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03/01/1944 MacArthur's surprise landing on Los Negros in the Admiralty islands in one of his cleverest maneuvers of the war. By seizing the island 200 miles north of New Guinea, MacArthur severs the Japanese supply line to New Guinea and Rabaul. The Japanese on New Guinea will be forced to retreat 150 miles.

More than 100,000 workers begin a stop-the-war strike in Turin, a Northern Italy industrial center. The strike paralyzes much of Italy's war production.

03/02/1944 The Germans have overrun one-third of the Anzio beachhead during the past two weeks, but suffered ruinous losses.

03/03/1944 In the South Pacific's Admiralty Islands, the 1st Cavalry stops a Japanese banzai attack on Los Negros with such heavy losses the island garrison will never launch another assault.

Meanwhile, MacArthur begins planning another stroke: an amphibious assault on Hollandia, the prewar capital of Dutch New Guinea, now 400 miles behind Japanese lines. MacArthur schedules the attack for mid-April.

Two Chinese divisions and American jungle fighters called Merrill's Marauders begin an offensive in upper Burma.

Led by "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, they will try to drive the Japanese out of the Hukawng and Mogaung river valleys, take the big Japanese base at Myitkyina and open a new supply road.

The attack ignites the seven-day battle of Walawbum that inflicts heavy casualties on the Japanese 18th division.

Convinced that his 14th Army can't smash the Anzio beachhead, Field Marshal Kesselring halts the badly battered German offensive.

The Finnish parliament rejects the Soviet Union's armistice terms because there's no way to disarm Germans in Finland.

03/04/1944 In the South Pacific, one of the army's most famous regiments, the 7th Cavalry -- partly wiped out with Custer at Little Big Horn -- reinforces the beachhead on Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands.

The Red Army shocks the Germans by launching a massive drive to liberate the Ukraine and invade Romania.

The Russians use wide-tracked T-34 tanks and American Studebaker trucks to slop across the Ukraine's black muck.

Fifty Russian motorized infantry and tank divisions of Marshal Georgi Zhukov's 1st Ukrainian Army begin the attack. They'll soon be joined by Marshal Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian and Rodion Malinovsky's 3rd Ukrainian.

Thick clouds ruin an American air strike as only 50 bombers and fighters reach the German capital. But when Luftwaffe commander Goering learns American fighters have flown all the way to Berlin, he says, "Germany has lost the war."

03/05/1944 Gen. Orde Wingate's Chindits bolster the British offensive in Burma by establishing an airfield behind Japanese lines. From their "Broadway" base, the Chindits will assist Gen. Joseph Stilwell's drive on the Japanese supply center at Myitkyina.

Another 50 Red Army divisions overwhelm outnumbered Germans as Marshal Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Army expands the massive Soviet offensive in the Ukraine.

Once again, fast-moving Russians are trying to encircle a large German force, this time the 1st Panzer Army. Konev's initial target is the German supply hub at Uman. His long-range goal is Romania.

A U. S. Army division with a large number of draftees makes its combat debut in Italy as the 88th "Blue Devil" Infantry. Until now, the Army has fought its battles with regular and National Guard divisions.

03/06/1944 Merrill's Marauders score their first victory in northern Burma as they defeat a Japanese attack in the Hukawng valley. And the U. S. 12th Cavalry regiment reinforces the beachhead on Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands.

The Luftwaffe scores one of its biggest victories over the British-based U. S. 8th Air Force, shooting down 69 of 660 bombers and 11 fighters during the 8th's first full-scale raid on Berlin.

But escorting American fighters bag 80 German fighters, half the number scrambled. Henceforth, German pilots will have a severe case of what the Luftwaffe calls Jaegerschreck: fear of fighters.

In Russia, Konev's 1st Ukrainian Army cuts the Lvov-Odessa railroad, the most important rail line on the eastern front. The rupture drives a wedge between German forces in central Russia and Ukraine. The Russians are sweeping forward on a 300-mile front from the Pripet marshes to the Black Sea.

03/07/1944 In the Pacific, the U. S. 12th Cavalry regiment on Los Negros seizes part of the Admiralty Island's Seadler Harbor. A task force powered by cruisers Nashville and Phoenix and Australian cruiser Shropshire hammers Japanese artillery positions near the harbor.

The Red Army is surging across the Ukraine with Georgi Zhukov's army storming toward Tarnopol, an ancient Polish fortress, and Ivan Konev's army rolling toward Uman, a major German base.

Demoralized German Army Group South is losing much of its horse-drawn equipment to the fast-moving Russians.

Intelligence officers estimate the U. S. 8th Air Force's "Big Week" attacks knocked out 70 percent of Germany's aircraft production and 90 percent of its tire plants. But led by industrial wizard Albert Speer, the Germans are reorganizing.

03/08/1944 The Japanese launch two surprise offensives.

In Burma, 100,000 Japanese and 7,000 anti-British Indians cross the Chindwin River and head for Imphal, main British base in eastern India. Led by Lt. Gen. Renya Mutaguchi and Indian National Army commander Subhas Chandra Bose, the invaders hope to push on to Calcutta and run the British out of India.

The other offensive is on Bougainville in the northern Solomons, where 15,000 Japanese commanded by Gen. Haruoshi Hyakutake -- the loser of Guadalcanal -- attack the Torokina beachhead with artillery that has been manhandled over jungle-covered mountains during the past four months.

Berlin is attacked by 1,400 American bombers and fighters for a loss of 37 planes.

Finland rejects the Soviet Union's peace terms, but the Finns and Russians begin an unofficial armistice.

03/09/1944 The week-long battle of Walawbum in upper Burma ends with the Japanese 18th division escaping an encirclement by Gen. Vinegar Joe Stilwell's American and Chinese forces. Stilwell's troops have driven the Japanese out of Hukawng Valley.

U. S. 8th Air Force bombers and fighters hit Berlin, and, for the first time in six years, are unopposed by the Luftwaffe. The absence of German fighters, after tremendous losses the past two weeks, confirms that American Mustangs, Lightenings and Thunderbolts have won the air war over Germany.

In Russia, the 1st Ukrainian Army begins a house-by-house battle for Tarnopol, an Polish fortress in Northern Ukraine. Zhukov's army is only 70 miles from Lvov, the trading crossroads of eastern Europe.

03/10/1944 Japanese artillery hits 23 planes on airstrips at Torokina Bay in the northern Solomons, and their infantry seizes a hill overlooking the American beachhead. The Air Force hurriedly evacuates its aircraft, and counterattacking Ohio National Guardsmen of the 37th "Buckeye" division recapture part of the hill.

Once again, the Soviets are trying to encircle a German army in the Ukraine.

The target this time is Gen. Hans Hube's 300,000-man 1st Panzer Army, the Wehrmacht's main bulwark in the central Ukraine. Red Army forces led by Marshal Zhukov are curving behind 1st Panzer's northern flank, and units led by Marshal Konev are pushing beyond 1st Panzer's southern flank.

Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Army captures 500 German tanks and 12,000 trucks as it takes Uman, the Germans' biggest supply center and air base in the Ukraine.

03/11/1944 In eastern Burma, the fast-moving Japanese begin surrounding the 17th British-Indian division 100 miles south of Imphal, the main British base.

The British are falling back to the flat lands around Imphal so their tanks and artillery can flail Gen. Renya Mutacuchi's 15th Army.

In the South Pacific, American and Australian warships bombard Manus in the Admiralty Islands, and the U. S. 7th Cavalry regiment encounters stiff resistance as it lands on nearby Hauwei Island. By taking the two island, MacArthur's forces will secure Seeadler Harbor.

American bombers sink two German U-boats and four German-manned French warships during an attack on Toulon in southern France. Other American bombers blast rail yards at Florence, Italy.

03/12/1944 The Joint Chiefs of Staff settle a squabble between MacArthur and the Navy over who will direct American forces in the Pacific. The JCS decides on two invasion paths: MacArthur's forces moving from New Guinea to the Philippines and Nimitz directing a drive across the central Pacific. The timetable calls for MacArthur to take Hollandia, New Guinea, on April 15, and Nimtiz's amphibious forces to invade the Marianas on June 15 and Palau on Sept. 15. The two are to converge in the Philippines in October.

The U. S. 7th Cavalry widens its beachhead on Hauwei in the Admiralty Islands; the U. S. 37th and Americal divisions defeat Japanese attackers at Torokina in the northern Solomons, and an American force takes Wotho Atoll in the Marshall.

In the Ukraine, the Soviets reach the Bug River at Gayvoron, 50 miles from Romania. Further north, Zhukov's army takes Sarny, a road and rail hub in eastern Poland.

03/13/1944 British and American transport planes begin airlifting the British-Indian 5th Infantry division from northern Burma to Imphal. The Japanese 15th Army is threatening to overwhelm two British-Indian divisions making fighting retreats toward Imphal.

In the South Pacific, the U. S. 7th Cavalry regiment overwhelms the Japanese on Hauwei in the Admiralty Islands. Artillery is emplaced on Hauwei to support an upcoming landing on Manus, the Admiralties' largest island.

Ohio National Guardsmen of the 37th "Buckeye" division retake most of the positions recently captured by the Japanese near Torokina Bay in the northern Solomons. The Japanese offensive has shot its bolt.

Marshal Malinovsky's 3rd Ukrainian Army liberates Kherson-on-the-Dnieper, one of the Ukraine's largest ports and industrial centers, then crosses the Dnieper and heads for Romania.

03/14/1944 British anxiety deepens as spearheads of the Japanese 15th Army push toward Imphal, headquarters of the British-Indian army in eastern India.

The main Japanese column surrounds the 17th British-Indian division 60 miles south of Imphal. During the next three weeks, the 17th will suffer heavy casualties as it battles through four Japanese roadblocks to reach Imphal.

Domestically, Roosevelt and Republican Wendell Wilkie win the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries in New Hampshire. FDR will cruise to his nomination for a fourth term. Wilkie will be rejected by Republicans angered by his support of FDR's foreign policy.

Selective Service Director Lewis Hershey orders draft boards to end occupational deferments for 18- to 25-year-olds who aren't certified as "key men" in war industries.

03/15/1944 In the South Pacific, the U. S. 7th and 8th Cavalry regiments land on Manus, largest of the Admiralty islands.

The third battle of Cassino opens with Allied planes and guns demolishing or damaging every building in town.

Despite the biggest air strike of the Italian campaign and 190,000 artillery rounds, the German 1st Parachute division inflicts heavy casualties on attacking New Zealanders. By nightfall, the Germans still hold half the town.

The 4th British-Indian division makes little progress in hand-to-hand fighting for the ruins of the Benedictine abbey and several hills overlooking Cassino.

Soviet armies led by Zhukov and Malinovsky are rapidly chasing the Germans from Ukraine. Zhukov's 1st Ukrainian takes Kalinkova, 40 miles from Hitler's abandoned headquarters at Vinnitsa. Malinovsky's troops wipe out 14,000 surrounded Germans near the Black Sea.

03/16/1944 In the Pacific, the U. S. Fifth Air Force ends a five-day assault on Japanese air bases at Wewak, New Guinea. Several hundred Japanese planes have been destroyed, many by the new long-range P38 Lightning fighter.

Despite a pulverizing assault by planes, artillery, tanks and New Zealand infantry, the German paratroopers at Cassino have counterattacked and driven the Kiwis from the ruins.

Allied commander Harold Alexander says. "I doubt if there are any troops in the world who could have gone on fighting with the ferocity they have."

The Germans also have battled the 4th British-Indian division to a standstill at the Benedictine abbey and nearby hills.

Another disaster befalls the Luftwaffe. Escorting Mustangs down 26 of 43 twin-engined Messerschmitt 110s over Augsburg and the Luftwaffe permanently grounds the clumsy fighters.

03/17/1944 In the Pacific, troopers of the U. S. 1st Cavalry division take Lorengau airfield on Manus, largest of the Admiralty Islands. MacArthur's surprise attack on the Admiralties is working beautifully. Resistance has been spasmodic and the Japanese haven't been able to bring in reinforcements.

Ferocious fighting continues at Cassino as the 2nd New Zealand division takes the town's railroad station. But the Kiwis can't overcome the German 1st Parachute division and Allied tanks can't maneuver through Cassino's ruins.

The Red Army continues advancing across Ukraine, with Zhukov's army taking Dubno, 80 miles northeast of Lvov.

The war finally comes to Vienna as Italian-based American bombers blast the Austrian capital.

03/18/1944 In the Pacific, a Navy task force with battleships Iowa and New Jersey bombards the bypassed Japanese garrison on Mili atoll in the Marshall Islands. Japanese counterfire scores two hits on the Iowa.

Aware that Hungary is eager to make a separate peace with the Soviet Union, Hitler lures Hungary's head of state, Adm. Miklos Horthy, to a conference at Rastenburg, East Prussia, then arrests him.

Hitler's duplicity enables German troops to occupy Hungary, arrest prominent anti-Nazis and send thousands of Hungarian Jews to extermination camps.

The Red Army surges across the Dniester River and into Romanian-administered Moldavia, a Soviet republic overrun by the Germans and Romanians in 1941.

RAF bombers pound Frankfurt-am-Main with 3,000 tons of high explosives.

03/19/1944 In the Pacific, the U. S. 1st Cavalry division mops up Japanese resistance on Manus in the Admiralty Islands, and a five-ship Japanese convoy is destroyed by American planes near New Guinea.

The Germans and New Zealanders at Cassino stage a two-hour truce to pick up the dead and wounded from the battlefield.

When the truce ends, the Germans launch a fierce but unsuccessful counterattack to retake a recently lost hill.

The Germans establish a puppet government in Hungary to ensure control of the railroads that supply Wehrmacht forces in Ukraine.

Elsewhere, Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Army sweeps across Moldavia and heads for the prewar Soviet-Romanian frontier. Hitler fears the Romanians also may seek a separate peace with the Soviets.

03/20/1944 The 4th Marine regiment takes Emirau in the St. Matthias Islands, 250 miles north of Rabaul, completely isolating the huge Japanese base, which for the rest of the war will be a prison without walls for its 90,00-man garrison.

The Emirau landing is the end of the 20-month Solomons campaign that produced victories at Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Bougainville.

A task force with battleships Idaho, Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee batters the bypassed Japanese base at Kavieng, New Ireland.

In the Pacific, American and RAF transport planes begin airlifting the 5th British-Indian division from northern Burma to Imphal. The airlift will play a key role in the eastern India campaign: hauling reinforcements, ammunition and supplies to surrounded British-Indian garrisons and evacuating the wounded.

Zhukov's army overruns Vianitsa, once Hitler's headquarters in southern Russia. The Germans now have abandoned most of Ukraine.

03/21/1944 An Anglo-American squabble erupts when British Gen. Maitland Wilson, Allied commander in the Mediterranean, recommends canceling next summer's invasion of southern France.

Wilson urges that all Allied forces in the Mediterranean be used against the Germans in Italy.

Eisenhower urges two French invasions: Normandy and southern France.

In Italy, Allied field Commander Harold Alexander decides to give his New Zealand and British-Indian divisions one last chance to defeat German paratroopers at Cassino.

The paratroopers are still holding half the wrecked town and nearby Abbey Hill.

The Finnish government rejects the proposed Finnish-Soviet armistice, calling the Soviets' terms too harsh.

03/22/1944 Seven hundred American heavy bombers protected by 1,000 fighters blast Berlin. Once again, the Luftwaffe remains on the ground and only 12 American planes are shot down, all by anti-aircraft fire.

German paratroopers defeat the final assaults of the 2nd New Zealand and 4th British-Indian divisions at Cassino. The Kiwis have taken three-quarters of the town, and Indian Gurkhas are 300 yards from the Benedictine abbey. But the tenacious paratroopers still block the road to Rome.

In Ukraine, Malinovsky's army is threatening Odessa, the Soviet Union's second largest seaport, from the north and east. Hitler orders Odessa held because it's the main supply depot for the 17th German-Romanian Army isolated in the Crimea.

03/23/1944 The British are stunned by rapid Japanese advances in eastern India.

Gen. Renya Mutaguchi has divided his 15th Army into six columns which are encircling or bypassing British-Indian units and racing toward Imphal, a district capital that's the gateway to India. The columns threaten the only road and railroad from Imphal to mainland India. One is only 25 miles from the town.

The Third Battle of Cassino ends as Gen. Harold Alexander orders the 2nd New Zealand and 4th British-Indian divisions to halt their attacks. During the past eight days, the Kiwis, British and Indians have suffered 2,400 casualties. Their lonely success in a bridgehead across the Rapido River.

Luftwaffe ace Lt. Col. Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke, a group commander with 162 victories, is shot down by American fighters in central Germany.

03/24/1944 GIs of the Americal infantry division and National Guardsmen of Ohio's 37th "Buckeye" Division repulse the last Japanese attack on Bouganville. It is the last significant battle in the Solomons campaign.

During the past two weeks, Americans holding Bougainville's Torokina Bay have killed 8,000 of Gen. Haruyoshi Hyakutake's 15,000-man attack force.

British Brig. Gen. Orde Wingate, legendary commander of the Chindit guerrillas, is killed in a plane crash near Imphal, India.

Eisenhower compromises with British military leaders and agrees to delay an amphibious landing in southern France until mid-summer.

FDR call on Europeans to help Jews escape Nazi persecution. The Germans execute 335 Italian civilians at the Ardentine caves near Rome in reprisal for a partisan attack that killed 32 Wehrmacht soldiers.

03/25/1944 With the Solomons campaign completed, the U. S. Joint Chiefs break up Adm. Halsey's South Pacific command.

Six of Halsey's army divisions -- the Americal, 25th, 37th, 40th, 43rd and 93rd -- and supporting Air Force and Navy units are assigned to MacArthur's Southwest Pacific theater. The 1st and 3rd Marine divisions are transferred to Adm. Nimitz's in the central Pacific. MacArthur and Nimitz meet for the first time, in Brisbane, Australia, and agree to coordinate their offensives, especially the operation closest to MacArthur's heart: his return to the Philippines later in the year.

03/26/1944 In the Pacific, the American sub Tulibee is hit and sunk by one of its own torpedoes while attacking a Japanese convoy near Palau. Only one Tulibee's crewmen survives to tell.

The Soviets encircle yet another German army in the USSR when Zhukov's and Konev's armies join hands in the western Ukraine, trapping the Wehrmacht's 300,000-man 1st Panzer Army.

This time the Germans will move swiftly to break the Russian ring. Panzer commander, Gen. Hans Hube, organizes a surprise attack and quick escape.

Farther south, vanguards of Konev's army reach the Pruth River, the prewar Soviet-Romanian border.

In planning for D-Day, Eisenhower approves massive pre-invasion air strikes on French and Belgian roads, bridges and railroads. Ike wants Allied air power to smash German reinforcements as they're rushing to the Normandy beachhead.

03/27/1944 With the transfer of six Army divisions to his command, MacArthur plans his boldest move of the war.

He will leapfrog to Aitape and Hollandia, New Guinea, 350 and 450 miles west respectively of his current front line, correctly guessing the two areas are held by small garrisons that can be easily overrun. The landings, scheduled for April 22, will isolate a 40,000-man Japanese army on New Guinea.

Elsewhere, defeated remnants of Gen. Haruyoshi Hyakutake's army on Bougainville withdraw from the American beach-head at Torokina Bay. Hyakutake's men will wither in isolation for the rest of the war.

A nine-day convoy battle begins when 49 Allied cargo ships sail from Iceland and head for northern Russia. Protected by planes from Royal Navy carriers and 30 warships, the convoy's escorts will trounce attacking German subs and planes and arrive at Murmansk without loss.

03/28/1944 The showdown battle for India begins near Imphal with the British holding a shaky edge over Japanese Gen. Renya Mutaguchi's rapidly advancing 15th Army.

The Japanese know they must capture the British supply center's food and fuel to continue their offensive, and the British know a Japanese breakthrough might ignite a massive Indian rebellion.

During the past week, American and RAF transport planes have airlifted the 5th British-Indian division from northern Burma to Imphal and Dimapur, the most strategic points in eastern India. Other British units are making fighting retreats to Imphal.

Elements of the U. S. 93rd "Bloody Hand" division clash with rearguards of Gen. Haruyoshi Hyuakutake's army on Bougainville in the northern Solomons. It's the first action for the 93rd, a white-officered division of black infantrymen.

03/29/1944 A battle erupts at Kohima, a tiny mountaintop village 50 miles north of Imphal. In one of the war's biggest mis-matches, 1,500 British and Indians are besieged by 20,000 Japanese trying to control eastern India's only road.

During the next three weeks, every member of Kohima's garrison, including the sick and wounded, will defend a shrinking perimeter. They will be supplied by airdrops and dramatically saved at the last moment.

03/30/1944 Planes from 11 carriers of Adm. Raymond Spruance's Task Force 58 begin a three-day raid on Japanese bases in the western Pacific's Caroline Islands.

The deadliest blow sinks 35 ships and destroys 160 planes at Palau, a Japanese anchorage. Other attacks damage Facilities on Yap, Ulithi and Woleai. Twenty-seven American planes are lost but subs rescue many air crews.

The U. S. Fifth Air Force batters Japanese airfields at Hollandia in western New Guinea. Hundreds of Japanese planes are destroyed.

Hitler fires Germany's finest general, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, commander in northern Ukraine. Hitler also dumps field Marshal Ewald von Kleist, his southern Ukraine commander. Hitler is furious over Soviet successes which forced Manstein and Kleist's outnumbered forces to retreat 200 miles.

03/31/1944 Adm. Mineichi Koga, supreme commander of the Japanese navy, is killed when his plane crashes in a Pacific storm. He is the second Imperial Navy supreme commander to die in the past year.

In India, the Japanese 31st division cuts the only road connecting Imphal to the outside world. The town is being defended by three British-Indian divisions.

In upper Burma, a battalion of Merrill's Marauders is surrounded by the Japanese 18th division near the jungle hamlet of Nhpum Ga. The Marauders had been driving toward the Japanese base at Myitkyina.

The RAF suffers its worst defeat of the war when radar-equipped German night fighters shoot down 95 bombers and damage 71 during an 800-plane raid on Nuremberg.

Malinovsky's 3rd Ukrainian Army takes Ochakov, a small Black Sea port 38 miles from Odessa, but spring mud and floods are slowing his offensive.