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• The United Nations War Crimes Commission organized a subcommittee to study the possibility of war criminals claiming that they were simply following orders in post-war trials. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Taiho was commissioned into service. ww2dbase [Taiho | CPC]
• While traveling in a jeep in northern Burma, Louis Mountbatten was accidentally struck by fragments of a bamboo plant that rendered him temporarily blind due to internal haemorrhage. ww2dbase [Louis Mountbatten | CPC]
• Hartwig von Ludwiger was made the deputy commanding officer of 22nd Mountain Corps. ww2dbase [Hartwig von Ludwiger | CPC]

• At 0140 hours, the unescorted 3,401-ton tanker Valera, owned by "Lago Petroleum Co, Panama", en route from San Nicolas, Aruba to Cristobal, Panama, with a cargo of 35,000 barrels of heavy boiler navy fuel oil, was hit by a torpedo from German submarine U-518 (Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Werner Offermanand) and sank after breaking in two, about 120 miles west-northwest of Barranquilla, Columbia. Master William Marshall Russell was killed; the remaining 34 men survivors were found aboard rafts by a US Coast Guard vessel, and were taken to Panama.11.5,-76.45 ww2dbase [Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico Campaigns | Caribbean Sea | HM]

• A Japanese shore battery sank US motor torpedo boat PT-337 in Hansa Bay, Australian Territory of New Guinea. ww2dbase [HM]

• Orde Wingate personally visited the Broadway site of Operation Thursday in Burma. ww2dbase [Operation Thursday | CPC]
• A regiment from the Japanese 33rd Division crossed the Manipur River in Burma toward the Burmese-Indian border toward Tiddim, Burma. ww2dbase [Battle of Imphal-Kohima | CPC]
• Chinese 38th Division overran most Japanese defensive positions at Walawbum, Burma by mid-morning, thus negating the need for the US 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) to move to Chanmois. Joseph Stilwell celebrated the successful Sino-American collaboration before a group of journalists, but the soldiers were jealous of the Chinese soldiers who were regularly given canned corned beef, fresh cucumbers and onions, and rice, while the Americans, who operated far behind enemy lines and thus cut off from being supplies regularly, dined on largely K-rations, which the soldiers found boring. Meanwhile, General Shinichi Tanaka ordered Japanese 55th and 56th Infantry Regiments to attack American positions at Walawbum to allow the rest of Japanese 18th Division to retreat southward; Joseph Stilwell, Jr., the ranking American intelligence officer in the area and so of the commanding general, failed to detect the withdrawal and thus would lose the chance to wipe out the demoralized Japanese division. ww2dbase [Joseph Stilwell | Battle of Myitkyina | Walawbum | CPC]

• Gato-class submarine USS Silversides arrived in her principal patrol area around the Palau Islands. ww2dbase [Silversides | DS]

• Tanker Nasusan Maru and Patrol Boat No. 36 arrived at Tarakan, Dutch East Indies. ww2dbase [Tarakan, Borneo | CPC]

• The 69th transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France departed for Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 1,501 prisoners. It would arrive at Auschwitz on 10 Mar and 1,311 of them would be gassed upon arrival. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Drancy Concentration Camp | Paris | CPC]
• Allied aircraft bombed the wreck of Algérie at Toulon, France, causing it to sink again; prior to the bombing the Italians had attempted to raise the wreck in sections. ww2dbase [Algérie | Toulon Military Port | Toulon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | CPC]

• Heinrich Himmler informed officials from the Security Police, the Security Service, and the SS Central Office for Economy and Administration that no prisoners were allowed to be released from the Mauthausen Concentration Camp during the war. ww2dbase [Heinrich Himmler | CPC]
• The 7,378-ton German cargo ship Vigo, now employed by the German Navy as the Sperrbrecher X, a mine barrage breaker, sailing in front of convoys to trigger off potential mines. She struck a mine for this purpose and sank 24 miles off Norderney on the German coast. ww2dbase [Weser-Ems | HM]

• USS Skipjack arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, ending her ninth war patrol. ww2dbase [Skipjack | Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Pearl Harbor, Oahu | CPC]
• USS Sunfish arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, ending her sixth war patrol. ww2dbase [Sunfish (Gato-class) | Honolulu, Oahu | CPC]

• The unescorted Norwegian motor vessel Tarifa (Master Hans Bjønness) was hit between #3 and #4 holds and near #5 hold by two torpedoes from German submarine U-510 (Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Eick) about 250 miles east of Socotra island in the Arabian Sea. The explosions destroyed the radio station and a lifeboat, so the master, 46 crew members, 101 military personnel from Australia and New Zealand and one passenger on board abandoned ship in five lifeboats within five minutes and a few minutes before the ship sank. An Australian soldier and a gunner had been killed and another gunner fatally injured who was later buried at sea. The survivors were distributed between the boats that each took a raft in tow and then set sail for Socotra. ww2dbase [Arabian Sea | HM]

• The Fascist government in northern Italy issued another order protecting Jews above the age of 70 and those with mixed ethnicities. Nevertheless, Germans in northern Italy continued to deport those within these two groups. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | CPC]
• Germans arrested Jewish hospices at Turin, Italy and sent them to the Fossoli transit camp. Many of them would be sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland later in the month. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Turin, Piemonte | CPC]

• USS Hoel arrived at the Majuro anchorage for five days of tender availability alongside USS Prairie. ww2dbase [Hoel | Majuro | DS]

• The 7,849-ton German merchant steam ship Lippe, built in 1917 for Norddeutscher Lloyd, was torpedoed by British submarine HMS Sceptre off Narvik, Norway. When her captain beached her, in order to try to save crew and ship, she broke in two pieces and was lost. ww2dbase [Narvik | HM]

• German Gauleiter Arthur Greiser, governor of the Wartheland in occupied Poland, reported to Heinrich Himmler that the Jewish population of Warthegau had nearly been wiped out. ww2dbase [Arthur Greiser | Poznan | CPC]
• 38 Jews hiding at 84 Grojecka Street, Warsaw, Poland were arrested. The 6 Polish non-Jews who provided them food and shelter were also arrested. Historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, among those arrested, was executed within the next few days. ww2dbase [Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust | Warsaw | CPC]

• UIT-25 departed Penang, Straits Settlements. ww2dbase [Luigi Torelli | Penang | CPC]

7 Mar 1944 Interactive Map