets from the US.

PORTUGAL: The Portuguese capital of Lisbon, has become a haven for refugees from all over Europe fleeing from Nazi persecution. Many spend weeks in miserable accommodation here waiting in terror for a passage on a ship to Australia or the Americas, as far as possible from the Third Reich. There are now so many refugees in the Atlantic port that the American Export Line, the only US shipping line with a regular European service, has stopped taking bookings until existing ones are cleared.

ALBANIA: The Italian attack in the sector between the Aoos and Osumi rivers, which had been going on for ten days, is called off. The Italians have lost 12,000 men, and had not gained an inch. However, the Greeks have been compelled by the Italian offensive to do nothing to strengthen their forces which face the German threat elsewhere.
The decision to halt the offensive is announced to senior Italian commanders. (Mike Yaklich)

GREECE: Two He 111s of the German 10th Air Corps went on an armed reconnaissance flight during they attacked units of the British Mediterranean Fleet west of Crete. Upon returning to base the crews report torpedo hits on two heavy naval vessels which they describe as battleships. This supposed success meant a substantial reduction in the Royal Navy's strength in the Mediterranean, so German leaders urge the Italian navy to get involved and to co-operate with the German attack on Greece that is planned for April 6, by sending their vessels forward into the eastern Mediterranean north and south of Crete.

ETHIOPIA: The 4th Indian Division made the main assault to the right of the road, at Fort Dologorodoc, which was taken at 6.30 in the morning. The Italians launched eight determined counter-attacks and rained shells and mortar bombs on the 2nd Bn. the a West Yorkshire Regiment, who held on with courage and resolution. In these counter-attacks the Savoia battalions, Alpini, Bersaglieri and Grenadiers, were decimated: five days fighting cost them nearly 5,000 casualties, 1,135 of them killed, including their commander, General Lorenzini.

BRITISH SOMALILAND: Two battalions of British troops are landed at Berbera from Aden, capture the port and take 200 prisoners. They have been transported in two light cruisers, two destroyers and seven other vessels.

AUSTRALIA: Two transports sail from Brisbane, Queensland, with troops bound for Thursday Island off the north coast of Queensland; Port Moresby, New Guinea; and Rabaul, New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: During the night, battlecruisers "Scharnhorst " and "Gneisenau", in company with the tankers "Ermland" and "Uckermark" fall upon an allied convoy and wait until dawn to begin their attack; 9 ships are sunk:
"Empire Industry" (previously a German ship)  (3,650 tons),
"Mangkai" (formerly the German ship Scheer) (8,290 tons), Rio Dorado (4,500 tons),
"Silverfir" (4,350 tons), British "Demeterton" (5,250 tons), Norwegian "Grandi" (1,850 tons), "Royal Crown" (4,360 tons), "Sardinian Prince" (3,490 tons), the French "Myson" (4,560 tons), the Danish "Chilean Reefer" (1,830 tons), British merchantmen Simnia (6,200 tons), San Casimiro (8,050 tons), British Strength (7,140 tons), Athelfoam (6,550 tons), the Norwegian Bianca (5,700 tons) and Polykarb (6,400 tons), all from a dispersed convoy, Approximate position 40° 30' North, 43° 45' West. (Alex Gordon and Navy News)

U-106 was chasing Convoy SL-68 when the unescorted Almkerk crossed the way of the convoy and the U-boat. At 1636, a torpedo hit MS Almkerk on the starboard side and a minute later a second hit on the portside. All hands abandoned the ship unhurt and she sank after 15 minutes. The ships of SL-68 sighted this. The British SS Martand picked up one lifeboat on 18 March. The other boat landed in Vichy-French Guinea. After some time in captivity, the lifeboat was allowed to depart for Freetown, where it arrived on 30 March.

At 0018 and 0022, U-110 fired torpedoes at Convoy HX-112 and reported one tanker sunk and a possible hit on a steamer. At 0632 hours, the U-boat attacked again in grid AE 8781 and reported another tanker sunk. However, Allied reports only mention the damaging of the tanker Erodona at the time of the first attack.

Todays issue of TIME prints two letters concerning internment/relocation

One letter is from a Japanese-American editor of the "Japan-California News"

(Los Angeles) that agrees(!) with the relocation of himself and his fellow Japanese-Americans from the West Coast on the basis of relieving the Army of having to keep a watch over them all so the Army can devote itself to defense, and that as loyal citizens they will be of service working on inland farms; plus he notes that should an attack occur on the West Coast, it would be best if the Japanese-Americans were not in the area to fall victim to vigilantism (of which California has a long history).

The second letter was from a resident of Beverly Hills who wrote that she thought there was no need to evacuate them as she detected no desire for that from typical Californians -- only racists and competing local farmers wanted them gone. She also equates such an evacuation as being similar to fascist racial doctrines.

TIME later noted in this issue that German and Italian aliens over 70 years old or who had sons or brothers in the US armed forces were not interned/relocated, but these exceptions were not applied to racial Japanese, citizens or not.  (William Rinaman)

GERMANY: Vice-Admiral Hellmuth Heye requests a drug "that can keep soldiers ready for battle when they are asked to continue fighting beyond a period considered normal, while at the same time boosting their self-esteem."

These operations of the P-51s and P-61s had been made possible by the early development of the airfields for which the battle of Iwo Jima had been fought. Along the central plateau of Iwo the Japanese had laid out three airfields, sometimes called, from the neighbouring village, Montoyama No. 1, No. 2, and No- 3 or simply South, Central, and North fields. The first had two strips, 5,025 and 3,965 feet (1532 and 1209 meters) long. Central Field had two runways, 5,225 and 4,425 feet (1593 and 1349 meters), built in the form of an X. The third, with a single strip, never became operational. The basic plan (WORKMAN) for the development of Iwo into an air base, drawn up in October, contemplated the use where possible of existing Japanese facilities, and although the whole complex was to serve primarily as a very long range base, the most pressing job was the rehabilitation of some strips for local fighter use. The WORKMAN schedule, a Navy responsibility, was as follows: at No. 1, one 5,000-foot (1524 meter) runway was to be rehabilitated for fighter operations by D Plus 7; at No. 2, the northeast-southwest runway was to be repaired for fighter use by D plus 10 and the east-west runway extended into a 6,000-foot (1829 meter) fighter strip by D Plus 50; later, by D plus 110, the northeast-southwest runway was to be extended to 8,500 feet (2591 meters) for B-29s and a second 8,500-foot runway was to be built parallel to the first; at No. 3, one 5,000-foot runway was to be ready for fighters by D plus 50.

All runways were to be 200 feet (61 meters) wide. Construction was assigned to Commodore R. C. Johnson's 9th Naval Construction Brigade, made up of the 8th and 41st Naval Construction Regiments and one AAF unit, the 811th Engineer Aviation Battalion. The 8th Regiment was assigned to general construction, the other units to work on the airfields.

Three Seabee units went in with the assault troops on D-day to serve as shore parties and to begin work on the airfields as they were overrun. Determined enemy opposition upset the construction schedule but as the fields were captured, runways were rapidly made serviceable for minimum operations. One strip on South Field was being used by observation planes as early as 26 February (D Plus 7), and by 2 March the other strip was graded to 4,000 feet (1219 meters). On the 4th, DETACHMENT paid its first dividend when a B-29 in distress came in for an emergency landing. Two days later the P-51s came up from Saipan, and from then on, South Field was in constant use while construction was continued. Although work at Central Field was held up by the protracted land battle, on 16 March it too was operational, with one strip graded to 5,200 feet (1585 meters), the other to 4,800 (1463 meters).

On that day, Colonel William E. Robinson, staff engineer for XXI Bomber Command, landed at Iwo Jima to survey the possibilities of B-29 base development. From the point of view of B-29 crews, Iwo's chief importance was that it would make fighter escort possible and serve as a haven for bombers in distress. But the planners had been interested also in its use as a staging base by which the tactical radius of the B-29 could be lengthened or its bomb load increased. It was for combat-loaded Superforts that the 8,500-foot (2591 meter) runways had been designed, and the WORKMAN plan had provided facilities for 60 to 90 of the bombers. Robinson was convinced that North and Central Fields could be built to serve as many as 150 B-29s, and after his return to Guam, he gave LeMay an amended base development plan. LeMay approved it on the day it was submitted, 26 March, as did Major General Willis H. Hale, who since Harmon's death had been serving as deputy commander of the Twentieth. Major General James E. Chaney, Saipan's island commander, and Admiral Hoover readily concurred, so that by 4 April Robinson had carried the plan to Oahu where Admiral Nimitz gave his final approval. In Robinson's plan, North and Central fields were to be combined into one huge airdrome covering over 4 square miles (10.4 square kilometres) (half the surface of the island), with two B-29 runways, 9,400 and 9,800 feet (2865 and 2987 meters) long, and a 5,200-foot (1585 meter) fighter strip.

The engineers found the task of building airfields on Iwo Jima complex and often exasperating. Iwo, which had risen from the sea within the memory of living men, was still a semiactive volcano, and in many places sulphur-laden steam issued from crevices. Some areas that were honeycombed with steam pockets had to be avoided when runways or subsurface gasoline lines were laid out. Although the volcanic ash which covered the island's surface worked more easily than the coral to which Pacific engineers were accustomed and could be readily compacted to sustain B-29 loads, when wet it eroded easily if compacted, and asphalt could be laid on an ash base only when dry. Unfortunately, heavy rains in the spring months delayed construction by keeping the surfaces wet for as much as a week at a time.

Even in good weather progress on the B-29 runways lagged, until in April the Seabees began working two ten-hour shifts a day and reduced drastically the effort devoted to construction of their own housing and other secondary facilities. In June the program suffered a setback when an asphalt area of approximately 80,000 square feet (7432 square meters) at Central Field was ruined by water penetrating the subbase; on another occasion it was necessary to remove the crushed stone and subgrade from some 1,500 feet (457 meters) of asphalt runway.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0920, the Inger Toft in Convoy RU-156 was torpedoed and sunk by U-722 3 miles 270° from Neirst Point, Isle of Skye. The master and 29 crewmembers were picked up by armed trawler HMS Grenadier and landed at Loch Ewe.

The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escorts USS Lowe, Menges, Pride, and Mosely, which comprised Task Group 22.14, located the submerged German submarine U-866 off the coast of Sable Island and sank it with a loss of all hands.