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WWII On This Day: August 20

What happened on August 20 during World War II? This date brings together 10 events from 1940, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1940
Eighth Route Army troops during the capture of Niangzi Pass in the Hundred Regiments Offensive, August 1940.
Eighth Route Army troops during the capture of Niangzi Pass in the Hundred Regiments Offensive, August 1940. Xin Zhonghua Bao, 1940 · public domain (China) Source
The Second Sino-Japanese War

Communist armies attack the railways of north China

From 20 August 1940 about 200,000 Communist troops in 105 regiments, under Zhu De and Peng Dehuai with Nie Rongzhen, attacked the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan railway and other lines in north China. The plan was to use the tall summer millet and the rainy season to carry out a large sabotage operation and to cut the railway for a long time. The Japanese forces in the area numbered about 270,000, with 150,000 Chinese collaborators, under Tada Hayao. Casualties are disputed. Chinese records claim 20,645 Japanese killed and wounded and Western sources estimate…

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

Churchill names 'the Few'

Churchill told the House of Commons that 'never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.' The phrase became the public shorthand for Fighter Command's aircrew while the battle itself was still unresolved. The pilots were the visible edge of a much larger organisation. Ground crews, controllers, WAAF plotters and telephone operators, the Observer Corps, anti-aircraft units, maintenance depots and aircraft factories all affected how many fighters could meet the next raid. The recognised battle roll would eventually include aircrew from Britain,…

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1942
A German tank commander in southern Soviet territory in June 1942, shortly before the opening of Case Blue.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-218-0528-30 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus

Most of Luftflotte 4 shifts toward Stalingrad

On 20 August Wolfram von Richthofen told List that nearly all of Luftflotte 4's available aircraft, except small remnants, would have to shift to the Stalingrad battle. Army Group A had relied on concentrated air support to break river crossings, roadblocks and fortified positions across an enormous frontage. The transfer did not leave the Caucasus without aircraft, but it removed the level of support its commanders had expected for simultaneous drives toward the Black Sea coast and Terek. The allocation makes the competition between the two campaigns visible in a…

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1944
Barbed wire and the camp gate are removed at a Berlin camp as Italian military internees are transferred to civilian labour status, 20 August 1944.
Barbed wire and the camp gate are removed at a Berlin camp as Italian military internees are transferred to civilian labour status, 20 August 1944. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J30383 / Schwahn · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Nazi Forced Labour

Italian internees become civilian workers

In July 1944 Mussolini obtained Hitler’s approval to transfer the Italian military internees from Wehrmacht jurisdiction to civilian labour status. By 20 August the change was being implemented in the Reich; a German photograph from a Berlin camp shows the barbed-wire fence and camp gate being removed as internees were transferred to civilian employment. The work did not change. The former internees could not change jobs on their own or return to Italy, and one of them recalled in 1998 that the work and the food supply remained the same,…

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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

French Forces Open the Battle for Toulon

French forces opened the main attack on Toulon on 20 August. De Lattre used formations advancing along the coast and around the landward approaches to compress a garrison of roughly 18,000 troops into the fortified port area, while commandos and local Resistance forces supported attacks on batteries, roads and strongpoints. The accelerated landing schedule gave de Lattre enough strength to press Toulon while also probing toward Marseille. French commanders exploited the limited preparation of the inland defenses and increasingly treated the two port battles as overlapping operations.

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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 truce is declared

A ceasefire was announced by loudspeaker car through the streets: the Germans would not attack occupied buildings, the Resistance would not attack German columns leaving the city. It was accepted by Parodi and the Gaullist delegation and rejected almost immediately by the communist-led fighters, who saw a truce as a device to keep Paris quiet until regular troops arrived to claim it.

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The Liberation of Paris

Parodi is arrested, and released

Alexandre Parodi, the senior representative of the Provisional Government in Paris, was stopped at a German checkpoint carrying documents naming the Free French administration for the city. Nordling intervened directly with Choltitz and Parodi was released the same day. A German general releasing the man appointed to replace his own authority is not a normal act of occupation.

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The PAST building burning on 20 August 1944 during the Home Army assault that captured the strongpoint.
The PAST building burning on 20 August 1944 during the Home Army assault that captured the strongpoint. Unknown photographer · Public domain (Poland) Source
The Warsaw Rising

The PAST strongpoint is captured

After fighting through the night of 19–20 August, Home Army troops captured the PAST telephone building on Zielna Street. Assault groups used fire, explosives and close-range weapons to force the German garrison from successive floors. The capture removed a fortified German position inside northern Śródmieście, produced prisoners and weapons and reduced observed fire over nearby insurgent streets. Unlike many attacks on isolated compounds, the assault achieved a permanent local gain.

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The Liberation of Paris

Nordling secures the prisoners

Using the truce, Nordling negotiated the transfer of political prisoners from German custody to the Red Cross and the Swedish consulate. Several thousand people were taken off the deportation lists in the days that followed. This is the part of his week that historians rate highest. The truce is argued about. The prisoners are not.

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German prisoners of war captured during the Soviet summer offensive march through Moscow on 17 July 1944.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-696-0426-14A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Operation Bagration

A narrow corridor reconnects Army Group North

German forces reached the Tukums area and reopened a narrow coastal corridor to Army Group North. The relief restored land contact but did not recover the broad territory lost across Lithuania, nor did it push 1st Baltic Front back to its June positions. The operation's limited success mattered because it showed that the Germans could again create local operational effects with concentrated armour. The Soviet fronts were now holding large gains, bridgeheads and long flanks rather than pursuing a completely disintegrated enemy. The campaign was shifting from exploitation to consolidation,…

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