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WWII On This Day: August 10

What happened on August 10 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1944
U.S. Navy LCVPs on a Baie de Cavalaire invasion beach during Operation Dragoon, 15 August 1944, with German prisoners passing behind them.
Baie de Cavalaire invasion beach, 15 August 1944 · U.S. Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command 80-G-59475 · Public domain · Source
Operation Dragoon

The Mediterranean Command Is Told to Proceed

Winston Churchill made a final effort in early August to redirect the forces assigned to Dragoon toward other Mediterranean objectives. Dwight D. Eisenhower continued to support the southern France landing on military grounds, especially the need for additional port capacity and another Allied army advancing inside France. On 10 August the British Chiefs of Staff notified Mediterranean commander Henry Maitland Wilson to proceed on 15 August. The decision came after loading and convoy movements had already begun, leaving five days before the assault.

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OSS officers with Draža Mihailović at Pranjani on 6 September 1944 during Operation Halyard.
Unknown photographer · Pranjani, 6 September 1944 · Public domain (PD-Yugoslavia)
Operation Halyard

Daylight C-47 waves turn the strip into an air bridge

Just after dawn six C-47s arrived with twenty-five P-51s overhead. The fighters attacked local targets to make the activity resemble a conventional air strike while the transports landed and loaded. A second wave repeated the operation about an hour later. Leary records 177 American airmen removed in the morning, plus other Allied personnel. The first night and morning established the pattern that made Halyard possible: a short window, concentrated ground organization and transports on the ground only long enough to load.

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Tanks and half-tracks of the French 2e Division Blindée pass the Arc de Triomphe through crowds on the Champs-Élysées, 26 August 1944.
Jack Downey, US Office of War Information · Library of Congress · Public domain · Source
The Liberation of Paris

The railwaymen strike

Railway workers across the Paris region stopped work. The strike closed the network the German army needed to move troops and supplies through the city, and it was the first open act of the rising that followed. The Resistance had been arguing for months about whether to call a general strike or wait for the Allies. The railwaymen settled the argument by going first.

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