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• Winston Churchill told politicians of the rival Conservative Party 'It now seems very likely that we and our allies cannot lose this war, except through our own fault'. ww2dbase [Winston Churchill | CPC]
• All Jewish homes in Germany were ordered to be marked as so on the exterior. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German submarine U-71 sank US tanker Dixie Arrow 20 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, United States at 1459 hours, killing 11 of 33 aboard. Further out to sea, German submarine U-123 sank US Q-ship USS Atik 200 kilometers east of Hampton Roads, Virginia, United States at 1937 hours, killing the entire crew of 139; U-123 lost one to USS Atik's machine gun. ww2dbase [Second Happy Time | CPC]
• Admiral Sir James Somerville, who had commanded the force that had sunk the Bismark in the previous year, took commanded of the British Eastern Fleet, hoisting his flag in the battleship HMS Warspite at Trincomalee, Ceylon. ww2dbase [James Somerville | AC]
• Chinese and Japanese troops continued to engage in house-to-house fighting in Taungoo, Burma, with heavy losses on both sides. ww2dbase [Invasion of Burma | CPC]
• During this night and into the first hours of the next day, Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld shot down four British bombers, increasing his victories to 21. ww2dbase [Egmont | CPC]
• German submarine U-652 sank British destroyer HMS Jaguar 20 miles off Sidi Barani, Egypt at 0227 hours, which was escorting British tanker Slavol; 193 were killed, 53 survived. At 0510 hours, U-205 followed-up, sinking Slavol; 36 were killed, 20 survived. ww2dbase [CPC]

• The Dutch steam trawler Corrie, built in 1900 by Cochrane & Cooper Ltd. and owned at the time of her loss by N. V. Vissch Maats Corrie of Ijmuiden in the Netherlands, was sunk in the North Sea by Royal Navy motor torpedo boats. ww2dbase [North Sea | HM]

• Tenryu departed Kavieng, New Ireland. ww2dbase [Tenryu | Kavieng, New Ireland | CPC]

• Japanese cruiser Kumano arrives at Mergui, Burma. ww2dbase [Kumano | Fall of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Mergui | DS]

• Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Truk, Caroline Islands. ww2dbase [Hikawa Maru | Truk | CPC]

• Akagi departed Staring Bay, Celebes, Dutch East Indies with the Striking Force (less Kaga) together with Battleship Division 3, Cruiser Division 8, and Destroyer Squadron 1 for "Operation C", the raid into the Indian Ocean. ww2dbase [Akagi | Staring Bay, Celebes | CPC]
• Shokaku departed Staring Bay, Celebes, Dutch East Indies for Operation C. She was assigned to First Air Fleet, Carrier Division 5, Striking Force, Air Attack Force. ww2dbase [Shokaku | Staring Bay, Celebes | CPC]
• Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Japanese First Air Fleet, built around a nucleus of five aircraft carriers, sailed from Staring Bay, Celebes, Dutch East Indies to the west of Timor into the Indian Ocean with the intention of attacking the Royal Navy's bases at Colombo and Trincomalee in Ceylon. ww2dbase [Raids into the Indian Ocean | Staring Bay, Celebes | CPC]
• Naka departed Makassar, Celebes, Dutch East Indies. ww2dbase [Naka | Makassar, Celebes | CPC]

• French politician Pierre Laval warned Chief of State Philippe Pétain that it was important to cooperate with the Germans to avoid Berlin from appointing a Nazi Party Gauleiter for Vichy France. ww2dbase [Pierre Laval | CPC]

• British bombers (104 Wellington and 11 Stirling) attacked Essen, Germany, destroying two homes and killing six civilians; 11 bombers were lost in this attack. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | Essen | CPC]

• USS Lexington arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii and prepared for an overhaul in the drydock. ww2dbase [Lexington (Lexington-class) | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• British destroyer HMS Legion (G 74), already damaged from an air raid two days prior, was hit again and broke in two at her moorings at Valetta Grand Harbour, Malta; both halves of the ship were re-floated but declared a loss and were towed out of the harbour to deep water and scuttled; 11 were killed in this attack. The 5,415-ton British motor vessel Pampas was hit by multiple bombs in the air raid and sank at her moorings. The empty freighter Talabot was sunk as well. British submarine HMS P39 was sitting alongside a jetty in Grand Harbour when German aircraft launched the attack; the submarine was seriously damaged and while she did not sink, due to the efforts of the crew, it was decided that she was too badly damaged to be worth repairing; she was towed to Kalkara and beached. ww2dbase [Malta Campaign | CPC, HM]

• Japanese aircraft bombed Corregidor, Philippine Islands, knocking out power for freezers containing 24,000 pounds of carabao meat. ww2dbase [Invasion of the Philippine Islands | Corregidor, Cavite | CPC]

• A transport of 999 female Slovakian Jews from Poprad, Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they were the first Slovakians sent by Adolf Eichmann's RSHA IVB4 office. Coinciding with the arrival of the Slovakian Jews was the arrival of the first transport of female prisoners from Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in northern Germany, also containing 999 Jews. ww2dbase [Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Oswiecim | CPC]

• 3 British destroyers and 16 smaller vessels departed Falmouth, England, United Kingdom with commandos aboard at 1400 hours for the drydock at Saint-Nazaire, France. ww2dbase [Falmouth, England | CPC]
• Allied convoy PQ-14 departed Oban, Scotland, United Kingdom. ww2dbase [Arctic Convoys | Oban, Scotland | CPC]

• US Navy warships Washington, Wasp, Wichita, Tuscaloosa, and eight destroyers sailed from Portland, Maine, United States for Britain to reinforce the Royal Navy Home Fleet. ww2dbase [Tuscaloosa | Wasp (Wasp-class) | Washington | Portland, Maine | CPC]
• W.A. Bechtel Corporation was granted a Maritime Commission contract to build a shipyard on San Francisco Bay that would become Marinship. Ground was broken the next day. ww2dbase [Marinship Shipbuilding | Sausalito, California | DS]

26 Mar 1942 Interactive Map