On This Day

Historical Events in March 1942

  • Mar 1 3 day Battle of Java Sea ends, US suffers a major naval defeat
  • Mar 1 Major League Baseball owners decide not to allow players in the military to play for their clubs when on furlough
  • Mar 1 J Milton Cage Jr's "Imaginary Landscape No 3" premieres in Chicago
  • Mar 1 Japanese troops occupy Kalidjati airport in Java
  • Mar 1 Suriname camp for NSB people opens to save Jews

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Mar 1 Tito establishes 2nd Proletarit Brigade in Bosnia

President of Yugoslavia and Revolutionary Josip Broz Tito
President of Yugoslavia and Revolutionary
Josip Broz Tito

Film tv awardsAcademy Awards

Mar 2 14th Academy Awards: "How Green was My Valley", Gary Cooper & Joan Fontaine win

Actress Joan Fontaine
Actress
Joan Fontaine
Actor Gary Cooper
Actor
Gary Cooper
  • Mar 2 Admiral Helfrich departs Java for Ceylon
  • Mar 3 1st combat flight for Canadian British-built Avro Lancaster bomber
  • Mar 5 Bosnia Tito establishes 3rd Proletarit Brigade in Bosnia

Music releaseMusic Premiere

Mar 5 World première of Dmitri Shostakovich' 7th Symphony in Kuybyshev, Russia

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich
Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich
  • Mar 5 Japanese troop march into Batavia
  • Mar 7 15 Mk-VB Spitfires reach Malta
  • Mar 7 1st cadets graduated from flying school at Tuskegee
  • Mar 8 Japanese forces capture Rangoon, Burma
  • Mar 8 KNIL, Dutch colonial army on Java, surrenders to Japanese armies

  • Mar 9 Construction of the Alaska Highway begins
  • Mar 11 1st deportation train leaves Paris for Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Mar 11 General MacArthur leaves Corregidor (Bataan) for Australia

US WWII General Douglas MacArthur
US WWII General
Douglas MacArthur
  • Mar 11 Japanese troops land on North Sumatra
  • Mar 12 British troops vacate the Andaman Islands in Gulf of Bengal
  • Mar 13 Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps, becomes 1st woman colonel in US army
  • Mar 17 Bełżec Concentration Camp opens with the transport of 30,000 Lublin Polish Jews
  • Mar 17 General Doug MacArthur arrives in Australia to become supreme commander
  • Mar 18 Illegal Free Netherlands announces boycott of theaters

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Mar 18 2 black players, Jackie Robinson & Nate Moreland, request a tryout with the Chicago White Sox, they are allowed to work out

Baseball Player Jackie Robinson
Baseball Player
Jackie Robinson

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Mar 18 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority, which was charged with overseeing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II

32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Mar 19 FDR orders men between 45 & 64 to register for non-military duty
  • Mar 19 Thoroughbred Racing Association of US formed in Chicago
  • Mar 20 Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik Iceland to Russia

Philippine Revolution'I Shall Return'

Mar 20 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines

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A statue in the Philippines commemorating the promised return of American commander Douglas MacArthur in World War II
A statue in the Philippines commemorating the promised return of American commander Douglas MacArthur in World War II
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  • Mar 20 Major German assault on Malta
  • Mar 21 Convoy QP9 departs Great Britain to Murmansk
  • Mar 23 2,500 Jews of Lublin massacred or deported
  • Mar 23 Japanese forces occupy Andaman Islands in Indian Ocean
  • Mar 24 US government begins moving native-born citizens with Japanese ancestry into detention centres under Executive Order 9066, with intention of preventing home-grown espionage

  • Mar 25 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov district reach the Bełżec Concentration camp

Execution'The Banality of Evil'

Mar 26 First "Eichmann transport" to Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps

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Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann sits in the dock at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem
Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann sits in the dock at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem
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  • Mar 26 Explosion of 20 tons of gelignite in a stone quarry at Easton, Pennsylvania, kills 21

BattleBattle of Interest

Mar 26 German offensive in North Africa under General Erwin Rommel

German WWII Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
German WWII Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel
  • Mar 27 -28] Allies raid German submarine base in St Nazaire
  • Mar 27 Japan forces Java to use "Tokyo time" 1½ hour forward

Sport defeatBoxing Title Fight

Mar 27 Joe Louis KOs Abe Simon in 6 to retain heavyweight boxing title (NYC)

Boxer and World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis
Boxer and World Heavyweight Champion
Joe Louis
  • Mar 28 -29] 234 RAF bombers attack Lubeck
  • Mar 28 4th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Stanford beats Dartmouth, 53-38; Cardinal forward Howie Dallmar is named tournament Most Outstanding Player
  • Mar 28 British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port of St Nazaire
  • Mar 29 British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea
  • Mar 29 British destroyer HMS Campbeltown explodes in St Nazaire: 400 Germans die
  • Mar 29 German submarine U-585 sinks
  • Mar 29 Bombing of Lübeck in World War II was the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city
  • Mar 30 1st RSHA-transport from France arrives in camp Birkenau
  • Mar 30 SS murders 200 inmates of Trawniki concentration camp

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