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WWII On This Day: March 25

What happened on March 25 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1941, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
A German Panzer IV of the 11th Panzer Division advancing into Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-770-0280-20 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Invasion of Yugoslavia, April 1941

Yugoslavia signs the Tripartite Pact

In Vienna, Prime Minister Dragiša Cvetković and Foreign Minister Aleksandar Cincar-Marković signed Yugoslavia’s accession to the Tripartite Pact after weeks of German pressure and diplomatic isolation. The terms included German and Italian assurances concerning Yugoslav sovereignty and territorial integrity and a commitment that Axis troops would not demand transit through Yugoslav territory. Yugoslavia was also exempted from providing military assistance under the pact. The government treated those reservations as a way to avoid an immediate military confrontation while remaining outside active Axis operations. The settlement carried little political legitimacy among…

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1944
Wrecked rolling stock in the severely damaged marshalling yard at Juvisy-sur-Orge after Allied air attacks in 1944.
Bridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, CL 4170 · Public domain · Source
The Transportation Plan

The air chiefs make their final cases

Tedder backed the rail-centre plan. Spaatz made a final argument for oil, warning that German fighters would defend fuel plants but could decline battle over railway targets. Eisenhower concluded that there was no convincing alternative for giving the air forces a direct effect on the opening weeks of the invasion.

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1945
The assault on the Rhine and the capture of Wesel, March 1945.
The assault on the Rhine and the capture of Wesel, March 1945. Imperial War Museums BU 2334 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
The Rhine Crossings

Churchill crosses

Churchill went over the Rhine with Montgomery and Brooke, spent some time on the German bank and had to be persuaded away from the front by an American general who pointed out he could not guarantee his safety. He had already stopped on the west bank a day earlier and, in a gesture Patton had made two days before him, relieved himself into the river. Both men had waited five and a half years to do it.

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Men of the 95th Division, US Ninth Army, patrolling Soest after its capture, 7 April 1945.
Men of the 95th Division patrolling Soest, 7 April 1945 · US Army Signal Corps SC 336817 · NARA · Public domain · Source
The Ruhr Pocket

The southern arm breaks out

Five infantry and two armoured divisions opened First Army's breakout from the Remagen bridgehead. The advance was not simply a drive into central Germany: the pre-existing plan called for First Army to turn north and form the southern arm of a double envelopment of the Ruhr. Hodges changed the internal direction of the attack when V Corps found weaker resistance in the south. The adjustment widened the breakout and helped the American armour reach the roads needed for the later wheel north.

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