Admiralty Islands

On Manus Island the US 8th Cav, with tank support, continues its advance on 2 center-lines toward Lorengau airfield. As the Japanese resistance stiffens the Americans launch a heavy bombing attack during the night.

In Los Negros Island US units land without opposition at Chaporowan Point, and elsewhere the advance proceeds.

Air Operations, Bismarcks

• In the first light-bomber mission of its kind, 24 US Marine Corps SBDs and 24 TBFs based at the Piva Uncle airfield on Bougainville pass through the Nissan airfield in the Green Islands to attack Kavieng.
• 2 18th Fighter Group P-38s down a Ki-46 'Dinah' reconnaissance plane over the Vunakanau airfield at Rabaul at 1545 hours.

Air Operations, CBI

• 8 490th Medium Bomb Squadron B-25s attack a bridge near Rangoon. 29 10th Air Force A-31s attack Japanese Army ground positions in the Arakan coastal region.

• 7 14th Air Force P-40s attack several launches on the Yangtze River and a dump and a barracks at Sienning.

Air Operations, Europe

• 130 aircraft repeat the previous night's attack on Amiens. Included in this total are 81 Halifaxes, 41 Stirlings and 8 Mosquitos. It is reported as another successful bombing.
• There are no losses.
• 21 Lancasters of No. 5 Group, mostly from 617 Squadron, carry out a successful precision attack on the Michelin tire factory at Clermont-Ferrand. No aircraft are lost.

• 8 Mosquitos are sent to Cologne and 1 to Duisburg, there are 2 RCM sorties and and 2 Serrate patrols, and 3 Stirlings lay mines off the Dutch coast.
• There are no losses.

After attacks by Bomber Command on consecutive nights, this was all that remained at Amiens when photographed on 23 March

Amiens After Bombing on Consecutive Nights

Air Operations, New Guinea

• 19 V Bomber Command B-25s attack troop concentrations and dumps at Nubia. B-24s and US Navy PBYs attack a Japanese convoy near Hollandia. More than 70 V Bomber Command B-24s, B-25s, and A-20s attack dumps, buildings, and antiaircraft batteries at Wewak and Brandi Plantation. 5th Air Force aircraft also damage two merchant ships in a Japanese convoy approaching Wewak. Japanese fighters based in the Wewak area are withdrawn to protect Hollandia.
• US Army ground forces overrun portions of the Lorengau airfield at Manus against stiff opposition.

Battle of the Atlantic

The German submarine U-801 is sunk by aircraft (VC-6) from the US escort carrier Block Island (CVE-21), the destroyer Corry (DD-463) and the destroyer escort Bronstein (DE-189) west of the Cape Verde Islands.

Burma

Chindit troops cut the Mandalay-Myitkyina rail link just north of the vital Japanese supply base at Indaw, thereby making Japanese resupply of the retreating 18th Div extremely difficult. However, Japanese progress in the Imphal offensive means that many Allied troops are now being redirected away from the Myitkyina offensive.

Eastern Front

In the central sector the 2 Belorussian Fronts attack with force, breaking through the lines of Busch's Army Group Center north of the Pripet marshes.

Italy

The heavy fighting around Cassino continues but the Allied forces can make no progress either in the town or on the slopes leading to the monastery against the determined defense of the German 1st Paratroop Div. The Germans launch a powerful counterattack and drive the Allied troops back on to the positions they held on March 14.

Faced with this new blow, Churchill complains to Alexander, asking him if he does not think it would be better to break off the attacks against the valley in front of the abbey of Monte Cassino and concentrate on a move to get behind the enemy. 'About five of six divisions have been worn out going into these jaws,' comments the British prime minister sourly.

In his reply Alexander attributes the Allies' lack of success entirely to the courage of the German soldiers: 'The tenacity of these German paratroops is quite remarkable . . . I doubt if there are any other troops in the world who could have stood up to it and then gone on fighting with the ferocity they have.'

Mediterranean

The German submarine U-392 is sunk by US naval land-based aircraft (VP-63) and British surface craft in the western Mediterranean.

New Britain

The Marines reach Kilu, on the east coast of the Willaumez peninsula, where they meet the Japanese defenders for the last time.

New Guinea

Squadrons of the US 5th Air Force planes, continuing the blockade of the Japanese base at Wewak, attack a Japanese convoy on its way there. During the next few days it is almost completely destroyed. The Japanese withdraw all their fighters from Wewak and transfer them to Hollandia.

Occupied France

Marcel Déat is appointed Vichy Minister of Labor.

Pacific

• The Japanese destroyer Shirakumo is sunk by the submarine USS Tautog (SS-199) off the coast of Japan.
• The British submarine Stonehenge is lost between 2 and 16 March, probably to a mine, in the northern part of Malacca Straits along with her crew of 50.

Images from March 16, 1944

4.2-inch Mortar of 15th Brigade (5th Division) Mortar Support Company in Action, Anzio Bridgehead, 16 March 1944

Infantrymen with bayonets fixed advance through jungle swamp, following an M4 Sherman medium tank, to root out the Japanese enemy, Bougainville, 16 March 1944

Advancing through Jungle Swamp

Captured German Parachute Troops File Past a Sherman Tank of the New Zealand 4th Armoured Brigade at Cassino, 16 March 1944

Maj-Gen Robert S. Beightler, CG, 37th Division, Directing Attack against Japs on an Infantry Perimeter, Bougainville. 16 March 1944

Japs Killed on the Perimeter of Company F, 129th Infantry, 37th Division, Bougainville, 16 March 1944

King George VI Inspects Paratroops of 6th Airborne Division, 16 March 1944

TANK-INFANTRY ATTACK, 16 March 1944. Men Following the Medium M4 Tank are from the 129th Infantry

240mm howitzer of the 698th FAB in Italy, March 1944. (Source: NARA)