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

World War II calendar

WWII On This Day: August 27

What happened on August 27 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Soviet infantry attacking on the Leningrad Front in January 1943.
Soviet infantry attacking on the Leningrad Front in January 1943. RIA Novosti archive #93172 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

Sinyavino disrupts Nordlicht

Volkhov Front opened the main phase of the Sinyavino offensive on 27 August, following Leningrad Front attacks that had begun on 19 August. The breakthrough south of Lake Ladoga forced German formations assembled for Operation Nordlicht into the defensive battle. The planned assault on Leningrad could no longer open on its intended timetable.

Continue in The Siege of Leningrad →
1944
A Conundrum, the floating drum used to lay HAMEL pipe across the Channel.
A Conundrum, the floating drum used to lay HAMEL pipe across the Channel. Imperial War Museums · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
Operation PLUTO

The first Conundrum cannot turn

The first attempt to lay HAMEL pipe failed because marine growth on the submerged Conundrum prevented the drum from rotating. A later attempt broke when the pipe fouled on the drum flange before reaching Cherbourg.

Continue in Operation PLUTO →
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

Liberation gives way to reckoning

The bridges and major installations had survived, and the new authorities now had to feed, police and govern a capital emerging from occupation while the Allied armies continued east. The weeks that followed also brought the purge of collaborators, summary violence and the public humiliation of women accused of relationships with Germans. Celebration, state restoration and retribution overlapped in the same streets.

Continue in The Liberation of Paris →