UNITED KINGDOM: The German submarine U-671 is sunk at 0200 hours local in the English Channel south of Brighton, England in position 50.23N, 00.06E, by depth charges from the RN frigates HMS Stayner and HMS Wensleydale. 5 of the 52 crewmen survive.
The USAAF's Eighth Air Force in England flies three missions.
- Mission 519: In the morning, 1,171 bombers and 646 fighters, in 4 forces, are dispatched to attack strategic targets in the Magdeburg-Brunswick-Hannover region of Germany including oil refineries and tank and aircraft production; 13 bombers and 4 fighters are lost.
(1) Of 215 B-17s, 93 hit Magdeburg/Neustadt, 87 hit Magdeburg/Krupp, 14 hit Helmstedt Airfield and 6 hit targets of opportunity; 3 B-17s are lost. Escort is provided by 174 P-38 Lightnings and P-51 Mustangs; 1 P-38 and 3 P-51s are lost.
(2) 70 B-24 Liberators hit Halberstadt Airfield and 1 hits a target of opportunity; 1 B-24 is lost. Escort is provided by 41 P-47 Thunderbolts.
(3) Of 452 B-24s, 98 hit Brunswick Aero-Engineering, 85 hit Fallerslaben, 69 hit Brunswick/Wilhelmitor, 65 hit Brunswick/Me 110 Assembly Plant, 44 hit Brunswick/Bussing, 30 hit Brunswick aircraft components factory, 9 hit Goslar Airfield and 8 hit targets of opportunity; 7 B-24s are lost. Escort is provided by 172 P-51s.
(4) Of 426 B-17s, 176 hit Nienburg, 143 hit Langenhagen Airfield at Hannover, 72 hit Dollbergen and 3 hit targets of opportunity; 2 B-17s are lost. Escort is provided by 186 P-51s; 2 P-51s are lost.
- Mission 520: 38 B-17s hit 6 V-weapon sites in the Pas de Calais. Escort is provided by 10 P-51s.
- Mission 522: 6 B-17s drop leaflets in the Netherlands and France during the night.
- 19 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions during the night. (Jack McKillop)
Corvette HMS Denbigh Castle launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: US troops capture Namur and Charleroi.
Brittany: Men of Lt-Gen George S Patton's Third Army, newly arrived in France are racing
towards the ports of Brittany after a spectacular breakout from Normandy. Armoured units
are moving so rapidly that they are out of radio contact with divisional HQ, and supplies
are being delivered on the run since there has been no time to set up bases and dumps. In
five days, advance units have reached Lorient after driving past Rennes, and within 24
hours other units will be on the outskirts of Brest. All German forces in Brittany are
withdrawing to the ports, which have been heavily fortified, and Hitler has ordered them to
be held to the last man. For the first time in the Allied campaign French resistance
fighters are operating alongside regular Allied troops. Some 20,000 armed men and women
are under the command of a French officer parachuted in from London along with arms and
ammunition.
The USAAF's Ninth Air Force dispatches 300+ A-20 Havocs and B-26 Marauders to bomb Saint-Malo harbor and Foret de Sille fuel dump during the night of 4/5 August, and during the day, rail bridges at 6 cities in northern and western France, and marshalling yard at Compiegne; fighters furnish cover for ground forces and fly armed reconnaissance over wide areas of northern France. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: U-2506 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: In Warsaw, Polish insurgents loyal to their government-in-exile in London liberate a German forced-labor camp, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners, who join in a general uprising against the German occupiers of the city. By this date, more than 15,000 Poles have been killed in the uprising. (Jack McKillop)
RAF bombers make supply drops to the
Warsaw insurgents. (Corinne Mahaffey)
FINLAND: Kenraalimajuri (Major General) Einar Wihma is killed in a Soviet artillery barrage in Ihantala. Wihma, the commander of the 6. Infantry Division, had successfully fought at the battle of Ihantala where a major Soviet offensive was stopped only a month earlier (Wihma earned the 2nd class Mannerheim Cross, the Finnish equivalent of MOH or VC in late 1941 for personal bravery when commanding the 12th Division). Since then the front has grown quiet, but the Russians has constructed a base only 200 meters (c. 220 yds.) away from the Finnish lines, protected by immobilized tanks. The base is such a nuisance that it is decided it has to be destroyed. After aerial and artillery bombardment a special task force attacks under cover of a smoke screen. Nine tanks are destroyed by satchel charges, but Gen. Wihma is killed in a Soviet counter-barrage while observing the operation.
The last word on Gen. Wihma should be left to author and poet Lasse Heikkilä, who fought in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala as a young AT-man.
After the war he began to write a poetic anthology of the men who had fought in Tali-Ihantala, but it was left unfinished when he committed suicide in 1961. The work was published posthumously few years ago.
This is what Heikkilä wrote of Gen. Wihma:
"Mene ja kerro, että meillä jokaisella on nimi,/mene ja kerro, että suomalainen kenraali makaa saman mullan alla kuin sotamiehet,/saman kunnian kantaen kuin sotamiehet."
Translation:
"Go and tell, that each and every one of us has a name,/go and tell, that a Finnish general lies below the same ground as the privates do,/bearing the same honour as the privates do."
(Mikko Härmeinen)
EASTERN FRONT: The Fourth Ukraine Front, under Petrov, is activated by the Soviets in southern Poland and northern Hungary.
ITALY: Florence: Although Marshal Kesselring solemnly
declared this Medici capital an "open city", South African troops entered it
today to find five of Florence's six bridges destroyed and mediaeval buildings flattened
by demolition charges. Only the exquisite Ponte Vecchio with its goldsmiths' and
jewellers' shops remains standing over the Arno River and, as in many other places, many
old houses have been destroyed and the approach roads mined to delay Allied access.
Now depleted by the removal of American and French troops for the planned invasion of
southern France, the US Fifth and British Eight Armies have advanced steadily on both
sides of the Apennines. The British XIII Corps, augmented by South Africans, Indians and
New Zealanders, took the important rail junction of Arezzo on 17 July and pressed on
towards Florence despite tough defensive fighting by German paratroopers and
Panzergrenadiers. Replacements on the Italian front include 25,000 men of the Brazilian
Expeditionary Corps and the US 96th Division, consisting entirely of black troops. Neither
unit has battle experience.
AUSTRALIA: Cowra, New South Wales: Japanese prisoners of way wielding
improvised weapons broke out of the Cowra prisoner-of-war camp early today. As they rushed
the compound wire, Australian Army guards fired a machine-gun at them until the Japanese
knifed and clubbed them to death.
Of the 1,104 Japanese prisoners in the camp, 334 managed to get away, and 234 died and 108
were wounded in the attempt. Three of the camp's army guards were killed and three
wounded.
The Japanese had long planned to break out. This incident, the biggest prison escape of
the war so far, is the first of its kind to take place in Australia.
Two of the guards, Pte Benjamin Gower Hardy (b.1898) and Pte Ralph Jones (b.1900), Australian Military Forces, were beaten to death at their gun during a mass breakout of Japanese PoWs. By standing their ground, however, they had gained valuable time for their colleagues. (George Crosses)
PACIFIC OCEAN: US carriers from 2 task groups of TF38 shell and
bomb Japanese positions on Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima, sinking a Japanese destroyer.
Carrier-based aircraft from the USN's Task Group 58.1 (Rear Admiral Joseph J.
Clark) and TG 58.3 (Rear Admiral Alfred E. Montgomery) and cruisers and
destroyers (Rear Admiral Laurance T. DuBose) repeat strikes on Japanese
installations on Chichi Jima and Haha Jima in the Bonin Islands. Aircraft from
the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) inflict further damage upon fast
Japanese transport T.4 and damage T.2 off Chichi Jima. (Jack McKillop)
U.S. submarines sink a Japanese merchant passenger/cargo ship and an oiler.
(Jack McKillop)
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS:
A weather
mission is followed by a shipping sweep flown by 2 USAAF Eleventh Air Force B-25 Mitchells
which is aborted early due to weather. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: HMC MTB 486 commissioned.
Tug HMCS Riverton commissioned. (Dave
Shirlaw)
USAAF Far East Air Force B-24s bomb personnel and supply areas on Yap Atoll in the Caroline Islands. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The top pop songs today are (1) "I'll Be Seeing You" by Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra with vocal by Frank Sinatra; (2) "Swinging on a Star" by Bing Crosby; (3) "Amor" by Bing Crosby; and (4) "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby)" by Louis Jordan And his Tympany Five. (Jack McKillop)
Minesweeper USS Ransom commissioned.
Destroyer escort USS McGinty launched. (Dave Shirlaw)