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WWII On This Day: August 8

What happened on August 8 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1941 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
A fallen Soviet soldier near the Dniester during the German advance toward Uman, July 1941.
A fallen Soviet soldier near the Dniester during the German advance toward Uman, July 1941. Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F016196-06 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Operation Barbarossa

The Uman encirclement ends

First Panzer Group and Seventeenth Army trapped much of the Soviet Sixth and Twelfth Armies around Uman after the German and Romanian advance forced the southern front back from the old frontier. German headquarters reported more than 100,000 prisoners. Other Soviet formations escaped toward the Dnieper, and Army Group South still faced large Soviet forces around Kyiv and across a wide southern theatre. The destruction of the Uman pocket cleared German movement toward the Dnieper and improved the geometry for later operations against the Kyiv salient, where Southwestern Front still…

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1944
American decorations presented to British officers at Montgomery's headquarters, Normandy, 13 July 1944.
American decorations presented to British officers at Montgomery's headquarters, Normandy, 13 July 1944. IWM TR 2009 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
Operation Overlord

Operation Totalize

First Canadian Army attacked south from Caen towards Falaise at night, with infantry carried in improvised armoured personnel carriers converted from self-propelled gun hulls, called the Kangaroo, and the beginning of mechanised infantry as later understood. The attack made good initial ground and then slowed against 12th SS blocking positions. Falaise was still eight miles away, and the southern jaw of the encirclement was already closing faster than the northern one.

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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

Choltitz arrives at the Hôtel Meurice

Dietrich von Choltitz had been appointed military governor of Paris on 7 August and reached the capital the following day, establishing his headquarters in the Hôtel Meurice on the rue de Rivoli. He inherited a garrison built around scattered strongpoints, security units and rear-area troops while the German front to the west was collapsing. His problem was already larger than the number of streets he could actually hold.

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