March 6-20
Sea War, Atlantic
Two Atlantic convoys (HX-229 and SC-122) fight a running battle with 20 U-boats of a 'Wolf Pack'; in the Atlantic. Although 21 ships are sunk, only one U-boat is lost. The Allies cannot afford such attrition.

March 13
Home Front, Germany
An unsuccessful assassination attempt is made on Adolf Hitler by army officers. They place a bomb in his aircraft but it fails to explode.

March 14
Eastern Front, Ukraine
After his spearheads reached the Donets River, Manstein's forces have trapped and destroyed the Soviet Third Tank Army. In all, the Red Army has abandoned nearly 6,000 square miles (9,600 sq km) of newly-won ground in the face of Manstein's brilliant armored counteroffensive, which has stabilized the German Front in southern Russia. Manstein has averted a total Axis collapse.

Kharkov's battle-scarred Red Square following
Manstein's brilliant capture of the city
in March 1943

March 15-31
Eastern Front, Ukraine
Germany's Army Group Don recaptures Kharkov, and Belgorod three days later. By the end of the month the Soviet Voronezh Front is back on the east bank of the northern Donets. The final phase of Manstein's offensive - a combined attack with Army Group Center's Second Panzer Army heading south from Orel toward Kursk - is halted by the spring thaw.

This victory encourages the German high command to launch Operation Citadel, an ambitious plan to destroy the Soviet Central and Voronezh Fronts in the Kursk salient to the north of Kharkov. Over 500,000 Red Army troops occupy Kursk and a bulge of land stretching 100 miles (160 km) westward from the Soviet line.

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