Air Operations, CBI

6 7th Heavy Bomb Group B-17s based at Asansol Airfield, India, attack dock facilities and warehouses at Rangoon. 1 B-17 is lost to unknown causes.

Air Operations, Europe

• 2 ships from convoy PQ-13 are destroyed by German bombers at Murmansk.
• Gen Quaade, a Luftwaffe spokesman, admits that the Luftwaffe has been unable to neutralize Malta because of its 'tremendously strong' AA defenses and subterranean storerooms - 'but you cannot expect the Luftwaffe to sink the island with bombs'.

Battle of the Atlantic

• The US freighter Otho (4839t) is torpedoed and sunk by U-754 200 miles east of Cape Henry, Virginia.
• U-505 torpedoes the US freighter West Irmo (5775t) en route to Takoradi, Gold Coast from Marshall, Liberia. 99 survivors are rescued by the British escort vessel HMS Copinsay.

Burma

Mandalay is heavily bombed by the Japanese. 2,000 people are killed and much of the city is left burning. I Burma Corps retires from Allanmyo, not under enemy pressure but on orders from GHQ. In the Sittang Valley Gen Stilwell's Chinese divisions take up positions in defense of Pyinmana. Two key positions fall to the Japanese this day: the town of Prome, located on the Irrawaddy River north of Rangoon; and the vital port island of Akyab. This latter conquest brings the entire territory of the Arakan in western Burma under Japanese control.

The British submarine P-615 was originally built for the Turkish Navy as Uluc Ali Reis, but was taken over by the Royal Navy on 3 April 1942.

British Submarine P-615

North Sea

U-702 left Heligoland Island on March 29 to patrol in the North Sea where she hits a Northern Barrage mine on this day losing her entire crew.

U-702

Occupied Norway

Lutheran Bishop Eivind Berggrav of Oslo is forcibly prevented from preaching in his cathedral and is placed under house arrest. (See April 10.)

Philippines

After a lull on the 2nd, the final Japanese assault on Bataan begins. There is a 5-hour long bombardment along with air support before the attack goes in. A fresh division has joined the Japanese for the attack and the exhausted and ill-equipped defenders are thrown back, often in disorder, in many sectors.

On this day in 1942, the Japanese infantry stage a major offensive against Allied troops in Bataan, the peninsula guarding Manila Bay of the Philippine Islands.

Japanese Launch Major Offensive in Bataan