Air Operations, CBI

• 7 B-25s of the 341st Medium Bomb Group attack a bridge at Myitnge.

Air Operations, Europe

• 12 Mosquitos are sent to Louvain and the Malines railway yards, but only Louvain is reached. 1 Lancaster bombs Leer near Emden. The bombs drop soon after dawn near the railway station.

• 12 Wellingtons and 4 Lancasters are to lay mines off the Biscay ports, but the Wellingtons are recalled.
• There are no losses.

Air Operations, Mediterranean

• 82nd Fighter Group P-38s, escorting NASAF B-25s on an anti-shipping sweep between Sicily and Tunisia, are attacked by about 50 Axis aircraft from the direction of Tunis. In the ensuing battle, the P-38 pilots down 2 Ju-88s, 8 Bf-109s, and 1 Italian fighter in an action 30 miles east-northeast of Pantelleria Island.
• A force of 17th Medium Bomb Group B-25s on an anti-shipping sweep over the Straits of Sicily is attacked by about 30 Luftwaffe fighters. 7 enemy fighters are claimed by the bomber gunners.
• 1 B-25 is lost, 1 damaged beyond repair by more than 500 bullet holes

Air Operations, New Guinea

• V Bomber Command B-25s attack Langgoer and Kaimana.
• 90th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s mount individual attacks against the Salamaua port area and the airfield at Finschhafen.

Air Operations, Solomons

During the night 40 USMC and USN TBFs each lay one 1,600-pound antishipping mine in the Buin–Tonolei area of southern Bougainville. Meanwhile, 18 XIII Bomber Command B-17s and B-24s mount a diversionary attack against the Kahili airfield on Bougainville.

Air Operations, Tunisia

• NASAF B-25s and B-26s in separate formations mount successive attacks on the Axis landing field at Djebel Tebaga.
• IX Bomber Command B-25s attack the Mareth Line through intense flak sustain many damaging hits.
• IX Fighter Command fighters provide direct support against infantry and artillery empolacements.

Battle of the Atlantic

Fortress 'B' of No 206 Squadron is escorting convoy HX-229 when a surfaced U-boat, U-384, is seen. After an attack with depth charges a large oil slick formed on the surface which was still visible hours later by some of the convoy's escorts.

U-384

Eastern Front

The 9th Army has almost completed the evacuation of the Rzhev salient. Durovo is evacuated.

North Africa

The New Zealanders speed up their march, abandoning concealment, and reach the Tebaga Gap in the evening. During the night the main attack on the Mareth Line, the 'African Maginot Line' along the Tunisian-Libyan border, by the British XXX Corps begins with a heavy bombardment of the positions of the Young Fascist Div of the Italian 1st Army near the coast, followed up rapidly by the assaulting infantry of the 50th Div.

Operation PUGILIST. Martin Baltimore Mark IIIAs of No. 232 Wing RAF flying in loose formation off the coast of Tunisia, en route to bomb the Mareth Line.

Martin Baltimore Mark IIIAs

The Mareth Line is held by the usual mixture of German and Italian units with the 30 tanks of 15th Pzr in reserve. The Americans at Gafsa are being watched by 10th Pzr, and 21st Pzr is at Gabes in general reserve. The Americans open new assaults directed toward Maknassy, in what is the start of the last phase of the battle of Tunisia.

In the US II Corps area, the 1st Armored Div opens the corps offensive with a drive on Maknassy. While the motorized 60th Regimental Combat Team and Combat Command C thrust toward Sened Station, its intermediate objective, from the northwest, Combat Command A takes a more direct route, moving along the road from Zannouch. Sened Station is found to be free of the enemy and the 60th Regimental Combat Team moves in an occupies it during the night. With Sened Station in US hands, the 1st Div begins an eastward attack from El Guettar during the night, employing the attached 1st Ranger Battalion and the 26th and 18th Regiments.

The British 8th Army opens an assault on the Mareth position, constructed originally by the French and improved later by the Germans, in an effort to break throught it and the Gabès gap to open country. The New Zealand Corps openly continues it enveloping movement toward the El Hamma switch line in order to divert the enemy's attention away from the east end of the Mareth Line. Despite very difficult terrain and enemy opposition, the corps reaches positions a few miles short of the defile between Djebels Tebaga and Melab. The XXX Corps, after a very heavy artillery barrage, attacks in the coastal sector at the eastern end of the Mareth Line at 2230 using the 50th Div which secures a foothole on the fortified northern bank of Wadi Zigzaou, a formidable obstacle because of its width and depth, against intense enfilade fire. The X Corps, containing the 1st and 7th Armored Divs, in army reserve, is disposed in the central sector, prepared to exploit any success of either of the assult forces.

Pacific

The US submarine Sawfish (SS-276) sinks the Japanese guardboat Shinsei Maru (4722t) in the northern Pacific.

Secret War

For the second time in a week, anti-Hitler military officers try and fail to kill him. Von Kluge's chief of intelligence, Col Rudolf von Gertsdorff, carries a concealed bomb which he would detonate by acid while close to Hitler at the Zeughaus in Berlin, blowing both of them to bits. Hitler left the exhibit hall before the acid could act, and von Gertsdorff flushed the fuse down a toilet in the men's room.