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WWII On This Day: March 17

What happened on March 17 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1941, 1942, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
German Type IXA submarine U-37 in dock at Lorient in 1940 after the French Atlantic ports became U-boat bases.
Mannewitz · Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1032-11A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
The Happy Time and the Wolfpacks

U-100 and U-99 are destroyed

During the attack on HX 112, HMS Vanoc rammed and sank U-100 at about 03:18 after depth-charge attacks by Vanoc and HMS Walker. Joachim Schepke was killed. Around forty minutes later Walker sank U-99 and rescued most of its crew, including Otto Kretschmer, who became a prisoner of war. Within ten days U-47, U-70, U-100 and U-99 had been removed from operations. The March losses did not end the U-boat campaign, and German submarine numbers would grow substantially. They did end this first period in which a small group of…

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1942
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.
USHMM
The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence

Bełżec begins killing operations as Operation Reinhard expands

Bełżec began regular killing operations on 17 March 1942. Sobibór followed in May and Treblinka in July. The three purpose-built sites became the principal killing centres of Operation Reinhard. Victims were murdered with carbon monoxide in stationary gas chambers. About 1.5 million Jews were murdered at the three centres; when related shootings are included, Operation Reinhard personnel murdered about 1.7 million Jews.

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1944
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

White City blocks the Japanese railway

Calvert’s 77th Brigade established a fortified block near Mawlu on the main north–south railway in mid-March. The position became known as White City from the parachutes and supply material spread around the perimeter. The block was intended to sever communications used by Japanese formations in northern Burma. It combined infantry positions, wire, mines, artillery and repeated air supply, turning the Chindit concept into a defended base astride a fixed line of communication. Japanese attacks followed as the railway remained blocked. The fighting required the Chindits to hold ground for extended…

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1945
Waves of United States Marine Corps amphibious tractors approaching the smoke-covered landing beaches of Iwo Jima in February 1945, with Mount Suribachi in the distance.
Archives Branch, USMC History Division / Thayer Soule Collection COLL/2266 · CC BY 2.0
Iwo Jima

The last Japanese pocket is reduced in the northern gorge

From 17 to 25 March the 5th Division fought a battle of attrition in the gorge at the northern end of the island, sealing each cave before advancing, with flame tanks, armoured bulldozers and infantry. A large concrete structure was destroyed with 8,500 pounds of explosives. On 17 March, in Wikipedia's account, Kuribayashi sent a farewell message to Imperial General Headquarters with death poems, and he was promoted to full general. On 18 March he, Colonel Ikeda and Rear Admiral Ichimaru were reported alive together in a cave near the…

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The Ludendorff Bridge after its collapse into the Rhine, 17 March 1945.
The Ludendorff Bridge after its collapse into the Rhine, 17 March 1945. U.S. military photograph · Public domain Source
The Rhine Crossings

The Ludendorff Bridge collapses

After ten days of artillery, air attack, repeated traffic and continuous repair work, the Ludendorff Bridge collapsed on 17 March, killing 28 American engineers who were working on it. By then pontoon and treadway bridges and ferries were operating alongside it. The loss of the captured railway bridge therefore did not end the Remagen bridgehead or stop traffic across the Rhine.

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