30 March 1939

1936: U.K.: The government announces that it will build 38 new warships.

March 30th, 1939 (THURSDAY)

GERMANY: Hans Dieterle sets a new World speed record of 463.92 mph (746.6 kph) in a Heinkel He-100. (Marc Small)

POLAND: Foreign Minister Josef Beck is presented an Anglo-French proposal for mutual assistance in case of German aggression.

U.S.A.: The USAAC orders the Consolidated XB-24 bomber prototype. (Ron Babuka)

30 March 1940

March 30th, 1940 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: In a broadcast, Churchill says that Britain has no quarrel with the Russians but vows to "follow this war wherever it leads."

IRAQ:Habbaniya airfield: Shortly before sunrise, Hugh MacPhail took off with his co-pilot, Flg Off Burton, and two RAF photographers who were detailed to take additional photographs of the target zone using hand held cameras. They flew over the Iranian plateau and came out over the Caspian Sea near Resht. After they had been flying for an hour, the outlines of the Baku Peninsula, a vast oil-rich industrial area, appeared below them wreathed in clouds of smoke. For an entire hour MacPhail circled the target at an altitude of 23,000 feet. The Lockheed flew over the Soviet oil supply centre six times, unmolested either by fighter planes and anti-aircraft artillery, and took dozens of photographs. That afternoon they were back in Habbaniya after the ten hour mission.

GERMANY: Hitler publicly orders priority to be given to transporting arms to Russia, while privately planning to attack the USSR next year.

CHINA: Nanking: A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists led by the expelled foreign minister, Wang Ching-wei, today established a rival Kuomintang in Japanese-occupied Nanking. The Reformed Kuomintang gained immediate recognition from Japan, Germany and Italy, but none from the Allies. The new government has agreed to Japanese troops remaining in China. Persuading a politician of Wang Ching-wei's stature to lead the new government is a propaganda coup for Japan, which has now dissolved its two much ridiculed puppet governments in China and placed them under his control.

U.S.A.: Washington: The US refuses to recognise the Japanese regime in Nanking.

30 March 1941

March 30th, 1941 (SUNDAY)

GERMANY: Berlin: Hitler privately addresses 250 officers on the inevitability of war in the east and the necessity of destroying Bolshevism. They must be under no illusions: this was to be a war to the death fought between opposing ideologies, and the struggle would be conducted with 'unprecedented, merciless and unrelenting harshness. No quarter must be given. Breaches of international law would be excused since Russia had not participated in the Hague Conference and possessed no rights under it. Russian commissars who surrendered were to be executed. No Russian prisoner of war could be transported into the Greater German Reich.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler approves the plan to invade Yugoslavia on 6 April.

ITALY: Rome: The Italian High Command announced:

We have repeatedly attacked a strong enemy naval unit in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite vigorous enemy anti-aircraft fire, an Italian torpedo bomber scored a direct hit on a light cruiser. Aircraft of one German air corps damaged an aircraft carrier and shot down an enemy fighter plane. In East Africa, enemy pressure is continuing on the northern front east of Keren but is being impeded by our violent counterattacks. Our troops have evacuated Dire Dawa in the Harar area (Ethiopia) and moved into new positions without breaking ranks. Italian fighter planes destroyed several aircraft on the ground on the Jijiga airfield (Ethiopia). Two British Hurricanes were show down in aerial combat. Two Italian aircraft have not returned to their bases.

YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: The new Foreign Minister makes efforts to remain on good terms with Germany. He assures the German Minister that they would respect international treaties concluded by their predecessors, including accession to the Tripartite Pact. The Foreign Minister says that Minister President Simovic's less than friendly policy towards Germany may be a personal opinion and not on behalf of the government.

The Yugoslav Army takes up positions on the frontier anticipating a German invasion.

EGYPT: Cairo: RAF HQ in the Middle East announced:

RAF operations in Eritrea continued on Friday south of Keren. Enemy motorised columns and troops near Asmara (capital of Eritrea) were bombed and fired on by our machine-guns.

WESTERN DESERT: Air Marshal Arthur Tedder crash-lands, but is not seriously injured.

LIBYA: The Afrika Korps led a reconnaissance raid against Agedabia. Correctly discerning that the British forces are weakly dispersed in positions which prevent mutual support, German and Italian forces begin a counter-offensive and advance east from El Agheila toward Mersa Brega. Only part of the British 2nd Armoured Division is ready to oppose them. The bulk of the Australian Division is near Benghazi and the remainder is back at Tobruk. The Germans captured British tanks and trucks and kept driving forward.

SOUTH AFRICA: Heavy cruiser USS Vincennes (CA-44) departs Simonstown for New York CIty, with a cargo of gold for deposit in the U.S.

PACIFIC OCEAN: Detachment “A” of the U.S. Marines 1st defence Battalion with 5-inch (12.7 cm) artillery arrives at Palmyra Island in stores issuing ship USS Antares (AKS-3) to begin construction of defenses. Palmyra Island, one of the Line Islands, is 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometres) and located about 960 miles (1545 kilometres) south of Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii.
Detachment “B” of the U.S. Marines 1st defence Battalion with 5-inch (12.7 cm) artillery and a machine gun battery, arrives at Johnston Island in high speed minesweeper USS Boggs (DMS-3) to begin construction of defenses. Johnston Island is one of two small islets located 717 miles (1154 kilometres) west southwest of Honolulu; the island is 1,000 yards (914 meters) long and about 200 yards (183 meters) wide.

TERRITORY OF ALASKA:: The air echelon of the USAAC’s 73d Bombardment Squadron (Medium) flies into Elmendorf Field, Anchorage, with eight Douglas B-18 Bolos. These are the first bombers based in the Territory.

U.S.A.: New York: 27 Italian ships in various US ports were boarded today by the US coastguard service after reports that the crews of five of them were starting to sabotage their craft in Newark, New Jersey. The most valuable ship, the Brennaro, is loaded with diesel and aircraft fuel.

The order was given by the secretary of the treasury, Mr Morgenthau. Rumours abound as to motives for the action. Some say that the Italians were acting on orders to destroy ships which might be used to transport arms for the Allied cause. Others say that the sailors are trying to get themselves held in the US to avoid going home now that Italy has joined with Germany in the war against the Allies. The US has also placed guards on two German ships in US ports.

The U.S. Coast Guard took protective custody of 63 ships in U.S. ports, two German, 26 Italian, and 35 Danish. An executive order consequently imprisons 850 Italian and 63 German officers and men.

List member and Flying Tiger, Chuck Baisden celebrates his 21st birthday.

30 March 1942

March 30th, 1942 (MONDAY)

GERMANY: Berlin: The heavy RAF bombing raid on the Baltic port of Lübeck on Sunday night gave Goebbels the chance to stage a coup against his detested rival, Wilhelm Frick, the former police official who is now interior minister. When Hitler phoned to ask about the air raid, Goebbels told him that the situation was chaotic and interior ministry officials had even failed to organize proper relief measures for the hundreds of bombed-out families.

The Führer ordered that responsibility for caring for bombed areas should be removed at once from Frick's ministry and handed over to Goebbels. "The Führer conferred sweeping powers on me," observed Goebbels. "By midnight everything was arranged that could possibly be done. I have been given plenary powers to take action without being hindered by the bureaucracy."

The dwarfish, crippled Goebbels longs to be seen as Hitler's deputy. He is a glutton for work. As Reich minister for public enlightenment and propaganda he controls all book, magazine and newspaper publishing, broadcasting, film production, theatre productions and artistic exhibitions. Because of his withered leg he did not serve in the Great War; he seeks to impress Hitler with fulsome expressions of his loyalty and his large family. His wife Magda is required to produce a baby every year.

POLAND: The first RSHA transport from France arrives in camp Birkinau. (Michael Ballard)

At 5.33 this morning, special train 767 steamed into the camp's railway siding with 1,112 Jewish men from Paris on board. The organizer, SS Captain Theodore Dannecker, was annoyed that the goods wagons which he had requested were not available. The deportees had the relative comfort of passenger coaches.

Their journey began three and a half days ago at the Drancy and Compiegne concentration camps. At Compiegne, all the men were ordered to line up in the camp yard. Then the commandant, Kuntze, started to call out names. The prisoners did not know why. Those selected had to stand on one side. The 550 chosen were given 15 minutes to collect their things; they scrambled for their worn blankets and tattered bundles of clothes.

They were put into two heavily guarded huts overnight. The next day the Germans again lined them up, smashing fists and rifle butts into their mouths at random. Then, a haggard, grey, bruised and bloody sight, they were marched through the streets of Compiegne to the railway station. The local townspeople looked on, stunned that such wraiths could truly still be alive.

Now they will have to get used to their new camp. But few of them will last long: gas chambers and crematoria are nearly ready at Birkenau, the annexe to the main camp. Most of them will be dead before autumn.

NORWAY: During the night of the 30th/31st, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 34 Halifaxes to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in a fjord near Trondheim but the ship is not located; five aircraft bomb flak positions. A total of six aircraft are lost.

Barents Sea: U-585 (type VIIC) is sunk north of Murmansk about 70.00N 34.00E by a German mine which drifted from the "Bantos A" barrage. All 44 of the U-Boat crew are lost. (Alex Gordon)

U.S. freighter SS Effingham, straggling 90 miles (145 kilometres) astern of Murmansk-bound convoy PQ 13, is torpedoed and set afire by German submarine U-435 about 107 miles (172 kilometres) north northeast of Murmansk. The ship explodes and sinks.

ASCENSION ISLAND: The first detachment of U.S. Army engineers arrive to build an airstrip on this 34 square mile (88 square kilometer) island, which lies about midway between South America and Africa. The airfield will be used for antisubmarine patrols and as a refueling stop for aircraft.

BURMA: The Chinese 200th Division withdraws from Toungoo under pressure and fails to destroy the bridge over the Sittang River thus leaving the way to the Chinese border wide open for the Japanese. On the Irrawaddy River front, the Burma I Corps task force falls back to Prome from the Paungde area, leaving vehicles behind at Shwedaung. During the night 30th/31st, the Japanese attack the Indian 63d Brigade at Prome and soon breach their defenses, exposing the right flank of the Indian 17th Division.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND: Nine hundred Japanese troops land on the British controlled, 52 square mile (137 square kilometer) Christmas Island located about 225 miles (362 kilometres) south of the western end of Java, Netherlands East Indies. The island is rich in phosphates.

NEW GUINEA: Reinforcements for the RAAF’s No. 75 Squadron operating from Seven Mile Aerodrome at Port Moresby arrive in the form of five Kittyhawk Mk. IAs (= USAAF P-40E).

PACIFIC: Submarine USS Sturgeon (SS-187) sinks a Japanese transport 33 miles (53 kilometres) southwest of Makassar City, Celebes, Netherland East Indies.

Melanesia: The Japanese occupy Bougainville. There are no Allied forces on the island and virtually all the Europeans have left. (Gordon Rottman)

U.S.A.: Directives are drafted designating General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), and Admiral Chester Nimitz as Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Area (CINCPOA), for submission to the Allied governments concerned.

SWPA is to include Australia, the Philippines, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomons, and most of the Netherlands East Indies. As Supreme Commander of SWPA, General MacArthur is to maintain positions in the Philippines and bases in Australia; guard approaches to SWPA; halt the Japanese advance on Australia; protect communications within the theater; support POA forces; and be prepared to take the offensive.

POA comprises the North Pacific Area (north of 42N), Central Pacific Area (between 42N and the equator) and South Pacific Area (south of the equator between the eastern boundary of the SWPA and 110W), all under overall command of Admiral Nimitz, and the first two under his direct command.

As CINCPOA, Admiral Nimitz, who also remains Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, is to maintain communications between the U.S. and SWPA; support operations in the SWPA; and be prepared to take offensive action. In addition to SWPA and POA, Pacific Theater is to include the Southeast Pacific Area, i.e., the ocean stretches west of Central and South America.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff send directives to the two commands: (CCS 57/1)

-- IAW the "Directive to the Supreme Commander in the Southwest Pacific Area," MacArthur was the "supreme commander" of all Allied forces in the area, of whatever nationality. [Para. 2] As such he was "not eligible to command directly any national force." [Para. 3] His staff was to include officers of all the nations involved. [Para. 9] These latter two provisions were honored more in the breach than the observance.

-- IAW the "Directive to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Ocean Area," Nimitz was a CinC, not an Allied "supreme commander". However, he was to have under him a Commander, SOUTH PACIFIC AREA, who would command the multinational Allied forces in that theater and was to be "not eligible to command directly any national force." [Para. 1-3] (Initially this was the ill-fated VADM Ghormley.) His staff, too, was to have officers from the nations involved -- but outside of the SOPAC area no other nations were involved. (Will O'Neil)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the creation of The Pacific War Council in Washington, D.C. The Council membership consists of the President, Roosevelt’s unofficial advisor on foreign affairs Harry Hopkins, and political representatives of the U.K., China, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Canada. Representatives of India and the Philippines are added later.
The Inter-American defence Board holds its first meeting in Washington, D.C. The Board was created to study and recommend measures for the defence of the hemisphere.
The War Production Board bans the production of certain electric appliances, notably toasters, stoves and razors.

A War Department order discontinues the induction of Japanese Americans in the armed services on the West Coast. (Gene Hanson)

Also in the last three days the Western defence Command has issued a series of proclamations which severely restrict the movements of persons of Japanese descent in the Pacific Coast military area, and which prohibit them from leaving the military area. The Western defence Command had decided that allowing people of Japanese descent to leave the military area and go wherever they chose was creating too much disturbance and opposition among local people. (Scott Peterson) More...

Life magazine carries an article on the American Volunteer Group, the "Flying Tigers". LINK

30 March 1943

March 30th, 1943 (TUESDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Britain suspends the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union because it cannot provide enough escorts to guard against the increasing number of German warships in Norway.

NETHERLANDS: RAF Mosquitoes bomb the Philips radio factory at Eindhoven.

BALTIC SEA Sea: U-416 (type VIIC) is sunk near Bornholm Island (precise position unknown) by a mine laid by Soviet submarine L3. The number of crew lost is not known, but the U-Boat is raised on 8 April 1943 and put back into use for training. (Alex Gordon)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin is furious to hear that Allied convoys to Murmansk are to be suspended because of heavy losses, suspecting political rather than military motives.

TUNISIA: Allied troops of the Eighth Army today moved up to a new German defensive line in the Tunisian desert at Wadi Akarit. The ten-day battle to breach the Axis defences of the Mareth Line is over, with Montgomery a decisive victor in his first confrontation with the new Axis commander, General von Arnim.

For many observers, this was Monty's finest battle. After two days of fighting, a direct assault on the Mareth Line was proving to be fruitless, with heavy losses in men and tanks from ruthless Axis counterattacks. Then Monty revised his original plan by ordering Lt-Gen Brian Horrocks to move his tanks by night to join Maj-Gen Sir Bernard Freyberg's New Zealanders, who had begun an encircling move. The breakthrough came with the attack on the Tebaga Gap during the night 26-27 March. The movement of so many men and tanks in darkness was a move previously favoured by Rommel, but not the Allies; another tactic deployed to a greater extent than has been customary for the Allies was the use of air power to support attacking land forces.

Forward air-controllers were in the front line of the Tebaga attack, using radio to direct pilots in Spitfires and other aircraft to attack tanks and enemy defences. The land forces advanced behind an aerial barrage of cannon fire and bombs from fighter-bombers flying over them in 15-minutes relays.

Some 6,000 Axis soldiers, mostly Italian, have been taken prisoner. But although most of the Mareth defenders escaped, they have had little time to prepare new defences against the inevitable next move by Monty's masters of the desert.

Not since the age of Hannibal has such a polyglot army fought over these desolate wastelands. Men from all over the world have shared the dangers and discomfort, the defeats and the triumphs, the intense daytime heat and bitterly cold desert nights. The blood of many races and nationalities has soaked into the North African desert.

Here are the Australians who fought so stubbornly on the north flank of Alamein, with losses so huge that their government feared the loss of an entire generation; and New Zealanders whose tanks have excelled in encirclement operations and whose Maori infantrymen became as feared as the Indian Division's Gurkhas in the fighting around Tobruk. The Free French stand at Bir Hacheim brought respect even from Rommel; and few have fought more fiercely than the Palestinian detachment and the Poles.

The Greek Brigade has shown the same tenacity as it showed against the Italians and Germans in defence of its homeland.

The Scots regiments have distinguished themselves throughout the campaign, often fighting alongside South Africans and English, Welsh and Irish county regiments, happy and honoured with the rest to call themselves "Desert Rats".

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Having scuttled their ship, all but six of the crew of the German blockade runner REGENSBURG, from Rangoon, kill themselves when they are intercepted off Iceland by the British cruiser HMS GLASGOW.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: 2nd Engineer Officer Gordon Love Bastian (1902-87) rescued two injured men from the engine-room, dark and filing with water and fumes, of the sinking SS BOWMAN. (Albert Medal)

30 March 1944

March 30th, 1944 (THURSDAY)

GERMANY: RAF bombers raid Nuremberg, losing 95 aircraft (64 Lancasters and 30 Halifaxes) out of 795. 545 British crewmen are killed, compared with 69 German civilians and 59 foreign slave workers.

Of the aircraft lost 62 are shot down by German fighters, 14 by flak, 2 are lost in collisions and 16 listed as missing. (Gene Hanson)

P/O Cyril Joe Barton (b.1921), RAFVR, carried out a raid alone in his damaged Halifax MK III (LK 797) of No. 578 Squadron, after three crew baled out in error. He died when his fuelless plane crash landed in Co. Durham. (Victoria Cross)

Berlin: Hitler, furious at the Russian victories in the Ukraine, has sacked two of his field marshals, von Manstein, commanding Army Group South and von Kleist, in charge of Army Group A.

Von Manstein's dismissal is the culmination of a long series of quarrels in which he has refused Hitler's demand that the Wehrmacht should never retreat. Von Manstein, master of the defensive battle, won the last quarrel five days ago when Hitler summoned him to the Berchtesgaden to demand that the army must stand on the line of the river Bug. Von Manstein replied that it was an impossible order, and that the First Panzer Army was in danger of being caught in a Stalingrad-type "cauldron".

Hitler backed down, but now he has had his revenge. He recongnised that von Manstein was a master of manoeuvre, but said that what he wanted was someone who "would dash round the divisions and get the very utmost out of his troops". At the core of the quarrel is Hitler's belief that the army had run away in the Ukraine. In fact it was overwhelmed by the speed and weight of the Russian attack.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA:U-223 (type VIIC) (Oberleutnant zur See Peter Gerlach) is sunk north of Palermo in position 38.48N 14.10E by depth charges from HMS Laforey (which the U-Boat also torpedoes and sinks), HMS Tumult, HMS Hambledon, HMS Blencathra. 23 of the U-Boat crew are lost, but 27 survive. Having attacked HMS Laforey whilst surfaced U-223 then attempted an escape on the surface at 15 knots, but was unable to outrun 2 fleet and 3 escort destroyers. She finally sank by the stern after having been on the receiving end of 27 depth charge/Hedgehog attacks and gunfire. HMS Laforey is the last British warship to be sunk in the Mediterranean by a submarine during WWII. There are 177 casualties and 69 survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108)

BURMA: The Chindits' 16th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Bernard Fergusson, retreats following its failure to take the main Japanese supply base at Indaw.

Admiralty Islands: US forces occupy Pityilu Island, north of Manus.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: US Marine Photo squadron VMD-254 redeploys to Guadalcanal.

U.S.A.: The motion picture "Cover Girl" opens at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Directed by Charles Vidor, this musical comedy stars Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, Jinx Falkenburg, Eve Arden and Otto Kruger.

30 March 1945

March 30th, 1945 (FRIDAY)

GERMANY: The German cruiser Köln is sunk by aircraft from the US 8th Air Force.

The US 1st Army advance north from Marburg and crosses the River Eder.

U.S. Army Major General Maurice Rose and two others rounded a bend in the road and ran into a German tank. The young German tank commander (excited), ordered the three men to surrender. Looking at General Rose's pistol, he excitedly began to bark out orders and pointing to the General's weapon. General Rose moved his right hand so that he could drop his weapon to the earth but then the German tank commander shot him in the head. The others escaped unharmed. (Stuart Kohn)

US aircraft bomb the three major ports of Bremen, Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven.

U-429 (type VIIC) is sunk near Wilhelmshaven in 53.13N 08.40E by US bombs dropped during this raid.

U-430 (type VIIC) is sunk near Bremen in position 53.08N 08.46E by US bombs dropped during this raid. Only 1 of the U-Boat's crew is lost.

U-348 (type VIIC) is sunk near Hamburg in position 53.33N 09.57E by US bombs dropped during this daylight raid. 3 of the U-Boat's crew lose their lives.

U-1167 (type VIIC/41) is sunk near the Deutsche Werke yard in Hamburg due to damage from British bombs. Only 1 of the U-Boat crew is lost.

(Alex Gordon)

A surrendering Luftwaffe pilot delivers a Me-262A-1 fighter to allied forces when it lands at an American airbase. (Ron Babuka)

POLAND: The final German positions in Danzig are overrun by the Soviet Army, 10,000 German prisoners are taken along with 45 submarines in the harbour.

The Soviet army begins it's invasion of Eastern AUSTRIA. (Michael Ballard) Marshal Tolbukhin has crossed the Austrian border in strength about 50 miles south of Vienna. At the same time Marshal Rokossovsky, advancing on Tolbukhin's right on a 130-mile front, has broken though the German lines to threaten Bratislava. It was Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Front which absorbed Hitler's Spring Awakening assault in Hungary and then, when the Germans faltered, did not counter-attack but simply resumed its march on Austria.

Tolbukhin's advance has been accompanied by a sudden loss of morale among the Germans, even among the Waffen-SS troops of the 6th SS Panzer Army. The Wehrmacht is crumbling away.

HUNGARY: During their occupation the Nazis have forced thousands of Hungarian Jews, many times by torture, to deposit valuables and family heirlooms in Hungarian banks and other institutions. Many of the goods have been deposited on a train dubbed the Gold Train.

It contains 29 boxcars filled with personal heirlooms and valuables, including art, gold, jewellery, diamonds, silverware, fine china, porcelain and religious items. The train has left Hungary today bound for Austria. (Miami, PRN Newswire)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-965 (type VIIC) is sunk north of Scotland, in position 58.19N, 05.31W by depth charges from the British frigates HMS Rupert and HMS Conn. 51 dead (all hands lost). (Alex Gordon)

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