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.

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 the Bataan line, which is by now understrength, undernourished, poorly clothed and equipped and battle weary. 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 which makes the main effort against Sector D, the west flank of the II Corps, where 41st and 21st Divisions (PA) are thinly spread and dazed as a result of the preliminary bombardment. Maj-Gen Albert Jones's I Corps holds, but the left flank of Maj-Gen George Parker's II Corps gives way and the 41st Division collapses and is rendered virtually ineffective as a fighting force, although the regiment on the extreme west succeeds in withdrawing in an orderly fashion. The battalion on the west flank of the 21st Division is forced to pull back. An effort to re-establish the line of the 41st Division after dark is only partially successful. The only corps reserve, the 33rd Infantry (PA), less the 1st Battalion, is released to Sector D as is the Provisional Tank Group of the Luzon Force reserve.

Japanese Launch Major Offensive in Bataan