Air Operations - Europe

24 Bostons are sent on escorted raids to the Le Havre and Flushing docks, the Abbeville railway yards and the airfield at Morlaix. There are no losses.

Air Operations - New Guinea

8th Pursuit Group P-39s strafe Japanese Navy aircraft and fuel dumps at the airfields at Lae and Salamaua in the afternoon. They also bring down 4 A6M Zeros to the loss of 4 of their own.

Barents Sea

The cruiser Edinburgh is torpedoed by U-456 north of Murmansk while escorting Convoy QP-11. 11 of her crew are lost.

Atlantic

A secret meteoroligical station is established on Tristan da Cunha by the SAAF and the RN.

Burma

The Japanese are now in control of the whole of central Burma. After withdrawing north of the Irrawaddy, British forces destroy the bridge at Ava. The Chinese 22nd Div, having covered the British withdrawal, retires from Mandalay. The Allies already have doubts about the defensive line being established on Gen Alexander's orders, and it seems possible that all the forces of the Chinese 5th Army may have to be withdrawn to Imphal in India. Gen Stilwell receives permission to do so.

Eastern Front

The Lyuban Offensive conducted by the Volkhov and Leningrad Fronts comes to an ignominious end. It has cost the Red Army 95,064 killed and missing and 213,303 wounded. The 2nd Shock Army has also been annihilated.

Spring Thaws Lead to Muddy Roads

Red Army losses in the central sector of the front since the beginning of the year have been massive, with the Kalinin Front having lost 123,400 killed and missing and another 217,800 wounded. The Western Front has lost 149,000 killed and missing and 286,000 wounded.

The 4th Panzer Army has relocated to the south the be deployed on the northern flank of Army Group South.[MORE]

Occupied Soviet Union

An Einsatzgruppen report states with satisfaction that there are no longer any Jews in the Crimea. The Jewish population in the area had numbered up to 60,000 men, women and children, but they have been liquidated by SS squads assisted by local militia.

Pacific

The US submarine Greenling (SS-213) torpedoes the Japanese ammunition ship Seia Maru (6658t).

Hitler and Mussolini Discuss the Fate of Malta

The fate of Malta was in the balance today at a summit conference between Hitler and Mussolini with their military Chiefs of Staff in Berchtesgaden, Germany. Two days of talks sealed plans for Operation Herkules, an invasion of the Island using paratroops, followed by a seaborne landing of infantry forces. Believing Malta has now been neutralised as a base for offensive operations against the Axis, ‘Il Duce’ and Air Field Marshall Kesselring proposed the time is right to take the Island. However, Field Marshall Rommel argued that this new freedom for Axis supply convoys to operate through the Mediterranean provides an opportunity to secure Egypt and the Suez Canal. With Hitler hesitating, anxious to avoid heavy paratroop losses on a par with Crete in 1942, Rommel won the day. Plans for the invasion of Malta have been approved but placed on hold, pending the outcome of offensives in North Africa.

Philippines

Operations continue on Mindanao. Troops from the contingent that landed at Parang are taken off by sea overnight and land south of Malabang. They attack at dawn and push back the Filipino 61st Inf Regt some 5 miles. The Japanese that landed at Cotabato advance up the Mindanao River and reach Piket.

Gen Harold. H. George of the USAAF is killed in an air crash. During the Philippines Campaign, George's 'bamboo fleet' of 4 antiquated planes flew vital supplies from the southern Philippines to Bataan. He was 49.

Southwest Pacific

The carriers Shokaku, Zuikaku and Shoho sail from Truk for the Coral Sea to take part in Operation MO, the operation against Port Moresby, New Guinea.

Soviet Union, Home Front

Stalin declares that the USSR has no territorial ambitions and its sole aim is to liberate occupied Russian territory.