World War II calendar
What happened on March 5 during World War II? This date brings together 2 events from 1943 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.
Pathfinder Mosquitoes used Oboe to mark Essen through cloud for a force of 442 aircraft. The raid began the sustained campaign against the Ruhr industrial region. Oboe greatly improved marking accuracy within its ground-station range, but the command paid heavily as the German night-defence system strengthened.
Continue in The Combined Bomber Offensive →
First Army entered Cologne on 5 March and had the city by the 6th. A Signal Corps cameraman filmed a Panther and an American Pershing duelling in the square by the cathedral, and the film includes the death of the driver of an earlier Sherman it had knocked out. It is one of the most watched pieces of combat film in existence, and it is worth remembering when watching it that everyone in it was a real person and that at least one of them died on camera.
Continue in The Rhineland Battles →.jpg){kind=link}