March 4, 1945
Today in World War II Pacific History
Day by day chronology

SUNDAY, 4 MARCH 1945

CHINA THEATER (Fourteenth Air Force): Four B-24s on a sea sweep damage a destroyer escort in the South China Sea.

HQ AAF (Twentieth Air Force): Mission 42: During the night of 4/5 Mar, 11 of 12 B-29s, staging from Luliang, mine the confluence of the Hwangpoo and Yangtze Rivers and the Tai-hsing Narrows at Shanghai and 1 B-29s drops mines at Tungting Lake without loss.

INDIA-BURMA THEATER (Tenth Air Force): In Burma, 100 fighter-bombers attack troop concentrations, villages, roads, tanks, trucks, animal transport, and supplies along and immediately behind the battlelines running from the SW to NE across C Burma; Meiktila is largely occupied by forces of the Indian 17th Division.

AAFPOA (Seventh Air Force): 10 B-24s from Guam bomb Susaki Airfield; during the night of 4/5 Mar, 3 B-24s make separate harassment raids on the airfield. Lieutenant General Barney Mc Giles becomes Commanding General of AAFPOA and Deputy Commander of the Twentieth AF.

HQ AAF (Twentieth Air Force): Mission 39: 192 Marianas based B-29s are airborne against Musashino aircraft factory (Musashi) near Tokyo, but heavy clouds prevent bombing the primary; 159 B-29s bomb the secondary target, the urban areas of Tokyo, and 18 others hit alternate targets; 1 B-29 is lost. This aborted try at Musashino marks the end of XXI Bomber Command's effort to knock out the Japanese aircraft industry by high-altitude, daylight precision bombing. (The indirect effect of causing Japanese industrialists to lose confidence in their supposed immunity from air attacks exceeds the effect of actual bomb damage to the aircraft industry). B-29 "Dina Might" 42-65280 makes an emergency landing at Motoyama No. 1 Airfield (South Field) on Iwo Jima; this begins a series of over 2,400 such emergency landings on Iwo Jima.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA [SWPA, Far East Air Force (FEAF)]: B-24s bomb Sasa and Likanan and Zamboanga Town. On Luzon, B-24s bomb targets of opportunity in the Cagayan Valley, gun positions, ammunition storage, and targets of opportunity at Antipolo and Wawa, supply dumps and the town area at Bamban, fortifications on Caballo in Manila Bay, and Aparri Airfield and Tuguegarao Airfield. The detachments of the 431st Fighter Squadron and 433d Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group operating from San Jose, Mindoro with P-38s return to base at Clark Field.

USMC: Lost is FG-1 Corsiar 14257 (rescued).