- Mar 1 British 43rd Division under General Hubert Essame occupies Xanten
- Mar 1 Chinese 30th division occupies Hsenwi
Yalta Conference
Mar 1 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces success of Yalta Conference
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Meeting of Interest
Mar 3 Winston Churchill visits Field Marshal Montgomery's headquarters
Winston Churchill
Event of Interest
Mar 4 In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Auxiliary Transport Service as a driver.
Elizabeth II
- Mar 5 Allies bombs The Hague, Netherlands
Meeting of Interest
Mar 5 Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Alexander Patch meet in Lunéville, France
Dwight D. Eisenhower
George S. Patton
Alexander Patch
- Mar 5 US 7th Army Corps captures Cologne
- Mar 5 US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Gretchen Merrill
- Mar 5 World War II: The Battle of the Ruhr begins.
- Mar 6 117 SD-prisoners executed at Savage Farm
- Mar 6 Chinese 38th division occupies Lashio
- Mar 6 Erich Honnecker & Erich Hanke flee nazis
- Mar 6 Federico Garcia Lorca's "La Casa" premieres in Buenos Aires
Historic Invention
Mar 6 George Nissen of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, receives a patent for the first modern trampoline
George Nissen
Josip Broz Tito
Firebombing of Tokyo
Mar 9 334 US B-29 Superfortresses attack Tokyo with 120,000 fire bombs
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- Mar 9 Japanese proclaim "independence" of Indo-China
Event of Interest
Mar 10 Fieldmarshal Albert Kesselring succeeds Gerd von Rundstedt as commander of German Army Command in the West
Albert Kesselring
Gerd von Rundstedt
George S. Patton
- Mar 10 Tokyo in fire after night time B-29 bombings, more than 100,000 people die, mostly civilians.
- Mar 10 US troops land in western Mindanao, Philippines in Operation VICTOR IV
- Mar 11 1,000 allied bombers harass Essen, 4,662 ton bombs
- Mar 11 Flemish nazi collaborator Maria Huygens sentenced to death
- Mar 12 30 Amsterdammers executed by nazi occupiers
- Mar 12 Italy's Communist Party (CPI) calls for armed uprising in Italy
- Mar 12 NY is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race & creed in employment
- Mar 12 USSR returns Transylvania to Romania
Event of Interest
Mar 13 Queen Wilhelmina returns to Netherlands
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
Academy Awards
Mar 15 17th Academy Awards: "Going My Way", Bing Crosby & Ingrid Bergman win
Ingrid Bergman
Bing Crosby
- Mar 15 Bert Shepard (1 legged WW II vet) tries out as a pitcher for Senators
- Mar 15 Billboard publishes its 1st album chart (King Cole Trio is #1)
- Mar 15 Catholic University of Nijmegen reopens
- Mar 15 Dodgers open spring training at Bear Mountain NY
- Mar 16 Würzburg, Germany is 90% destroyed, with 5,000 dead, in only 20 minutes by British bombers
- Mar 17 Allied ships bomb North-Sumatra
- Mar 18 1,250 US bombers attacks Berlin
Event of Interest
Mar 18 Maurice "Rocket" Richard becomes the 1st NHLer to score 50 goals
Maurice Richard
Event of Interest
Mar 19 Adolf Hitler issues "Nero Decree" to destroy all German factories
Adolf Hitler
- Mar 19 British 36th division conquers Mogok (ruby mine)
- Mar 19 US Task Force 58 attacks ships near Kobe/Kure
- Mar 20 US 70th Infantry Division captures Saarbrucken, immediately prior the invasion of Germany by the western Allies
- Mar 21 1st Japanese flying bombs (ochas) attack Okinawa
- Mar 21 During WW II Allied bombers begin 4-day raid over Germany
- Mar 21 Dutch Resistance fighter Hannie Schaft arrested by Nazi police
- Mar 22 Arab League forms with adoption of a charter in Cairo Egypt
- Mar 22 US 3rd Army crosses Rhine at Nierstein
- Mar 23 British 7th Black Watch crosses the Rhine into Germany
Battle of Okinawa
Mar 23 Battle of Okinawa: US Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion; it would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II
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- Mar 23 Premier Churchill visits Montgomery's headquarter in Straelen
Event of Interest
Mar 23 The Swallow Sidecar Company headed by William Lyons agrees to change its name to Jaguar
William Lyons
Event of Interest
Mar 23 Lt. Gen. Miles Dempsey becomes the first British commander to cross the Rhine during the Allied invasion of Germany
Miles Dempsey
Event of Interest
Mar 24 Allied generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery and Omar Bradley discuss advance in Germany
Omar Bradley
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Bernard Montgomery
- Mar 24 Operation Varsity: In the largest one-day airborne operation of all time, British, US & Canadian paratroopers land east of the Rhine in Northern Germany
- Mar 24 US minesweepers reach Kerama Retto, South coast of Okinawa
- Mar 25 US 1st army breaks out bridgehead near Remagen
- Mar 25 US 4th Armored div arrives at Hanau & Aschaffenburg
- Mar 25 US Northern Tractor Flotilla departs Ulithi to Okinawa
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Mar 26 Allies led by US Marine Corps secure island of Iwo Jima from Imperial Japanese Army, after 18,000 Japanese & 6,000 Americans killed
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- Mar 26 British premier Winston Churchill looks over at the Rhine (near Ginsberg)
Event of Interest
Mar 26 De Paul wins NIT basketball championship, George Mikan scores 34
George Mikan
- Mar 26 Allied generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George S. Patton launch attack at Remagen on the Rhine
- Mar 26 Kamikaze attack on US battle fleet near Kerama Retto
- Mar 26 US 7th Army crosses Rhine at Worms
- Mar 26 Venray soccer team forms
- Mar 27 7th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Oklahoma State beats NYU, 49-44; Cowboys' center Bob Kurland is named tournament Most Outstanding Player
- Mar 27 British premier Winston Churchill sails to eastern banks of Rhine
- Mar 27 DePaul beats Bowling Green for NIT title
Music Recording
Mar 27 Ella Fitzgerald and Delta Rhythm Boys record the song "It's Only a Paper Moon"
Ella Fitzgerald
- Mar 27 General Eisenhower declares German defenses on Western Front broken
- Mar 27 US 20th Army corps captures Wiesbaden
- Mar 27 World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
- Mar 28 Last German V-1 (buzz bomb) attack on London
- Mar 29 World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England
Event of Interest
Mar 29 Movie star Jimmy Stewart is promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years
James Stewart
- Mar 30 289 anti-fascists murdered by nazis in Rombergpark Dortmund
- Mar 30 USSR invades Austria
- Mar 30 World War II: a defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 to Americans
- Mar 31 3rd Algerian division crosses the Rhine
- Mar 31 Sicherheitsdienst murders 10 political prisoners in Zutphen
Event of Interest
Mar 31 Tennessee Williams' "Glass Menagerie" premieres in NYC
Tennessee Williams
- Mar 31 US artillery lands on Keise Shima/begins firing on Okinawa