Skip to content
WW2 Theatres Theatres of the Second World War
Home

World War II calendar

WWII On This Day: August 2

What happened on August 2 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1943 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1943
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.
USHMM
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.

Continue in The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence →
1944
Soldiers of the “Wacek” armoured platoon around a captured Panther near Okopowa Street, about 2 August 1944.
Soldiers of the “Wacek” armoured platoon around a captured Panther near Okopowa Street, about 2 August 1944. Unknown photographer · Public domain (Poland) Source
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.

Continue in The Warsaw Rising →
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

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.

Continue in Operation Halyard →