WWII On This Day: August 2

Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. — USHMM

August 2, 1943 The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence

Prisoners revolt at Treblinka

Prisoners organised an underground group, obtained weapons from the camp armoury and set buildings and fuel stores on fire during an uprising on 2 August 1943. Several hundred prisoners broke through or crossed the perimeter under fire. Many escapees were killed during the revolt or hunted down afterward, while a smaller group survived the war. German authorities continued limited killing operations before dismantling Treblinka and attempting to conceal the site.

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Men of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers wait to enter Centuripe on 2 August 1943; one wounded man is shaded by an umbrella. Sgt Stubbs / No. 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit / IWM NA 5413 · UK Government public domain Source

August 2, 1943 · 14:00 Operation Husky: The Invasion of Sicily

The 78th Division fights for Centuripe

The British 78th Infantry Division attacked the strongpoints around Centuripe at the beginning of August. The steep approaches forced infantry to move over exposed slopes while tanks and heavy supplies waited for usable roads. Photographs dated 2 August show men of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers preparing to enter Centuripe. The town and adjoining heights were captured through fighting on 2–3 August, opening the approach toward Adrano.

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Soldiers of the “Wacek” armoured platoon around a captured Panther near Okopowa Street, about 2 August 1944. Unknown photographer · Public domain (Poland) Source

August 2, 1944 The Warsaw Rising

Two Panthers are captured

Home Army soldiers captured two damaged or immobilised Panther Ausf. G tanks in the Wola sector and organised crews to restore them. The vehicles became the armoured core of the Wacek platoon. Their value was local and temporary, but no other insurgent formation possessed equivalent firepower.

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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)

August 2, 1944 · 23:30 Operation Halyard

Musulin's Halyard team parachutes into Pranjani

After several aborted attempts, OSS officer George Musulin and two enlisted specialists parachuted near Mihailović's headquarters at Pranjani. Michael Rajacich and radio operator Arthur Jibilian formed the core field team with him. Musulin found roughly 250 Allied airmen awaiting evacuation. The immediate problem was not locating them but finding a strip from which a loaded C-47 could safely depart.

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Attlee, Truman and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference on 1 August 1945, the day before the final protocol accepted further transfers of German populations. Capt W. T. Lockeyear and Capt E. G. Malindine / No. 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit / IWM BU 9496 · Public domain (expired UK Crown copyright) Source

August 2, 1945 · 12:00 Refugees, Expulsion and Postwar Displacement

Potsdam accepts transfers of remaining German populations

On 2 August 1945 the Potsdam protocol recognised that remaining German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary would be transferred to Germany. The United States, Soviet Union and Britain instructed that transfers be carried out in an orderly and humane fashion and asked for a halt to further expulsions while the Allied Control Council prepared arrangements. Flight and expulsions had begun before this agreement. The accompanying photo shows Attlee, Truman and Stalin at Potsdam on 1 August, one day before the protocol was approved; it does not depict the signing…

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