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WWII On This Day: August 3

What happened on August 3 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
Steppe Front commander Ivan Konev during the Belgorod–Kharkov offensive, August 1943.
Steppe Front commander Ivan Konev during the Belgorod–Kharkov offensive, August 1943. Russian Ministry of Defence (Mil.ru) · CC BY 4.0 Source
Battle of Kursk 1943

Operation Rumyantsev opens

Voronezh and Steppe Fronts opened the Belgorod–Kharkov strategic offensive on 3 August after rebuilding formations damaged during the defensive battle. The attack struck Army Group South's northern wing with multiple combined-arms armies and mobile groups. The Soviet plan aimed to break through north of Belgorod, release tank armies into the operational depth and drive toward Bogodukhov and Kharkov. The offensive converted the southern shoulder of the former Kursk salient from a defensive battlefield into the starting line for a westward advance.

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1944
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

The mountain field is extended for C-47s

The existing strip was too short for the planned transport lift. Leary records roughly 300 workers and sixty ox carts being used to lengthen and widen the field to about 1,800 by 150 feet. The work was military preparation performed largely through local resources. A runway that looked temporary from the air still had to carry a loaded twin-engine transport, give it enough distance to accelerate and remain hidden from German observation long enough to be used.

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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

German counterattacks restore a continuous front

By 3 August German armoured counterattacks around the Warsaw approaches had checked the exposed Soviet tank advance, while Soviet forces concentrated on holding and enlarging their Vistula bridgeheads. Model reported that Army Group Centre again possessed a thin but continuous front extending from the Baltic approaches through the Warsaw sector toward the Vistula. This was not a recovery of the territory or formations lost in June. It was a new defensive system assembled much farther west from reinforcements, surviving units and improvised groups. The significance was operational: for the first…

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