"aircraft operational casualty"

TUE 27 MAR 1945
Europe
Navy landing craft (TG 122.5.1) ferry army troops across the Rhine at Mainz, Germany, in the face of "all the fire power at [the Germans'] disposal," ranging from machine guns and small arms to the deadly 88-millimeter weapons.

Pacific
One battalion of army troops (Second Battalion, 151st Infantry, 38th Division), supported by destroyers Conway (DD-507) and Cony (DD-508) and three rocket-equipped motor torpedo boats, lands on Caballo Island near Corregidor, preceded by an air strike.

Operation STARVATION, the USAAF aerial mining campaign (using Navy-provided mines) commences, as 94 B-29s mine the Shimonoseki Straits and the waters of Suo Nada, Japan. This operation and the six that follow are in support of the Okinawa campaign.

High speed transport Newman (APD-59), covering the landings on Cebu, sights and attacks a Japanese midget submarine off Talisay, Cebu. She is given credit for a "possible" submersible sunk.

Off Okinawa, an aircraft operational casualty damages carrier Essex (CV-9), 25°10'N, 132°05'E; kamikazes damage light minelayer Adams (DM-27), 26°17'N, 127°40'E.

Submarine Trigger (SS-237) sinks Japanese cable layer Odate, 200 miles southwest of Kyushu, 30°40'N, 127°50'E.

TF 58 planes sink Japanese guardboats No.13 Choun Maru and No.27 Yusen Maru and army cargo ship No.28 Suma Maru, Kuchinoerabu Bay, Osumi-Gunto, 30°30'N, 130°05'E, and No.12 Myojin Maru west of Tori Jima, 30°00'N, 139°30'E.

British submarine HMS Stygian damages Japanese minelayer Wakatake (previously damaged on 25 March 1945 when she encounters a shoal upon leaving Macassar) in Java Sea, south of Kangean Island. Reaching Surabaya on 1 April 1945, Wakatake performs no more active service.

USAAF B-24s attack six-ship Japanese convoy off Surabaya, damaging submarine chaser Ch 5 by near-misses.

Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa.1 is sunk by mine (laid by RAF planes) near the Deli River, Sumatra, 03°52'N, 98°45'E.