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WWII On This Day: March 1

What happened on March 1 during World War II? This date brings together 6 events from 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
German mountain troops landing in Norway, April 1940.
Photo: Bagn Bygdesamling – Valdres Folkemuseum, Norway · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Operation Weserübung

Hitler approves the operation against Denmark and Norway

Hitler signed the directive for Weserübung on 1 March. The order linked occupation of Denmark with simultaneous seizure of the principal Norwegian ports and airfields. Nikolaus von Falkenhorst received overall army command while the Kriegsmarine organised separate naval groups for Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. Denmark formed the southern base and air corridor for the same operation. The plan accepted the danger created by sending major surface ships into confined coastal waters under British naval superiority. Surprise and rapid occupation ashore were expected to compensate for that exposure.

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Finnish ski troops moving through forest during the Winter War.
Imperial War Museums, HU 52936 · Public domain · Source
The Winter War

The battle reaches Viipuri and the frozen bay

Soviet forces pressed toward Viipuri as Finnish troops occupied their final defensive positions on the western Isthmus. Fighting spread across the approaches to the city and onto the frozen waters of Viipuri Bay. Soviet crossings over the ice threatened routes behind the Finnish line and forced the defenders to commit scarce reserves to the coast. The same geography that had channelled the early campaign now offered the attacker new approaches around the end of the land front. Finland entered the final peace negotiations with its army still organised and fighting,…

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1941
A Bristol Beaufighter, the first British night fighter that could find a bomber and catch it.
A Bristol Beaufighter, the first British night fighter that could find a bomber and catch it. IWM · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
The Blitz

Night interception becomes a system

The Beaufighter had flown operational AI-radar patrols since September 1940, and an AI-assisted kill was achieved in November. Those early successes did not yet amount to an effective national night-defence system. By the spring of 1941 Ground Controlled Interception stations could guide fighters much closer to a raid before the airborne AI Mk IV set took over. Beaufighter squadrons were also becoming more numerous and more experienced. The probability of turning a radar warning into an actual interception rose sharply. That sequence matters because no single device solved the night-bomber…

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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

Houston and Perth Enter the Invasion Fleet

USS Houston and HMAS Perth entered Sunda Strait after midnight on 1 March while attempting to leave the Java area. Instead they ran into the western Japanese invasion force, with transports and escorts already operating off the landing beaches. Both Allied cruisers were sunk after a close night action. The encounter was not a detached naval duel. Japanese troops were coming ashore while the last major Allied cruisers in the area fought among the ships carrying and protecting them. Perth and Houston could inflict damage, but there was no supporting…

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Japanese troops landing on Java during the invasion that opened on 1 March 1942.
Japanese troops landing on Java during the invasion that opened on 1 March 1942. U.S. Army Center of Military History reproduction · Public domain Source
The Fall of the Southern Empires

The Invasion of Java Begins

Japanese forces landed at several points on Java in the early hours of 1 March. Imamura’s 16th Army came ashore after the ABDA surface force had been broken and moved toward airfields, road junctions, Batavia and the inland command area around Bandung. The defenders were now fighting on the island the whole Malay Barrier had been intended to protect. Reinforcement by sea was collapsing, effective air strength was limited, and the landings came from more than one direction. The Japanese did not need to clear every local position before moving.…

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1943
A converted cable ship laying pipeline across the English Channel, 1944.
Pipeline laying in the Channel, 1944 ·
Operation PLUTO

HAMEL is developed

Bernard Ellis developed a mild-steel alternative that could be flash-welded into continuous lengths. H. A. Hammick worked with him on the production and laying problem. The resulting HAMEL pipe reduced the demand for lead but required a new method of storage and deployment.

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