World War II Database

• Home
• » Events
• » WW2 Timeline
• » 31 Mar 1943

• British troops occupied Cap Serrat on the Tunisian coast. Operation Supercharge II was concluded with success in Tunisia, forcing the Axis defenses to move north to Wadi Akarit. ww2dbase [Operations Pugilist and Supercharge II | CPC]
• USAAF bombers attacked the Italian airfield at Cagliari, Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea. ww2dbase [CPC]
• German Luftwaffe Major General Peltz was placed in charge of bombing raids against Britain. ww2dbase [CPC]
• American troops under Colonel Archibald MacKechnie landed at the mouth of Waria River in New Guinea. ww2dbase [New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 2 | CPC]
• British corvette HMS Milfoil was recommissioned into the United States Navy as USS Intensity. ww2dbase [Milfoil | CPC]
• US 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions again attacked Italian positions at Hill 369 near El Guettar, Tunisia to little success. ww2dbase [Battle of El Guettar | CPC]
• Gusztáv Jány was awarded the German Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross medal. ww2dbase [Gusztáv Jány | CPC]
• Belleau Wood was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Belleau Wood | CPC]
• The US 2nd Marine Brigade was disbanded in Pago Pago, American Samoa. ww2dbase [CPC]

• Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka launched a 2-wave fighter sweep (32 fighters and 25 fighters, respectively) down the Slot in the Solomon Islands to draw out Allied fighters. About 30 Guadalcanal-based US F4F fighters, 8 P-38 fighters, and a few F4U fighters engaged them over the Russell Islands. 9 Japanese Zero fighters, 5 US F4F Wildcat fighters, and 1 US F4U Corsair fighter were shot down in the action. ww2dbase [Solomon Islands Campaign | CPC]

• Owen Baggett, while descending in a parachute over Burma after his B-24 bomber was fatally damaged, claimed to have used a M1911 handgun to kill the pilot of a Japanese A6M Zero fighter. Post war study of Japanese records would show that there were no A6M Zero fighters in the vicinity on that date, and the Japanese squadron present during the engagement suffered no pilot losses. ww2dbase [Owen Baggett | CPC]

• USS Tunny reached the Caroline Islands region. ww2dbase [Tunny | CPC]

• Adolf Hitler met Bulgarian King Boris III at his headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, Germany. ww2dbase [Boris III | Rastenburg, Ostpreußen | CPC]

• Satoru Anabuki, flying Ki-43 fighter "Fubuki", shot down three Hurricane fighters over Patenga, India (now Bangladesh), increasing his score to 29. ww2dbase [Satoru Anabuki | Patenga | CPC]

• Nachi departed Paramushiro (Paramushir), Kurile Islands. ww2dbase [Nachi | Paramushiro, Hokkaido | CPC]

• USS Whale set sail toward Midway Atoll. ww2dbase [Whale | CPC]

• Crematorium 2 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland. ww2dbase [Auschwitz Concentration Camp | Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Oswiecim | CPC]

• The Soviet GKO meeting at 2330 hours on this date, also joined by Vsevolod Merkulov and Viktor Abakumov, discussed the establishment of a counterintelligence branch. ww2dbase [Viktor Abakumov | Moscow | CPC]
• Soviet troops defeated the German 17th Army in the Kuban Peninsula and captured Anastasyevsk north of Novorossiysk, near the coast of the Black Sea in southern Russia. ww2dbase [Caucasus Campaign | Anastasyevsk, Krasnodar Krai | CPC]

• Replying to a question from Member of Parliament Richard Stokes, the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, told the British House of Commons that Bomber Command's targets were always of a military nature, but that bombing of military targets would necessarily involve bombing areas in which they were situated. ww2dbase [Bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, and Other Cities | London, England | AC]
• The first Firebrand II variant aircraft, which was the second prototype aircraft of the original variant modified to new specifications, took flight. ww2dbase [Firebrand | AC]

• USS Seahorse was commissioned into service with Commander Donald McGregor in command. ww2dbase [Seahorse | CPC]
• US leadership gave the order to invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands on 7 May 1943. ww2dbase [Aleutian Islands Campaign | CPC]

31 Mar 1943 Interactive Map