This Date in History: March 3

The U-14‘s fifth war patrol began on March 3, 1940 when the boat left Wilhelmshaven with Herbert Wohlfarth still in command.  The German invasion of France and the Low Countries was imminent and the U-14 sailed for operations off the Dutch coast. Wohlfarth hit four ships on this patrol, the first just four days into the operation.  On March 7 at 4:30 a.m. he sank the Dutch 1,965-ton Vecht, bound from Rotterdam to Lobito, Angola.  Twenty-two Dutch sailors died in the attack.  Two days later, at 5:42 a.m. on March 9 the U-14 sank the British 1,097-ton Borthwick steaming from Rotterdam to Leith, Scotland; fortunately all her crew survived the attack.

Later, just before midnight of that day, at 11:45 p.m.  Wohlfarth sank the British 643-ton Akeld, carrying general cargo from Rotterdam to Newcastle with two torpedoes.  This attack was not bloodless; thirteen crewmen perished in the attack.  Simultaneously the U-14 sank the British 1,585-ton Abbotsford, which was transporting flax from Ghent, Belgium to Grangemouth, Scotland with even bloodier results – all eighteen men on the Abbotsford perished.  The U-14 arrived at Kiel on March 11, 1940, completing her mission.  (Dönitz’s Crews: Germany’s U-Boat Sailors in World War II)

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Master Sergeant John C. Woods hanged U.S. Army Private Amos Agee, Private John C. Smith and Private Frank Watson on March 3, 1945 at the village of La Saussaye, Commune de Bure, in the Orne district of France for the crimes of rape and robbery.  (The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II)