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WWII On This Day: March 26

What happened on March 26 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 Battle for Toungoo Begins

Japanese forces closed on Toungoo in late March, where the Chinese 200th Division defended the road and rail corridor in central Burma. The battle was fought because Toungoo lay astride communications needed by both the Japanese advance and the Allied attempt to keep a connected front between central Burma and the routes toward China. The Chinese position could delay the advance, but its flanks and supply routes were increasingly exposed as Japanese forces moved through the wider theatre. The battle therefore became another test of whether a strong local defence…

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1943
American infantry aboard a landing craft approaching Oran, Algeria, in November 1942 during Operation Torch.
Lt F. A. Hudson / Royal Navy / Imperial War Museums A 12661 · UK Government public domain
Operation Torch and the Tunisian Campaign

The Tebaga thrust forces withdrawal from Mareth

British and Commonwealth armour broke through the Tebaga approach in late March, threatening the Axis retreat routes behind Mareth. The German–Italian army withdrew from the fortified line towards the next positions near Wadi Akarit. The movement opened the Gulf of Gabès route for Eighth Army. Retreating Axis units preserved part of their fighting strength but had to surrender carefully prepared terrain and move north under pressure.

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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

Eisenhower chooses the Transportation Plan

Eisenhower formally selected the Transportation Plan for the pre-invasion air effort. The decision did not exclude oil or later interdiction. It established rail-centre bombing as the principal way the strategic and tactical air forces would help isolate the battlefield before D-Day.

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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 attack falls on the bivouacs near the western beaches

About 05:15 on 26 March 200 to 300 Japanese attacked Marine and Army bivouacs near the western beaches in what the official history describes as a planned breakout. The fighting lasted about three hours. The 5th Pioneer Battalion stopped the attack and killed 196 of the attackers, 40 of whom carried swords, which suggested that many were officers or senior non-commissioned officers. The pioneers lost 9 killed and 31 wounded, and units of the Army Air Forces' VII Fighter Command lost 44 killed and 88 wounded. First Lieutenant Harry Martin…

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