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• Commanding officer Captain William Rassieur of USS Sargent Bay was relieved by Captain Richard Oliver. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• American bombers dropped 300 bombs on Vienna, Austria, many of which landed in the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, which was the world's oldest zoo. 2,000 animals out of 3,500 in the zoo were killed. ww2dbase [CPC]
• 307 US B-29 bombers devastated a 3-square mile area in Kobe, Japan and caused 15,000 in casualties. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• 12 Lancaster bombers and 12 Halifax bombers conducted minelaying operations off Helgoland, Germany and in the Kattegat. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Heinrich Himmler, having abandoned his command with Army Group Vistula three days prior, checked himself into a sanatorium at Hohenlychen, Germany so that doctors there could treat his influenza. When Heinz Guderian came to visit him, he would request Guderian to carry his letter of resignation as commanding officer of Army Group Vistula to Adolf Hitler. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• US troops in landed on Basilan in the Philippine Islands. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Rudolf Heß noted that 2 million Jews were gassed between Jun 1941 and late 1943. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Vasily Kuznetsov was made the commanding officer of 3rd Shock Army. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Anglo-Indian troops assaulted Fort Dufferin in Mandalay, Burma in failure, suffering heavy casualties. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• 32 B-24 bombers of the US 14th Air Force escorted by 10 P-51 fighters attacked railyards at Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China. ww2dbase [CPC]

• German forces began falling back from the front lines at Kolberg, Germany (now Kolobrzeg, Poland). ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front threw two fresh armies against the German attack towards Budapest, Hungary. ww2dbase [Main Article | TH]

• Americans declared Iwo Jima, Japan secure, but fighting continued. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]
• Japanese submarine I-14 departed Kobe, Japan. ww2dbase [CPC]

• USS Spot sank a Japanese cargo ship in the East China Sea, hitting her with 1 of 8 torpedoes fired. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

• German V-2 rocket hit at Albert Road in Leyton, London, England, United Kingdom at 0638 hours, killing 23 and seriously injuring 18. Another rocket hit Willesden near Hampstead, London at 0230 hours, damaging 200 houses. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

16 Mar 1945 Interactive Map