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March 24th, 1939 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: No. 242 Squadron RAF Fighter Command, is formed as the first all Canadian squadron in the RAF. More.....

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March 24th, 1940 (SUNDAY)

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March 24th, 1941 (MONDAY)

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March 24th, 1942 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Derwent commissioned.

Corvette KNM Nordkyn (ex-HMS Buttercup) commissioned.

FRANCE: During the day, 18 RAF Bomber Command Bostons are dispatched on two escorted raids: 12 aircraft hit the Comines power-station and six bomb the marshaling yard at Abbeville. Bombing results were not observed; no aircraft are lost. 
     During the night of the 24th/25th, 35 aircraft of RAF Bomber Command lay mines off Lorient; a Hampden and a Lancaster are lost. These were the first Bomber Command losses for 11 days and nights and the Lancaster lost, from 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, was the first of its type to be lost on operations. 

GERMANY: U-171 laid down.

U-196 launched.

BARENTS SEA: U-655 a type VIIC is sunk approx. 73.0N 21.0E after being rammed by minesweeper HMS Sharpshooter. All 45 of the U-Boat crew are lost. (Alex Gordon)

MALTA: A battered British supply convoy reached harbour in Malta today. On Sunday it was forced to fight a "David and Goliath" operation against a powerful Italian battle fleet, and it won. The five cruisers and 17 destroyers, escorting four merchant ships, were attacked by the battleship LITTORIO - with nine 15-inch guns - which appeared from the north-east with three heavy cruisers and four destroyers in attendance. The odds were very much against the British cruisers (5.25 inch guns) and destroyers (4.7 inch). Rear-Admiral Philip Vian ordered the convoy to sail at speed to the south-west, and then moved towards the Italians under a smokescreen. The Italians withdrew, worried by the threat of torpedoes through the smokescreen. 

The Italian action delayed the four ships of the convoy, however, and all of them came under heavy air attack. Two of the freighters were sunk and although the other two, the TALABOT and PAMPAS, succeeded in reaching their destination, the Luftwaffe has concentrated on these two survivors in harbour. Some 326 bombers and fighters have been employed in their destruction, and only 5,000 of the 26,000 tons which left Egypt have actually landed in Malta.

EGYPT: The Wafd [nationalist] party wins the general election.

Whilst escorting convoy MW.10, destroyer HMS Southwold hits a mine off Zonkor Point at 35 63N 14 35E and sinks. (Alex Gordon)(108)

INDIA: Minesweeper INS Bombay commissioned.

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. 
 

THAILAND: Ten P-40s of the 1st Fighter Squadron, American Volunteer Group (AVG, aka, “The Flying Tigers”) 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.   
 

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.   

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: 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 Kartin Clemens and Kartin Clemens and Ken Hay to set up a new observation post.  observation post. 

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Moncton commissioned.

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

The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant-General Thomas Holcomb writes a letter to the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet (COMINCH), Admiral Ernest J. King, proposing a joint intelligence centre at Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i. (Mike Yared)(184)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 2348, the unescorted Empire Drum was torpedoed by U-136 north of Bermuda. The vessel was sunk by a coup de grâce at 0008 on 25 April. The master, 32 crewmembers and 16 gunners were picked up by the Swedish merchantman Venezia and landed at New York. Two crewmembers were rescued by a US destroyer and landed at Norfolk.

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March 24th, 1943 (WEDNESDAY)

NORTH AFRICA: Montgomery sends the 4th Indian Division toward Ksas el Hollant. The difficult terrain diffuses this effort.

U.S.S.R.: Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov gives to the US government the terms of peace with Finland. They include borders of 1940, war against Germany and reparations. The US government doesn't transmit terms to Finns, because it considers terms too harsh. (Gene Hanson)

U-655 a type VIIC is sunk in the Barents Sea, approx. 73.0N 21.0E after being rammed by minesweeper HMS Sharpshooter. All 45 of the U-Boat crew are lost. (Alex Gordon)

BURMA: Wingate is ordered to break up his Chindits and return to India.

JAPAN: The Imperial Japanese Navy issues Directive No. 209. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is directed to capture and secure the northern Sakhalin Island and Kamchatka Peninsula if the Soviet Union declares war on Japan. Vladivostok is considered one of the invasion areas.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: The last major IJA offensive effort ends on Bougainville.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: 25 Eleventh Air Force B-24s, B-25s and P-38s attack Kiska Island. 

U.S.A.: The Joint Chiefs of Staff approve a plan to invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands.
 

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March 24th, 1944 (FRIDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Pit owners and miners' leaders today signed a new four-year deal to secure peace and higher output un Britain's coalfields. Under a government-sponsored plan, piece-rate wages will be more closely related to output and there will be job security until 194. About one in 20 miners will also be graded as "skilled craftsmen" able to earn well over £5 a week. Union leaders appealed tonight for a return to work by 60,000 South Yorkshire miners in dispute over their home coal allowance.

FRANCE: Airfields are attacked in the morning by 181 Eighth Air Force B-24s and 220 Ninth Air Force B-26s. In the afternoon, 146 Ninth Air Force bombers hit a marshalling yard. These aircraft are escorted by 841 Eighth and Ninth Air Force fighters.

The full weight of the Heer with massive air support, has succeeded in defeating 465 Resistance fighters of the French Maquis on the plateau of Glieres. The widespread presence of the Maquis has become a continuing source of irritation and frustration to the Vichy and German authorities.

The first attack by the Vichy Milice was a failure; but today several battalions of German soldiers, backed by the Milice, are being used in the offensive. The majority of prisoners are reported to have been brutally tortured before being executed.

GERMANY: 222 Eighth Air Force B-17s, escorted by 540 fighters, bomb Schweinfurt and Frankfurt. This is the third raid to hit Frankfurt since 18 March.

Stalag Luft III: They have been working on it for two years and now, just after dusk, the moment has arrived for the Allied airmen held in the German PoW camp at Sagan, 80 miles south-east of Berlin. The last few feet of earth are removed and the first prisoners climb out into the wood beyond the barbed wire. The 365-foot tunnel, with air vents and underground railway for moving debris, is the brain child of a Canadian mining engineer and Spitfire pilot, Wally Moody. 

Two by two the men leave the tunnel and move off in different directions: south for Czechoslovakia, west for the attempt to pick up a train, and north for Baltic ports and Scandinavia. From time to time the ground beneath their feet shudders under the impact of the 4,000-pound bombs that their RAF comrades are dropping on Germany. They move warily, for the camp guard is doubled during air raids.

As dawn begins to break, a guard, startled by movement close by, fires  a shot that raises the alarm. Guards, some in night clothes, swarm through the camp; 76 P oWs have escaped.

ITALY: 132 Fifteenth Air Force B-24s bomb marshalling yards at Rimini and several other targets while Twelfth Air Force A-20s, A-36s, B-25s, P-40s and P-47s bomb supply and bivouac areas, bridges, troop concentrations, etc. As part of Operation STRANGLE, the aerial interdiction of the German supply lines, aerial attacks by Allied aircraft have completely severed the rail lines from northern Italy to Rome and no rail cars enter Rome until the Allied occupation in June 1944.

Rome: In a bloody and brutal night of savagery, the SS avenged the deaths of 33 of its men in a communist partisan bombing by killing 335 hostages - ten Italians for every German. The bomb exploded in Rome's Via Rasella as a German police unit was marching past.

The victims, drawn mostly from Rome's Jewish population, had been picked from a Gestapo jail or were being detained by the Wehrmacht. They were taken by lorry to the Ardeatine Caves outside the city. Before the war the caves were mined for the volcanic material known as tuff for use in cement production. There, by torchlight, the shootings began. As the dead piled up, executioners and victims were forced to stand on bodies. The youngest victim was 15. Engineers sealed the caves. (Tony Morano)

The only person to be punished for it was Herbert Kappler, the SS officer in charge of German police and security services in Rome during the war. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1948.

BURMA: Major General Orde Charles Wingate is killed flying in a B-25 Mitchell of the First ir Commando on a return flight from the Chindit base "Broadway" Burma to India. He is replaced by General Lentaigne. The weather was bad with sudden rainstorms. The RAF had grounded its planes, but the 41 year old Wingate insisted on flying - dying, as he had lived, ignoring official advice. Some of his Chindits are grieving. Others are celebrating. In death as in life he produced mixed reactions.

An unstable crusader who had found a cause, Wingate had first achieved fame for his irregular skills, and notoriety for his brutality, in Ethiopia. His staff so hated him that when he failed to commit suicide with a razor in protest at the "betrayal of Ethiopia", Colonel Hugh Boustead said: "Bloody fool, why didn't you use a revolver?"

Yet after Wingate had put his ideas on long-range penetration into practice in Burma, Churchill wanted this "man of genius and audacity" in command.

Operation Thursday, launched three weeks ago, was designed to cut off the Japanese army in north-east Burma, and threaten its rear. Within ten days Brigadier Mike Calvert's 77th Brigade has captured Mawlu, cut all rail and road links with north-east Burma and established "strongholds" supplied by air. But Brigadier Bernard Fergusson's 16th Brigade, exhausted after a five-week march from Ledo, has failed to take the main Japanese supply base at Indaw.

Meanwhile, on the Imphal plain, Slim is mustering his forces to try to hold off against Mutaguchi's two divisions advancing on Imphal, Kohima and Dimapur. While the Japanese complain that they haven't seen their own air force in weeks. Slim has airlifted the 5th Indian Division over from the Arakan.  More troops are pouring into the area from Manipur.

But the Chindits, their charismatic leader gone, are no longer sure of their objective. Having been told to cut off the Japanese facing China, Wingate appears to have decided, against orders, to shift his forces west and cut off the Japanese facing Imphal. He was well-known for never writing anything down or confiding in his subordinates; his plans, whatever they were, are a mystery, scattered over a rain-soaked Imphal hillside.

Air Commando Combat Mission N0. 37 1:40 Flight Time Broadway, Burma to Hailakandi, Assam. Took off at sunrise and flew directly to home base. Japanese aircraft attacked Broadway minutes after we had left the area.

Notes: Broadway, located in Northern Burma, was the code name for the place where the glider force landed during Operation Thursday. Personnel from the glider forces made the field serviceable for transport aircraft i.e. C-47s. *By Thursday of March 11 7,023 men, 132 horses, 994 mules and 220 tons of supplies had been airlifted into this base without Japanese interference. *Military History Series 86-1 First Air Comando Group Any Place, Any Time, Any Where (Chuck Baisden)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Bougainville: 300 Japanese died today as 2,000 troops launched a suicidal attack against the Allied beach-head at Torokina, on Bougainville Island. The attack reflects Japan's increasingly desperate situation in the Solomons. Its main base for the area, at Rabaul, was bombed today for the 50th day in succession, with Allied planes dropping 150 tons of explosives on Rabaul's three airfields. The daytime offensive at Torokina was rebuffed, with US losses given as four dead and 47 wounded.

JAPAN: US Battleships under Admiral Lee bombard Okinawa.

U.S.A.: The motion picture "The Clock" is released. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, this romantic drama stars Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason and Keenan Wynn.

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March 24th, 1945 (SATURDAY)

GERMANY: Montgomery's crossing of the Rhine, meticulously prepared and impatiently awaited, is now under way, and in a message to his armies he says that they will soon be "chasing the enemy from pillar to post". Over 100 miles to the south, Patton crossed the Rhine 24 hours ahead of Montgomery after boasting that he was not going to let the British field marshal "carry the ball". he went across at Nierstein against light opposition and swept down on Darmstadt.

While Patton has captured the headlines, Montgomery's operation, on a massive scale, has substantial strategic objectives; it is aimed at taking Allied forces in a deep thrust across the north German plain, while the US 9th Army seals off the Ruhr.

The assault force assembled behind a 20-mile long smokescreen. With 1,250,000 Britons, Canadians and Americans under him, Montgomery has more than 5,500 artillery pieces, anti-tanks guns and rockets. The British Second Army alone has 120,000 tons of ammunition, stores and other supplies above normal needs. 

The British went across  last night at Wesel; the town had been reduced to rubble by Allied bombing and shelling, but the Germans clung on for the best part of 24 hours. To the south, the US 9th crossed against patchy opposition. "There was no real fight," a company commander said, "The artillery had done the job for us." There were 31 American casualties.

This morning, in Operation Varsity, over 21,000 airborne infantry were dropped north-east of Wesel. They quickly overcame enemy resistance and linked up with the main force. Only on the extreme left wing, near Emmerich, is resistance really tough. "The enemy", say the Canadians, "are fighting like madmen." There are now three bridgeheads between Wesel in the north and Mainz in the south: Montgomery's, Patton's and the US First Army's at Remagen. Operation Plunder under General Montgomery extends the bridgehead to a depth of 5 miles. The US 9th Army, now part of Montgomery's 21st Army Group, begins to cross the Rhine south of the British and Canadians.
Starting at 1000 hours local, 2,029 IX Troop Carrier Command C-47s and gliders plus 839 RAF aircraft and gliders drop paratroopers and glider troops of the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions around Wesel. 

Supporting this operation are:

- 1,714 Eighth Air Force B-17s and B-24s which bomb airfields in western and northwestern Germany. Escorting the bombers are 1,297 P-47s and P-51s. 

- Almost 700 Ninth Air Force A-20s, A-26 and B-26s attack communications centers, rail bridges, flak positions and other targets. Ninth Air Force fighters and fighter-bombers fly 2,039 sorties in support of this operation. 

150+ Fifteenth Air Force B-17s attack the Daimler-Benz tank-engine factory in Berlin.  

GERMANY: Cpl Frederick George Topham (1917-74), Canadian Army, brought in a wounded man from the open, despite being shot himself. He later rescued three men from a crippled carrier. (Victoria Cross)

EASTERN FRONT: The Red Army is preparing with great deliberation for its last campaign, the attack on Berlin, in its long march to the west from the very gates of its own capital. Marshal Zhukov, having taken the fortress of Kustrin, the last obstacle on the road to Berlin, is now enlarging his bridgehead across the Oder to set the scene for the drama which is about to unfold.

German reports say that in a new advance with six infantry divisions and two tank brigades he has reached the road junction at Golzow, just 33 miles from greater Berlin. The advance is almost leisurely by Red Army standards, but it is inexorable. In Hungary yesterday Marshal Tolbukhin finished off Hitler's ill-fated Operation Spring Awakening and is about to resume his march on Vienna.

In the north, Marshal Rokossovsky is tightening his grip on Danzig and Konigsberg as the Germans continue their feverish evacuation of East Prussia. It is the unfortunate General Schorner, rescued from command of the cut-off forces in Courland to take over Army Group A opposite Marshal Konev, who has felt the full weight of the Red Army in recent days. Konev has hit him hard near Oppeln in Silesia. Everything is now ready for Berlin.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: 271 Fifteenth Air Force B-24s destroy the Neuberg jet-aircraft factory.

HUNGARY: Szekesfehervar falls to the Red Army, as the German counter-attack fails with heavy losses.

ITALY: A re-equipped and revitalized Allied army is braced for a major new campaign aimed at trapping the German army in the Po valley. Fears that Hitler is planning a fight to the death in a mountain redoubt have put pressure on Allied commanders to moce quickly.

Field Marshal Alexander, supreme Allied commander, Mediterranean, is planning for the Eighth Army to attack westwards through the Argenta Gap, with the US Fifth Army attacking northwards, west of Bologna. Alexander hopes to achieve the critical element of surprise by simulating preparations for seaborne landings north of the Po.

The Eighth Army's low morale of December has been improved by the arrival of new weapons including flame-throwing tanks and 400 Fantails, tracked amphibious troops carriers, badly missed in the crossing of countless rivers in the previous advance.

The commanders have not been cheered by the loss of the Canadian Corps to north-west Europe; nor by the universal shortage of artillery ammunition which is restricting many batteries to five rounds daily for each gun.

CHINA: To support the upcoming invasion of Okinawa, a campaign against Japanese air bases is initiated with the intent of tying down Japanese aircraft in China.

BURMA:Lt-Gen Daniel I Sultan's Sino-American force links up with British troops at Kyaukme.

JAPAN: XXI Bomber Command Mission 45: during the night of 24/25 March, 223 B-29s attack an aircraft-engine plant at Nagoya. Five B-29s are lost.
RYUKYU ISLANDS: The final preinvasion operations by Task Force 58 and Task Group 52.1 (the Support Carrier Group) are conducted. A strike force 112 USMC andUSNaircraft sink an entire eight-ship convoy 150 miles (241 km) northwest of Okinawa.

U.S.A.: The motion picture "The Clock" is released. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, this romantic drama stars Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason and Keenan Wynn.

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