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WWII On This Day: March 28

What happened on March 28 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1942 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Incendiary fires burn in Lübeck's Altstadt during Bomber Command's raid on the night of 28–29 March 1942.
Incendiary fires burn in Lübeck's Altstadt during Bomber Command's raid on the night of 28–29 March 1942. Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, C 2364 · Public domain Source
Area Bombing Begins

Lübeck shows the destructive potential of concentrated incendiaries

Bomber Command dispatched 234 aircraft against Lübeck, a lightly defended Baltic port well beyond Gee range. Bright moonlight and the city's position near the coast made it easier to identify than the Ruhr, while the dense old centre contained large numbers of timbered buildings vulnerable to fire. Nearly half the bomb load was incendiary. Of the aircraft sent, 191 crews claimed the target. About 300 tons of bombs fell on the built-up area, including 144 tons of incendiaries, and more than 200 acres were devastated. The central power station, railway…

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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

Through

The bridgeheads joined into one, twelve bridges were open across the river, and the armoured divisions went through into country with nothing continuous in front of them. First and Ninth Armies met at Lippstadt on 1 April, closing a ring round the Ruhr with about 317,000 German troops inside it, the largest encirclement of German forces in the west. Model, commanding inside it, dissolved his army group and shot himself three weeks later.

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The Rhine Crossings

Four crossings, three answers

Remagen cost almost nothing and was luck. Oppenheim cost around 28 men and was judgement. Plunder cost several thousand and was preparation. All three worked, and the comparison has been used to argue about Montgomery ever since. The fair reading is that Plunder was planned in February against a defence that existed in February. By 23 March the German army west of the Rhine had been destroyed and the far bank was largely empty, and no commander gets to know that in advance. What can be said is that the…

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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

Bradley orders the turn north

After the 3rd Armored Division reached Marburg, Bradley redrew the army boundaries and turned First Army north towards Paderborn. Third Army continued towards Kassel to protect its right flank. This was the formal start of the closing manoeuvre. The Ruhr encirclement was part of the Allied operational design; only the final meeting point at Lippstadt would be improvised.

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