April 1944

[April 1], 1944 (Saturday)

• The most significant bombing of Switzerland during World War II occurred when about 50 B-24s misidentified Schaffhausen as their target of Ludwigshafen and dropped bombs that resulted in 40 casualties.
• The first Allied air raid on Pforzheim, Germany occurred.
• The Waffen-SS committed the Ascq massacre of 86 men in Ascq, France.
• The British government banned visitors from going within ten miles of the coast between Land's End and the Wash.
• Born: Rusty Staub, baseball player, in New Orleans, Louisiana

  [April 2], 1944 (Sunday)

• Soviet forces crossed the Prut and entered Romania.
• The first Boeing B-29 Superfortress reached India after a long flight all the way from the United States through Britain and North Africa.
• German submarine U-360 was depth charged and sunk in the Norwegian Sea by British flotilla leader HMS Keppel.
• An uprising began in El Salvador against the rule of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, but it was put down after four hours. 53 were killed and 134 injured.
• Died: Albin Wolf, 23, German flying ace

  [April 3], 1944 (Monday)

• The Royal Navy carried out Operation Tungsten, an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz anchored in northern Norway. Fifteen bombs hit the battleship but the damage inflicted was not sufficient to sink or disable the target.
• German submarine U-288 was depth charged and sunk in the Barents Sea by Fairey Swordfish aircraft of 819 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm.
• Born: Tony Orlando, singer, in New York City;

  [April 4], 1944 (Tuesday)

• On the Eastern Front, a counterattack by the German 4th Panzer Army captured Kovel.
• The Battle of Kohima began around the town of Kohima in British India.
• An Allied de Havilland Mosquito surveillance aircraft of 60 Squadron SAAF photographed Auschwitz concentration camp.
• Several Valentine DD tanks sank with the loss of six crew during training Exercise Smash I in Studland Bay, Dorset.
• The Allied Forces from the Mediterranean bombed objectives in Bucharest. 49 Axis fighters were shot down; while 12 Allied planes were lost.
• Charlie Chaplin was acquitted by a federal court in Los Angeles of violating the Mann Act.
• Born: Magda Aelvoet, politician, in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium

  [April 5], 1944 (Wednesday)

• U.S. Marines occupied Utirik Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
• The Red Army cut the rail link from Odessa at Rozdilna.
• Hungarian authorities ordered all Jews to wear the yellow star.
• Born: Peter T. King, politician, in New York City

  [April 6], 1944 (Thursday)

• German 1st Panzer Army forces in the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket completed their fighting withdrawal back to the German lines when they linked up with the 4th Panzer Army.
• German submarine U-302 was depth charged and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Royal Navy frigate Swale.
• German submarine U-455 went missing in the Ligurian Sea, probably lost to a naval mine.
• Born:
• *Judith McConnell, actress, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• *Felicity Palmer, mezzo-soprano, in Cheltenham, England
• *Anita Pallenberg, actress, model and fashion designer, in Rome, Italy
• *Charles Sobhraj, serial killer, fraudster and thief, in Saigon, French Indochina
• Died: Rose O'Neill, 69, American illustrator, artist, writer and creator of the Kewpie characters

  [April 7], 1944 (Friday)

• Adolf Hitler suspended all laws in Berlin and made Joseph Goebbels the sole administrator of the city.
• The narrow land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, held by the German 17th Army, came under attack from Soviet forces.
• The German 1st Panzer Army broke out of a Soviet encirclement near Buchach.
• Montagu Stopford's British XXXIII Corps was encircled by the Japanese near Jotsama, Burma.
• German submarine U-856 was scuttled in the Atlantic Ocean after taking heavy damage from U.S. warships.
• In the Fragheto massacre, German soldiers belonging to the 356th Infantry Division killed 30 civilians and 15 partisans in Fragheto, a frazione of Casteldelci in central-northern Italy,
• Born:
• *Shel Bachrach, American insurance broker, investor, businessman and philanthropist in Detroit, Michigan
• *Gerhard Schröder, Chancellor of Germany, in Mossenberg, Germany

  [April 8], 1944 (Saturday)

• Soviet forces began the First Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, a coordinated invasion of Romania.
• The Germans began running long distance cargo flights between Polish airfields and Manchuria, flying Junkers Ju 290 A-9 aircraft at altitudes of up to 38,000 feet to cross the Soviet Union undetected.
• The Battle of the Tennis Court began as part of the Battle of Kohima.
• German submarine U-2 sank near Pillau in a collision with the trawler Helmi Söhle.
• German submarine U-962 was depth charged and sunk northwest of Cape Finisterre by British warships.
• The stage musical Follow the Girls with music and lyrics by Dan Shapiro, Milton Pascal and Phil Charig and book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson premiered at the New Century Theatre on Broadway.
• Born: Odd Nerdrum, painter, in Helsingborg, Sweden; Jimmy Walker, basketball player, in Amherst, Virginia

  [April 9], 1944 (Sunday)

• The First Battle of Târgu Frumos began on the Eastern Front.
• Charles de Gaulle became Commander-in-Chief of the Free French forces, ending a power struggle with Henri Giraud since the two men became co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation.
• German submarine U-515 was sunk north of Madeira by U.S. destroyers and aircraft.
• On the Cassino Front in Italy, there was a temporary ceasefire, as three U.S. ministers broadcast an Easter sermon over loudspeakers to both Allied and German troops.
• Died: Yevgeniya Rudneva, 23, Russian aviator and Hero of the Soviet Union

  [April 10], 1944 (Monday)

• The RAF dropped a record 3,600 tons of bombs in a single raid on Germany, France and Belgium.
• General William Slim ordered a new offensive in Burma, calling for Stopford to break through to Kohima while the Imphal Garrison would make sorties into Japanese-held territory around them.
• During the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front captured Odessa.
• German submarine U-68 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by U.S. aircraft.

  [April 11], 1944 (Tuesday)

• Soviet forces took Dzhankoy and Kerch in the Crimea.
• Japanese destroyer Akigumo was torpedoed and sunk in the Moro Gulf by the American submarine Redfin.
• German submarine U-108 was bombed and sunk at Stettin in an American air raid.
• Born: John Milius, filmmaker, in St. Louis, Missouri

  [April 12], 1944 (Wednesday)

• The First Battle of Târgu Frumos ended in Axis victory.
• German forces began withdrawing from the Crimea.
• Japanese submarine I-174 was sunk east of Truk by a U.S. B-24 Liberator.
• Died: Adolf Wagner, 53, German soldier and Nazi official

  [April 13], 1944 (Thursday)

• The Soviets took Simferopol.
• Japanese destroyer Ikazuchi was torpedoed and sunk 200 nautical miles south-southeast of Guam by American submarine Harder.
• The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 5-4 in overtime to win the Stanley Cup in a four-game sweep.
• Born: Jack Casady, rock bassist, in Washington, D.C.

  [April 14], 1944 (Friday)

• The Bombay Explosion occurred in the Victoria Dock of Bombay when the freighter Fort Stikine caught fire and was destroyed in two giant blasts that killed about 800 people.
• The Japanese roadblock to the west of Kohima was broken and the encircled British XXXIII Corps was relieved after a week.
• German submarine U-448 was depth charged and sunk northeast of the Azores by Allied warships.

[April 15], 1944 (Saturday)

• The Soviets liberated Tarnopol.
• Operation Guidance: British submarine X24 attacked a floating dock at Bergen in occupied Norway. The mission did not quite come off as planned when the charges were placed on a large merchant vessel instead of the dock; the ship was sunk but the dock only took minor damage. The operation was repeated on September 11 and this time the dock was sunk.
• The American aircraft carrier USS Yorktown launched a raid on Chichijima and Iwo Jima.
• The American aircraft carrier USS Hancock was commissioned.
• Died: Giovanni Gentile, 68, Italian philosopher and politician ; Egon von Neindorff, 51, German Major General ; Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin, 42, Soviet military commander

  [April 16], 1944 (Sunday)

• Soviet forces cleared out the last pockets of German resistance at Yalta.
• The RAF made air raids on Romania for the first time, from bases in Italy.
• German submarine U-550 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by American warships.

  [April 17], 1944 (Monday)

• The Uman–Botoșani Offensive ended in Soviet victory.
• The Battle of Central Henan began between Chinese and Japanese forces in China.
• The Japanese Take Ichi convoy left Shanghai carrying two infantry divisions to reinforce Japanese positions in the Philippines and western New Guinea.
• German submarine U-342 was depth charged and sunk in the North Atlantic by a PBY Catalina flying boat of No. 162 Squadron RCAF.
• Died: J. T. Hearne, 76, English cricketer