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• Battle for Kasserine Pass in Tunisia closed with the Americans, inexperienced and poorly led, suffered a major defeat. Nevertheless, the Americans would regain the pass at the end of the battle as overall strategy dictated the Axis forces to withdraw back into northern Tunisia. ww2dbase [Battle of Kasserine Pass | TH]
• Princeton was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Princeton | CPC]
• Douglas MacArthur issued his campaign plan for the Southwest Pacific while arguing that a campaign through the Central Pacific would be "time consuming and expensive in our naval power and shipping." ww2dbase [Douglas MacArthur | CPC]
• After not being able to locate Sinlamaung, Burma in the past three days, the Chindit unit assigned to attack the Japanese garrison there finally found the village. They found the Japanese garrison had already departed, however. ww2dbase [Operation Longcloth | CPC]
• British aircraft bombed and sank the 9,036-ton merchant steamer Alcomo which had been taken over from the Vichy French by the Italian maritime authorities and renamed. The ship had originally been the British Hermes and had been in Algiers in Jun 1940 when the Vichy French impounded her. ww2dbase [HM]

• The submarine HMS Torbay (Lieutenant R. J. Clutterbuck, RN) damaged the 80-ton Italian auxiliary minesweeper Monte Argentario with gunfire off Ajaccio, Corsica, France. Clutterbuck had seen the small vessel earlier but had resisted an attack in the hope that a bigger target would appear. The wait proved fruitless and so he surfaced two nights later and opened fire with the deck gun. The minesweeper was driven ashore by her crew and the action was broken off when the submarine came under fire from a shore battery. ww2dbase [HM]

• I-168 arrived at Yokosuka, Japan. ww2dbase [I-68 / I-168 | CPC]
• Captain Yoshijiro Imaizumi was named the commanding officer of Naka while the ship was at Maizuru, Japan. ww2dbase [Naka | CPC]

• USS Permit fired five torpedoes at a Japanese transport off Japan; all four torpedoes missed. ww2dbase [Permit | CPC]

• USS Copahee departed San Diego, California, United States. ww2dbase [Copahee | CPC]
• US 11th Airborne Division was activated at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, United States under the command of Major General Joseph M. Swing. ww2dbase [AC]

25 Feb 1943 Interactive Map