Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to disperse and work singly. Convoy attacks were halted in anticipation of new U-boat designs coming on. Effectively, this amounted to a concession of German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.
New Zealanders made an unsuccessful assault on Monte Cassino. After its failure, Allied defensive lines are consolidated.
The US OSS began Operation Ginny II, again intending to cut rail lines in Italy, and once again failing, this time as the landing party was beached in the wrong place and captured.
80% of the B-25s of the 340th Bombardment Group were destroyed by volcanic boulders from Vesuvius.
The Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (Italian Liberation Corps) was organized to collect the Royal Italain Army units that were now part of the Allied armies.
Döme Sztójay replaced Miklós Kállay as Prime Minister of Hungary, and the country promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. The roundups of Hungarian Jews were soon to begin and the country would reenter the war as a German ally.
Hedwig Jahnow died at age 65 of malnutrition at Theresienstadt. She was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge and remains significant in those studies.
On the same day, and at the same location, important pre Nazi German legal advisor to banking and industry, Albert Katzenellenbogen, died.
The Red Army took Pervomaysk
Mortar crew of 164th Inf. Regt., Americal Div., on Bougainville Island. 22 March, 1944. All of these men were from Minnesota. All enlisted, this photograph is unusual in that one of the soldiers, PFC Russell Campbell, is wearing his service cap with the stiffner removed, something almost never seen in the case of U.S. soldiers in combat outside of airmen.
The only example of the Northrup XP-56, the first one having been destroyed in a crash, was photographed in anticipation of its first flight the following day.
Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet (s/n 42-38353) on the ground at Muroc Army Air Field, California, March 22, 1944.
The weird aircraft was not a success.
Sarah Sundin's excellent blog on daily events in World War Two, whose feed updates are no longer working, notes this item:
Two gallons per week.
Could you get by on two gallons per week? Most days I drive a 1/4 ton Utility Truck, which is better known as a Jeep, and while it's small, it gets terrible mileage. I know that I use more than two gallons per week, but I would if I was driving my fuel efficient diesel truck as well. If I was limited to two gallons per week, I'd have to make major life changes.
Should I be pondering this as Congress, through the neglect of Ukraine, pushes us ever closer to a war with Russia, should she invade the Balkans?
During World War Two I know that my grandfather had a different class of ration ticket as his vehicle was used for business. His car was a "business coupe", which is about all I know about it.
I know it had a gasoline personnel heater, which probably provides a clue, but I still don't know who made it.
I had a 1954 Chevrolet at one time, and it got really good mileage. Interestingly, a 1973 Mercury Comet, with a really powerful V8 engine we had, also did. According to one site about older cars, the business couple should be something like this:
My '38 gets around 17-18 MPG @ 50 MPH. It drops to around 12-14 @ 60. She just doesn't like being pushed that hard.
My 54, and the 73, got much better mileage than that.
Whatever mileage the business coupé got, my father sort of brushed gasoline rationing off when I asked him about it, due to the other category of ticket. I don't know what that really meant, however.
Of course, for most long travel of any kind, people took the train. Something that we might want to consider as potentially being something that may very well return. High speed rail, for that matter, may be coming to Wyoming.
Last prior edition:
1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Churches, Continuation War, Kamikaze, Miles City Montana, New Guinea, Operation Margarethe, Operation U-Go, The relationship between men and women, The written word, World War Two
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