Battle of the Atlantic

• U-70 and U-99 join Prien's U-47 in pursuit of Convoy OB-293. As they engage they are disturbed by the corvettes HMSS Camelia and Arbutus. U-70 is forced to dive and is destroyed by a depth-charge.
• The Norwegian tanker Mexico (3017t) sinks on a mine off Ipswitch with the loss of 10 of her crew. 23 crewmen are rescued.

Britain, Home Front

The Admiralty announces that the Germans in official notices claim to have destroyed 19 more battleships, 6 more aircraft carriers, 40 more cruisers, and 13 more submarines that the Royal Navy had at the beginning of the war.

An industrial dispute leads to a strike at John Brown's Shipyard, Clydeside.

Britain, Policy

Churchill issues his Battle of the Atlantic Directive, giving highest priority to measures for knocking out German U-boats and bombers blocking shipments to Britain.

Greek-Albanian Front

The Greeks launch successful counterattacks in the central sector of the Albanian front. They capture several vital mountain crags and take about 1,000 Italian prisoners. RAF and Greek aircraft fly in close support.

Holland, Resistance

Following strikes during February over the arrest of Jews and attempts to send workers to jobs in Germany, the Germans condemn 18 Dutch resistance members. These are the first such victims in Holland. The Communists have played a notable part in organizing the strikes.

Mediterranean

The Italian submarine Anfitrite is sunk by the British destroyer Greyhound in the Kaso Strait. 39 of the crew are rescued.

North Africa

German aircraft begin dropping acoustic magnetic mines in the Suez Canal, further impeding the flow of British supplies to Greece and North Africa. The initial mine-laying operation in effect blocks the waterway for three weeks until the waters can be cleared.

War Crimes

Reichsführer-SS Himmler visits the Austrian concentration camp at Mauthausen in which the 'scum of mankind were exploited for the good of the great folk community by breaking stones and baking bricks so that the Führer can erect his grand buildings'. Himmler view the prisoners already weakened by undernourishment and exploitation, who negotiate the Totensteige, where in cold or heat in a continuous column 5 prisoners wide, they carry stones up 148(?) steps hour after hour, day after day, year after year. They carry the stones until they die, or are killed by their guards.