WWII On This Day: August 15

A formation of Heinkel He 111s in the Battle of Britain — Imperial War Museums, MH6547 · Public domain · Source

August 15, 1940 · 12:00 The Battle of Britain

Luftflotte 5 discovers that the north is still defended

Luftflotte 5 attacked from Norway and Denmark against northern England on the assumption that Fighter Command had stripped the region to reinforce the south. British squadrons were still present and intercepted the raids. The German formations lacked the escort conditions available to raids crossing the narrower Channel approaches. Losses were severe enough that Luftflotte 5 did not repeat a comparable daylight effort over Britain. The raid exposed a persistent intelligence failure. Fighter Command's group system allowed Dowding to reinforce the south without leaving the rest of the country as empty…

Continue in The Battle of Britain →

Heinrich Himmler inspecting a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp at Minsk on 15 August 1941; identification of the exact day is supported by Peter Longerich and the Commons archival annotation. Walter Frentz / NARA 540164 · Public domain mark as recorded on Commons Source

August 15, 1941 · 12:00 Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity

Himmler inspects Soviet prisoners in Minsk

Heinrich Himmler inspected a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp at Minsk on 15 August 1941. A photograph in the NARA-held Hoffmann collection records the visit, with its exact date supported by the historical identification of Himmler’s Minsk itinerary. The visit took place amid coordinated Wehrmacht and SS persecution of prisoners viewed as political or racial enemies. The encounter also offers an unusual precisely dated image from a system whose routine transports and mass deaths were frequently documented only in administrative records.

Continue in Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity →

The damaged tanker Ohio, supported by destroyers, moves toward Grand Harbour on 15 August 1942. John Alfred Hampton and Lt J. E. Russell, Royal Navy official photographers / Imperial War Museums A 11261 · public domain (UK Government) Source

August 15, 1942 Malta: Air Siege and Convoy War

Ohio reaches Grand Harbour

The crippled tanker Ohio reached Malta on 15 August supported by destroyers after torpedo and bomb damage had stopped her engines and weakened her hull. Four other merchant vessels from the fourteen-ship convoy also reached the island over the preceding days. Nine merchant vessels were lost. Pedestal delivered food, ammunition and fuel at the point when stocks were critically low. Ohio's aviation fuel was especially important because Malta's recovered fighter and anti-shipping forces depended on it. The convoy extended the island's endurance and allowed offensive operations to expand again. A…

Continue in Malta: Air Siege and Convoy War →

Cologne showing extensive bomb and fire damage after Operation Millennium in May 1942. — Cologne after the raid of 30–31 May 1942 · U.S. Department of Defense. Department of the Army.

August 15, 1942 Operation Millennium

What Millennium proved

Operation Millennium proved that Bomber Command could organise a mass stream and place a destructive concentration over a major German city. It strengthened Harris's position and influenced the later development of bomber-stream tactics. It did not prove that area bombing could quickly break German morale or production. Its political and organisational success was clearer than its strategic result.

Continue in Operation Millennium →

HMS Despatch off Arromanches, 6 to 8 June 1944. IWM A 24073 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source

August 15, 1944 Operation Overlord

Operation Dragoon lands in the south

A second Allied invasion of France came ashore between Toulon and Cannes: US VI Corps and French Army B, against defences stripped to feed Normandy. Marseille and Toulon were captured within a fortnight and became the Allies' most productive ports in France. The French First Army driving north up the Rhône would meet the Normandy armies near Dijon in September, closing a continuous front from the North Sea to Switzerland.

Continue in Operation Overlord →

C-47A Skytrains of the 81st Troop Carrier Squadron carrying paratroopers toward southern France, 15 August 1944. U.S. Air Force · Public domain Source

August 15, 1944 · 01:30 Operation Dragoon

Airborne and Special Forces Isolate the Beachhead

Before dawn, more than 5,000 parachutists of the First Airborne Task Force were dropped around Le Muy and La Motte to control road junctions behind the beaches; glider-borne troops and support elements followed during the day. Scattered drops created local confusion, but the force secured the road network needed to obstruct German reinforcement of the coast. Special forces operated on both flanks. The U.S.-Canadian First Special Service Force attacked Port-Cros and Île du Levant, while French commandos landed near Cap Nègre. A French naval assault group aimed at the eastern…

Continue in Operation Dragoon →

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

August 15, 1944 · 05:00 The Liberation of Paris

The police strike

Around 20,000 Paris policemen stopped work rather than be disarmed by the Germans, who had begun seizing weapons from precincts they no longer trusted. The Métro stopped the same day and the postal workers followed. A police force on strike is a police force with weapons and buildings and nothing to do. Four days later it would take the Préfecture.

Continue in The Liberation of Paris →

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

August 15, 1944 · 08:00 Operation Dragoon

VI Corps Lands on the Var Coast

At 08:00 the U.S. VI Corps put the 3rd Infantry Division ashore in Alpha sector around Cavalaire and Pampelonne, the 45th Infantry Division in Delta sector near Sainte-Maxime, and the 36th Infantry Division in Camel sector around Le Dramont and the approaches to Saint-Raphaël. Naval gunfire, minesweeping and Allied air power supported the three landings. German resistance varied sharply by sector. Mines, obstacles and artillery damaged landing craft, while the eastern Camel sector contained the strongest defenses. The German response remained fragmented, and by the end of the day the…

Continue in Operation Dragoon →

August 15, 1944 · 09:00 The Liberation of Paris

The last train leaves Pantin

Around 2,200 prisoners were taken from Fresnes, Romainville and the Cherche-Midi and loaded onto a train at Pantin bound for Buchenwald and Ravensbrück. It was the last mass deportation train to leave Paris. Between 1942 and August 1944 about 76,000 Jews were deported from France, most of them through the camp at Drancy on the northern edge of the city. Fewer than 3,000 returned.

Continue in The Liberation of Paris →

The Scherl publishing building burning in Berlin after an air raid, July 1944. — Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J30142 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source

August 15, 1945 · 12:00 The Bombing of Cities

The city-bombing campaigns end with the war

American conventional bombing continued into the final days before Japan announced acceptance of surrender terms. By then the home islands had also been subjected to naval blockade, aerial mining, destruction of transport and industry, two atomic bombings and Soviet entry into the war. Post-war surveys tried to isolate how much each form of pressure contributed to the surrender decision. The surviving evidence instead shows a rapidly collapsing strategic situation in which several shocks arrived together and Japanese leaders weighed them within the same crisis. Across the wider war, city bombing…

Continue in The Bombing of Cities →