A massive strike began in the Italian Social Republic, for reasons that included resentment of producing for the Germans and the loyalty that many factory workers retained for Socialist and Communist ideologies. Estimates of the number of workers who participated in the strike range from 500,000 to 1.2 million.[1][2][3]
The Balvano train disaster occurred over the night of March 2/3 when some 426 people illegally riding a freight train in southern Italy died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
On the Anzio’s beachhead, the 3rd Infantry Division repelled a German counter-attack in the locality of Ponte Rotto.
In Rome, a protest of women, demanding the release of their husbands detained in a German station, ended tragically. Teresa Gullace, seven months pregnant, was killed by a German soldier while she tried to pass a sandwich to her husband. The story was later reenacted in a famous episode of Rome open city.[7]
The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team announced a uniform change for the coming season: the addition of a new sleeve patch depicting a blue jay perching atop the familiar "Phillies" lettering. The logo was the winning entry in a contest that received over 5,000 entries with a $100 war bond offered as a prize. Fans were confused because the Phillies did not actually officially change their name to Blue Jays, but this alternate nickname would never really catch on anyway and the blue jay sleeve patch was dropped in 1946.[9]
Finland rejected a Soviet peace offer, objecting to the Soviet condition that all German troops in the country be interned and the 1940 borders be restored.[10]
German submarine U-744 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied warships.
German submarine U-973 was depth charged and sunk in the Arctic Ocean by Fairey Swordfish of 816 Naval Air Squadron.
American destroyer escort Leopold was torpedoed and heavily damaged in the North Atlantic by German submarine U-255. The 28 survivors of the 191 crew were rescued and Leopold was abandoned to sink the next day.
German military officer Eberhard von Breitenbuch took a concealed pistol to a military briefing with Hitler at the Berghof with the intention of assassinating him. However, SS guards barred Breitenbuch from the room where Hitler met with higher-ranking officers and so the assassination attempt never went forward.[15]
In Paris, police discovered casually, in the house of Dr. Marcel Petiot, the remains of at least ten bodies and a large amount of clothing. The doctor, who had killed and robbed dozens of people under the cover of his Resistance activity, managed to escape.
Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that the Allies intended to completely isolate Ireland to prevent military secrets leaking to the Axis, hinting that the border with Northern Ireland would soon be closed.[20]
During the Battle of Monte Cassino the Allies dropped 992 tons of bombs on Monte Cassino Monastery and fired 195,000 rounds of artillery. British, Indian and New Zealand forces tried to storm the building but were unable to dislodge the Germans.[10]
German submarine U-653 was depth charged and sunk in the North Atlantic by British sloops Starling and Wild Goose.
British submarine Stonehenge was lost in the Indian Ocean on or around this date, presumably to a naval mine.
German soldiers began a two-day massacre of almost 400 prisoners, Soviet citizens and anti-fascists in the Romanian city of Rîbnița.[25]
Hungarian head of state Miklós Horthy came to the Schloss Klessheim south of Salzburg at Hitler's invitation. Horthy was forced to accept a new government and allow German troops onto Hungarian soil.[10]
On the Modena Apennines, the 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring bombed the villages of Monchio, Susano and Costrignano, around Montefiorino, and slaughtered their whole population. The victims were 129, all civilians, and included women, old men and children. The carnage was aimed to repress the partisan activity in the zone.
Aimo Koivunen and his men were attacked by the Russian Soviets during a rest; after this Aimo went on an insane methamphetamine adventure alone in the snowy lands of Murmansk Oblast, Russia.
Eight German divisions carried out Operation Margarethe and occupied Hungary to forestall their Axis partner from making a separate peace with the Soviet Union.[10]
German submarine U-1059 was sunk southwest of Cape Verde by American aircraft.
Authorities in German-controlled Hungary promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. Hundreds were sent to the Kistarcsa internment camp for political prisoners northeast of Budapest.[35]
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services began Operation Ginny II, once again intending to blow up railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication. The mission failed when the OSS team once again landed in the wrong place and were captured by the Germans two days later.
Volcanic stones of all sizes from Mount Vesuvius began raining down from the sky, forcing the evacuation of airmen of 340th Bombardment Group stationed at an airfield a few miles from the volcano. Once Vesuvius subsided they returned to base and found that about 80 of their B-25 bombers had been destroyed by hot ash.[27][28]
Massacre of Montaldo (near Tolentino): 33 partisans, almost all in their twenties, were shot by the Germans; only one of the victims miraculously survived the execution. The next day, the commander of the young ones, Achille Barilatti, followed their fate.[36]
Died:Pierre Brossolette, 40, French journalist, politician and Resistance fighter (committed suicide while in Gestapo custody)
German occupation troops in Italy carried out the Ardeatine massacre, killing 335 people outside of Rome in retaliation for the bomb attack of the previous day.
In Rome, Ivanoe Bonomi resigned as president of the CCLN (Comitato Centrale di Liberazione Nazionale, Central National Liberation Committee). The organization was paralyzed by the contrasts between adversaries (PCI; PSI. Pd’A) and supporters (DC, PLI and DL) of the collaboration with the monarchist Badoglio cabinet.[37]
The "Great Escape": 76 Royal Air Force prisoners of war escape by tunnel "Harry" from Stalag Luft III in Lower Silesia over the night of 24th/5th. Only 3 men (2 Norwegians and a Dutchman) return to the UK; of those recaptured, 50 are summarily executed soon afterwards, in the Stalag Luft III murders.[38]
RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade survived a fall of 18,000 feet without a parachute when his Lancaster bomber was shot down east of Schmallenberg. Pine trees and soft snow broke his fall.
The Battle of Sangshak ended in tactical Japanese victory but strategic British victory, since the British were able to hold off the Japanese long enough to send reinforcements to Kohima.
American submarine Tullibee sank north of Palau due to a torpedo malfunction. Only 1 of the 60 crew survived.
The fifteen members of the captured OSS team in Operation Ginny II were summarily executed by German forces under Hitler's Commando Order at the command of General Anton Dostler. After the war Dostler would be executed as a war criminal.
The British submarine Syrtis was lost in the Norwegian Sea, probably sunk by a naval mine.
British MPs voted to give women teachers the same pay as men.[13]
Salerno turning: Palmiro Togliatti, in a telegram sent from Salerno to the members of the PCI direction, announced the new line of the party. He sustained the collaboration with the bourgeois parties and the constitution of a government of national unity, and postponed the choosing between monarchy and republic to the after-war.[41]
The United States Navy began Operation Desecrate One, in which aircraft carriers launched attacks against Japanese bases on and around Palau. 36 Japanese ships were sunk or damaged in the attacks.
The RAF suffered its worst loss of the war in a raid on Nuremberg. 96 of 795 aircraft were shot down, and cloud over the city meant that only a small proportion of the force hit their target.[42]
The British destroyer Laforey was torpedoed and sunk north of Palermo, Sicily by German submarine U-223, which was then depth charged and sunk by four British destroyers.
Died:Mineichi Koga, 58, Japanese admiral (plane crash)
References
^De Grand, Alexander J. (2000). Italian Fascism: Its Origins & Development (Third ed.). University of Nebraska Press. p. 134. ISBN978-0-8032-6622-3.
^ abLulushi, Albert (2016). Donovan's Devils: OSS Commandos Behind Enemy Lines - Europe, World War II (ebook). Arcade Publishing. ISBN978-1-62872-622-0.
^Baldoli, Claudia; Knapp, Andrew (2012). Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy Under Allied Air Attack, 1940–1945. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 229. ISBN978-1-4411-8581-5.
^Kersten, Krystyna (1991). The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943–1948. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 44. ISBN978-0-520-06219-1.
