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WWII On This Day: April 3

What happened on April 3 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival and the British surrender party walking to the Ford Motor Factory in Singapore on 15 February 1942.
British official photographer / Imperial War Museums HU 2781 · UK Government public domain · Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

The Last Offensive Against Bataan

The final Japanese offensive against Bataan opened on 3 April with heavy artillery and air preparation against defenders already reduced by months of hunger, disease and shortage. The attack struck an army that had repelled earlier assaults but no longer possessed the physical strength or reserves it had in January. By this stage the central question was no longer whether the terrain of Bataan could be defended in principle. It was whether men on reduced rations, with widespread illness and exhausted units, could meet a renewed offensive backed by fresh…

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1943
A Chindit column crosses a river in Burma during Operation Longcloth in 1943.
Imperial War Museums, IND 2290 · UK Government public domain
The Arakan and the Chindits

The Japanese counterstroke turns the Arakan flank

In early April Japanese forces struck around the eastern side of the Mayu positions and threatened the communications of Allied brigades that had been concentrated against Donbaik and Rathedaung. The attack exploited jungle routes that the defenders had treated as difficult barriers. Units began withdrawing north as headquarters tried to restore a coherent front. The movement quickly became a broader retreat because formations were dispersed, roads were crowded and Japanese columns repeatedly appeared behind positions thought to be secure. The first Arakan offensive ended without Akyab and with confidence badly…

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1944
Fleet Air Arm bombs strike around Tirpitz in Altenfjord during Operation Tungsten on the morning of 3 April 1944.
Fleet Air Arm bombs strike around Tirpitz in Altenfjord during Operation Tungsten on the morning of 3 April 1944. Royal Navy official photographer · Imperial War Museums A 22633 · Public domain Source
The Arctic Convoys

Operation Tungsten puts Tirpitz out of action

Fleet Air Arm Barracudas and fighters from Home Fleet carriers struck Tirpitz at her Altenfjord anchorage in two waves. The attack achieved surprise and scored multiple bomb hits, causing heavy casualties and extensive damage to the battleship's upper works and systems. The armoured deck prevented the raid from sinking Tirpitz, but the repairs kept her from returning quickly to an operational sortie. Combined with the loss of Scharnhorst, the raid reduced the need to plan every Arctic convoy around an immediate German battleship attack, even though Tirpitz remained a target…

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1945
Shanklin Chine on the Isle of Wight, where the BAMBI pipelines came ashore.
Shanklin Chine on the Isle of Wight, where the BAMBI pipelines came ashore. Shanklin Chine · via Wikimedia Commons Source
Operation PLUTO

The network reaches the Rhine

The continental pipeline had extended through Belgium and the Netherlands toward the Rhine. Contemporary engineering accounts reported delivery approaching 4,500 long tons per day, although postwar official analysis gave a lower campaign average.

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