Timeline of World War II (1941) - March 1941

March 1941

• 1: Hitler gives orders for the expansion of Auschwitz prison camp, to be run by Commandant Rudolf Höss.
• 4: British commandos carry out attack on oil facilities at Narvik in Norway.
  : British military force in Libya is thinned down as some men are sent to assist the Greeks in their emerging battle with approaching German troops.
  : Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia agrees to join the Axis pact.
• 7: First British troops land in Greece, at Piraeus.
• 8: Another bombing of London, notable because Buckingham Palace is hit.
• 9: The Italian Spring Offensive in the Albanian front begins.
• 10: British and Italian troops meet in a brief conflict in Eritrea.
  : Portsmouth suffers heavy casualties after another night of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.
• 11: United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Act (now passed by the full Congress) allowing Britain, China, and other allied nations to purchase military equipment and to defer payment until after the war.
• 12: German Panzer tanks arrive in North Africa providing heavy armour for the first major German offensive.
• 13: The Luftwaffe strikes with a large force at Glasgow and the shipping industry along the River Clyde.
• 17: Huge convoy losses in mid-Atlantic this week.
  :The United States of America converts its Corps Areas to Defense Commands, with the term Corps reassigned as an intermediate field command of a Field Army.
• 19: Worst bombing of London so far this year, with heavy damage from incendiary bombs; Plymouth and Bristol are bombed again.
• 20: The Italian Spring Offensive is called off, after heavy losses and virtually no progress.
• 21: The Yugoslav cabinet resigns in protest against Prince Paul's pact with the Nazis. Street demonstration occur, expressive of a deep dislike for Germany.
• 24: Rommel attacks and reoccupies El Agheila, Libya in his first offensive. The British retreat and within three weeks are driven back to Egypt.
• 25: Italian MTMs of the Decima MAS sink the heavy cruiser HMS York (90), a large tanker (the Norwegian Pericles), another tanker and a cargo ship in Suda Bay, Crete.
• 27: Crown Prince Peter becomes Peter II of Yugoslavia and takes control of Yugoslavia after an army coup overthrows the pro-German government of the Prince Regent.
  : Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii and begins to study the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.
  : Hitler orders his military leaders to plan for the invasion of Yugoslavia. One result of this decision will be a critical time delay in the invasion of Soviet Union.
  : British forces advancing from the Sudan win the decisive Battle of Keren in Eritrea.
  : Battle of Cape Matapan: the British navy meets an Italian fleet off southern Greece. The battle continues until the 29th.
• 31: The Afrika Korps continues the German offensive in North Africa; Mersa Brega, north of El Agheila, is taken.