Admiralty Islands

Advance guards are sent to scout landing places on Manus Island. One unit lands on Butjo Luo offshore and takes heavy punishment from the Japanese defenders.

Air Operations, Bismarcks

RAAF fighters relieve the 8th Fighter Group’s 35th and 80th Fighter squadrons at the Cape Gloucester airfield on New Britain, and the 2 USAAF squadrons (in P-40s and P-38s, respectively) transfer to the Nadzab airfield on New Guinea.

Air Operations, CBI

• 2 490th Medium Bomb Squadron B-25s and more than 70 10th Air Force P-51, P-40, and A-36 fighter-bombers attack road targets, fuel and ammunition dumps, artillery batteries, and targets of opportunity at Gahtawng, Laban, Mogaung, Pandaw, Saungka, and Shaduzup.
• 459th Fighter Squadron P-38s down 12 Japanese fighters and one unidentified airplane over Aungban at 0800 hours. 1 P-38 and its pilot are lost.

• 10 14th Air Force P-40s attack Ha Coi, barges at Campha, and buildings on Weichow Island (China).

Air Operations, Central Pacific

VII Bomber Command B-24s based on Kwajalein attack Wake Island. This is the first land-based attack against that isolated target.

Air Operations, Europe

US bombers raid Toulon, Padua and Florence.

• 47 Mosquitos are sent to hit 6 German cities, the largest being 20 to Hamburg, there are 4 Serrate patrols and 21 OTU sorties, 43 aircraft lay mines in the Frisians and off Brest and the Biscay ports, and 22 aircraft are on Resistance operations.
• 1 mine-laying Stirling is lost.

Air Operations, New Guinea

• 7 V Bomber Command B-24s mount low-level strafing and bombing attacks against Japanese Army ground positions near Lorengau (Manus Island) while 12 41st Medium Bomb Group B-25s attack the town itself. RAAF P-40s based at the Momote airfield on Los Negros also attack ground targets.
• More than 80 V Bomber Command B-24s, B-25s, and A-20s attack the airfield at Boram.; 40 A-20s and V Fighter Command P-39 fighter-bombers attack the Madang area. P-47s attack ground targets around Hansa Bay.
• 348th Fighter Group P-47s down 14 Japanese fighters over Wewak between 1045 and 1105 hours. 35th Fighter Group P-47s down 6 Japanese fighters over the Wewak area at 1250 hours, and 3 fighters over the Wewak area at 1405 hours.

Air Operations, Solomons

A Japanese Army ground attack toward the Piva Uncle and Piva Yoke airfields on Bougainville is barely contained by US Army ground forces with the aid of AirSols light bombers and fighters. 4 XIII Bomber Command B-24s and 63 XIII Fighter Command P-40s attack Japanese ground troops and bivouacs in several outlying areas of Bougainville.

Algeria, Home Front

Pierre Pucheu, former Vichy Minister of the Interior, is sentenced to death by a military court in Algiers. He is the first of the collaborators to be tried.

Atlantic

The German submarines U-380 and U-410 are sunk off Toulon, France by US Army aircraft.

Bougainville

Attacking the Cape Totokina beachhead the Japanese gain a little ground in the direction of the Piva airfield.

Burma

The Japanese 33rd Div as well as attacking 17th Div is infiltrating behind 20th Div but their advances in this sector are held near Witok. More Chindit forces are flying in to central Burma and are already disrupting Japanese communications with the forces facing Stilwell's Chinese and American troops. In the Arakan Buthidaung falls to the 7th Indian Div. The Japanese fortress at Razabil also falls to the Allies.

Eastern Front

Troops of 3rd Ukraine Front take Berislav north of the Dniepr east of Kherson.

The 1st Ukrainian comes under heavy attack from the XLVIII Panzer Corps at Cherny Ostrov, temporaritly halting the Russian advance. However, Zhukov is about to swing his main thrust south toward the Dniestr to pin the 1st Panzer Army against the river. Heavy fighting rages from Tarnopol, through Volochisk and on to Proskurov.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front pushes its 2nd Tank Army across the Bug River at Dzhulinka while the 6th Tank Army crosses at Gayvoron. Manstein orders the 8th Army to pull back to prevent its disintegration and isolation on the east bank of the Bug. On the southern flank the 28th Army takes Berislav after bitter fighting with the XXIX Corps of the 6th Army.

Italy

In the Anzio sector units of the US VI Corps begin preparations for a new offensive around the Albano road.

Images from March 11, 1944

Japanese forces tried infiltrating the US lines at night; at dawn, the US soldiers would clear them out. In this picture, infantrymen are advancing in the cover of an M4 Sherman tank.

Japanese Infiltrating US Lines at Night

Photo taken March 1944, at Bucciano, Italy, where the entire 11th Field Hospital was established between 9 and 11 March 1944.

11th Field Hospital, Bucciano, Italy

A 75mm Cannon Mounted on a Nearby Hill Blasts away at Hill 260 on Bougainville

Empty Charge Cases at Cassino Show the Intensity of Shellfire, March 1944