366 Days
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August
News Headlines
1
U.S. OPERATION TIDAL WAVE A STRATEGIC FAILURE
Ploesti (Ploiești), Romania • August 1, 1943 Allied war planners had long favored a second, much more damaging air strike on the Ploesti (Ploiești) oil complex, the center of Romania’s natural oil industry some 35 miles north of the capital, Bucharest. In mid-June 1942, 13 U.S. B‑24 Liberators lifted off from a British airfield in Egypt, crossed […]
2
EINSTEIN PRESSES ROOSEVELT ON ATOMIC RESEARCH
Peconic, Long Island, New York • August 2, 1939 On this date in 1939, one month before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, distinguished German-born professor, mathematician, and physicist Albert Einstein wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of using a nuclear chain reaction to produce enormous amounts of energy that could be used in […]
3
THREE BALTIC STATES COERCED INTO SOVIET ORBIT
Moscow, Soviet Union • August 3, 1940 Early on the morning of August 24, 1939, Soviet People’s Commissar on Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, and his German counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop, affixed their signatures to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As German dictator Adolf Hitler viewed it, the pact was a “strategic […]
4
U.S. EIGHTH AIR FORCE KICKS OFF OPERATION APHRODITE
London, England • August 4, 1944 In early June 1944 the Royal Air Force began deploying the first of several bunker-buster bombs—the 4,000‑lb Tallboy S (small), Tallboy M (medium) weighing in at 12,000 lb, and its successor Grand Slam (Tallboy L, large) at 22,000 lb, whose blast yield was equivalent to 6.5 tons of TNT. Meanwhile the United States Army Air […]
5
CHURCHILL TAPS MONTGOMERY TO HEAD EIGHTH ARMY
Cairo, Egypt • August 5, 1942 On this date in 1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, flew into Cairo. They arrived in the Egyptian capital 44 days after the British garrison at Tobruk in Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) had fallen to German Gen. (soon Field […]
6
U.S. A-BOMB INCINERATES HIROSHIMA, JAPAN
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 6, 1945 For several months the U.S. had dropped more than 63 million leaflets across Japan, warning civilians of devastating aerial bombings and to evacuate the cities identified in the leaflets. Radio broadcasts from the American-held island of Saipan underscored the printed warnings. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible […]
7
GUADALCANAL: FIRST MAJOR U.S. LAND OFFENSIVE AGAINST JAPAN
Guadalcanal, Southern Solomon Islands • August 7, 1942 On this date in 1942 some 11,000 Marines of the 1st Marine Division assaulted the northcentral beaches of Guadalcanal, the largest of the nearly 1,000 tropical islands in the Solomon Islands chain (see map below). Guadalcanal’s 2,000 Japanese defenders were caught by complete surprise. The amphibious Marine […]
8
ALLIED AND JAPANESE NAVIES IN FIERCE BATTLE
Off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands • August 8, 1942 A United States naval task force carrying Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift’s First Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched Operation Watchtower, the first American offensive of World War II. Two days later the Marines had captured the […]
9
SECOND U.S. A-BOMB LEVELS NAGASAKI
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 9, 1945 Despite the shockwaves that Hiroshima’s destruction on August 6, 1945, sent through Imperial circles, Japan’s government refused to agree to an unconditional surrender; their leaders insisted on preconditions, chief among them protecting the “prerogatives” of Emperor Hirohito as Japan’s “sovereign ruler.” (Had there been no […]
10
PRESIDENT SIGNS BILL TO REDRESS WARTIME WRONG
Washington, D.C. • August 10, 1988 On this date in 1988 U.S. President Ronald Regan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Regan’s signature corrected a wrong that occurred when another American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, issued Executive Order 9066. The February 19, 1942, order directly led to the exile and internment of more […]
11
AXIS FOREIGN MINISTERS HUDDLE ON EVE OF WAR
Salzburg, Austria • August 11, 1939 On this date in 1939 near Salzburg, Austria, Adolf Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop told Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, about Hitler’s decision “to set Europe on fire.” “We want war,” Ribbentrop said to the 36‑year‑old Ciano (who was Mussolini’s son-in-law), though the German foreign […]
12
HIROHITO DECIDES FATE OF HIS NATION
Tokyo, Japan • August 12, 1945 In 1945 the endgame in Europe was to capture Berlin, the epicenter of Nazi resistance, which the Red Army did in the last week of April. On May 7 and 8, 1945, Adolf Hitler’s political heir, Adm. Karl Doenitz, surrendered Nazi Germany unconditionally to the Allies. The endgame in the […]
13
LUFTWAFFE KICKS OFF EAGLE DAY OVER BRITAIN
London, England • August 13, 1940 Although the Battle of Britain (July 10 to October 31, 1940) had intensified days earlier, the Luftwaffe’s air attacks had been launched in poor weather and were mostly limited to the south of England. However, on this date, August 13, 1940, a Tuesday, the Luftwaffe sent five waves of fighters, […]
14
HIROHITO TO NATION: TIME TO “BEAR THE UNBEARABLE”
Tokyo, Japan • August 14, 1945 Two days after the United States had dropped a second atomic bomb on a major Japanese city, this on Nagasaki on August 9, Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa) personally intervened during an Imperial Conference (Gozen Kaigi) to let diehard hawks in his government and armed services know […]
15
ALLIES OPEN UP SECOND FRENCH FRONT
Côte d’Azur on the French Mediterranean • August 15, 1944 The Allied assault on German-occupied Southern France originally was to have kicked off simultaneously with the Allies’ June 6, 1944, invasion of Northwestern France (Operation Overlord)—the intent being that the Germans would think twice before sending reinforcements from Southern France to the Normandy beachheads and that, with […]
16
GERMANS FLEE NORMANDY, ENGAGE U.S. 442ND RCT IN VOSGES MOUNTAINS
Berlin, Germany • August 16, 1944 On this date in 1944, two-and-one-half months after the Allies had landed on the Normandy coast of German-occupied Northwestern France (Operation Overlord) and one day after thousands of servicemen from the U.S. Seventh and French First armies had landed by air and sea on the French Riviera in the […]
17
U.S. EIGHTH AIR FORCE TESTS DAYLIGHT PRECISION BOMBING
Rouen, Normandy, Occupied France • August 17, 1942 On July 4, 1942, a dozen Douglas A-20 Havoc medium bombers took off from a small, grassy airstrip in Norfolk, about 100 miles/161 km northeast of London, England, and headed for Nazi-occupied Holland. Half the bombers were American, part of the U.S. Army Air Force’s Eighth Air Force 15th […]
18
ALLIES TRAP GERMAN ARMY IN FALAISE POCKET
Falaise, Northern France • August 18, 1944 Two and a half months had passed since the initial landings of U.S., British, and Canadian forces in Northern France (Operation Overlord). On the British flank the Canadian First Army, Second Division, II Corps entered Falaise on August 16, 1944 (see map below) and engaged the Germans in bitter street […]
19
ALLIED RAID AT DIEPPE, FRANCE, ENDS IN DEBACLE
Dieppe, German-Occupied France • August 19, 1942 Ever since the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) had launched its surprise Blitzkrieg on the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) the Allies had been sensitive to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s increasingly desperate appeals to Western leaders to open a “second front now” in Northwestern Europe. British Prime Minister […]
20
JAPANESE-SOVIETS CLASH AT KHALKHYN GOL
Moscow, Soviet Union • August 20, 1939 The Soviet Union and Japan, two expansionist powers that occupied portions of the Asian mainland, had butted heads as early as 1904–1905 (the Russo-Japanese War) over influence in China, Mongolia, and Manchuria, the latter country rich in coal, iron, and grains. In September 1931 soldiers in the Kwantung […]
21
JAPANESE-SOVIETS CLASH AT KHALKHYN GOL
Moscow, Soviet Union • August 20, 1939 The Soviet Union and Japan, two expansionist powers that occupied portions of the Asian mainland, had butted heads as early as 1904–1905 (the Russo-Japanese War) over influence in China, Mongolia, and Manchuria, the latter country rich in coal, iron, and grains. In September 1931 soldiers in the Kwantung […]
22
“DEVIL’S WORK” AHEAD HITLER TELLS GENERALS
Obersalzberg, Bavaria, Germany • August 22, 1939 Adolf Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was just about to affix his signature to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (aka Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in Moscow, when, on this date, August 22, 1939, the Fuehrer summoned the commanders of his various armed forces and other officers to the Berghof, his palatial Bavarian […]
23
GERMANS, SOVIETS AGREE TO HISTORIC NONAGGRESSION PACT
Moscow, Soviet Union • August 23, 1939 At least since April 1939 Adolf Hitler was determined to end the existence of Poland, a country of just over 35 million people lying on Germany’s eastern border. But conquering that nation was fraught with danger because Poland shared a border with the Soviet Union, Hitler’s long-time bogeyman. The […]
24
CHURCH UPROAR UPENDS NAZI T-4 KILLING PROGRAM
Berlin, Germany • August 24, 1941 On this date in 1941 Adolf Hitler cancelled the Aktion T-4 euthanasia program that he had personally put in place in September 1939. Normally Hitler had a policy of not issuing written instructions for policies relating to what would later be called crimes against humanity, but he made an […]
25
FREE FRENCH VANGUARD LIBERATES PARIS
Paris, France • August 25, 1944 On this date Nazi Germany’s Paris garrison surrendered the French capital to elements of French Maj. Gen. Jacques Philippe Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division. A little more than four years before, the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) goose-stepped into Paris on June 14, 1940, a month after mounting simultaneous attacks on neighboring Netherlands, […]
26
BLACK MARINES OPEN SEGREGATED RECRUIT DEPOT
Montford Point, North Carolina • August 26, 1942 On this date in 1942, 12 miles upriver from the new whites-only amphibious training camp at Camp Lejeune, the first set of black Marine Corps recruits set up a segregated recruit depot of their own. The training camp, named Montford Point, was a satellite camp of Camp Lejeune […]
27
PEACE THREATENED, EUROPE MOBILIZES ITS ARMED FORCES
Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; and London, England • August 27, 1939 On this date in 1939, one day after Adolf Hitler aborted his plan to invade his eastern neighbor, Poland, German mobilization continued. Between August 25 and 31, a further twenty-one infantry divisions and two motorized divisions were in place along the German-Polish frontier. No reserve units […]
28
ANGLO-FRENCH FIRMNESS BOOSTS PEACE FORTUNES
London, England; Paris, France; Warsaw, Poland • August 28, 1939 Public opinion in Europe had shifted from dread of war and a longing for peace evident in the Czech Sudeten crisis of September 1938 to a fatalistic acceptance that war over Poland was now unavoidable. In Germany even Adolf Hitler’s political opponents assumed that if the […]
29
LEADING JAPANESE POLLED ON HOW TO END WAR
Tokyo, Japan • August 29, 1944 From the summer of 1944 to the spring of 1945, Japanese forces continued their retreat from military outposts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Japanese losses in personnel, warships, and airplanes were minimized by frontline commanders, who exaggerated Japanese military successes against the Allied enemy in reports to Imperial […]
30
CRISIS TALKS COLLAPSE, POLAND MOBILIZES ARMY
Warsaw, Poland • August 30, 1939 After his sudden decision on Friday, August 25, 1939, to cancel his invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler ordered preparations for a second planned invasion of his neighbor to the east. From the Army’s Quartermaster General he learned that the earliest date on which mobilization could be completed was Thursday, August 31. […]
31
RADIO STATION ATTACKED, HITLER VOWS REPRISAL
Berlin, Germany • August 31, 1939 On August 22, 1939, in a meeting at his Bavarian mountaintop retreat, the Berghof, Adolf Hitler told his generals he would fabricate “a propagandistic reason” to justify his planned aggression against neighboring Poland. The plan was for Nazi Party Schutzstaffel (SS) operatives to dress in Polish uniforms, attack a […]
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