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WWII On This Day: March 17

What happened on March 17 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1941, 1942 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…

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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1945
Horsa gliders on the ground near Hamminkeln after the airborne landing east of the Rhine, March 1945.
Horsa gliders near Hamminkeln, 25 March 1945 · Imperial War Museums BU 2287 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence · Source
The Rhine Crossings

The bridge falls down

After ten days of artillery, air attack, frogmen, and even V-2 rockets aimed at it, the Ludendorff bridge collapsed on 17 March, killing 28 American engineers who were working on it. By then it did not matter. Pontoon and treadway bridges had been built alongside and six divisions were over. The bridge had done its work in the first forty-eight hours.

Continue in The Rhine Crossings →