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

World War II calendar

WWII On This Day: July 31

What happened on July 31 during World War II? This date brings together 7 events from 1941, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.
USHMM
The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence

Göring authorises Heydrich to coordinate a Europe-wide solution

Hermann Göring authorised Reinhard Heydrich on 31 July 1941 to make the organisational and material preparations for a 'complete solution of the Jewish question' within the German sphere of influence in Europe and to submit an overall plan. The authorisation came while mass shootings were already expanding in occupied Soviet territory. It records Heydrich's growing authority to coordinate policies that crossed ministries, police organisations and occupation administrations.

Continue in The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence →
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

The Kuban railway junctions fall

By the end of July Army Group A had crossed the lower Don and was taking the railway centres that opened the routes toward Tikhoretsk, Stavropol and the Kuban. Soviet rear guards were still retreating rather than attempting to hold a continuous line north of the Caucasus. The open steppe again favoured speed, but the railway network behind the advance did not expand at the same rate. Fuel and repair transport had to cover growing distances from converted railheads before the panzer formations could begin each new bound. The German…

Continue in Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus →
Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus

Fourth Panzer Army turns back toward Stalingrad

On 31 July Hitler revised Directive 45 and transferred Fourth Panzer Army headquarters with three corps back to Army Group B for the Stalingrad operation. One of its panzer corps remained with First Panzer Army in the south. Fourth Panzer Army had been the principal mobile link between the two strategic directions. Splitting and redirecting it strengthened the attack toward Stalingrad while reducing the armoured weight available to Army Group A. The decision completed the operational separation that Directive 45 had begun. The Caucasus drive and the Stalingrad battle were…

Continue in Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus →
1944
American reinforcements coming ashore from a Coast Guard landing barge on the French coast.
American reinforcements coming ashore from a Coast Guard landing barge on the French coast. US Coast Guard · NARA · Public domain Source
Operation Overlord

Avranches, the door swings open

The 4th Armored Division took Avranches and the bridge at Pontaubault, the hinge between Normandy and Brittany. Through a corridor only a few miles wide, seven divisions were pushed south in seventy-two hours. Operation Bluecoat had opened the previous day south of Caumont, pinning German armour in the British sector while the American right ran free.

Continue in Operation Overlord →
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

The Gulf of Riga is reached while a Vistula bridgehead is secured

On the northern wing, 1st Baltic Front reached the Gulf of Riga and temporarily severed the principal land connection to Army Group North. South of Warsaw, Soviet forces enlarged the Magnuszew bridgehead across the Vistula. At the same time 2nd Tank Army's spearheads around Wołomin were becoming increasingly exposed to German armour assembling east of the capital. The three developments show why 31 July is a better marker of culmination than a simple statement that Bagration had 'stopped.' Soviet armies were still achieving major objectives, but they were doing so…

Continue in Operation Bagration →
An American column moving south through Avranches at the end of July.
An American column moving south through Avranches at the end of July. US Army Signal Corps · NARA · Public domain Source
Operation Cobra

Avranches

The 4th Armored Division reached Avranches, at the corner where the Cotentin peninsula meets the rest of France, and took the bridge at Pontaubault intact the next day. That single bridge became the neck through which an entire army passed. In seventy-two hours, seven divisions were pushed over it and into open country.

Continue in Operation Cobra →
Warsaw Uprising: Two medics and a soldier (right) from "Parasol" battalion after coming out of sewers at Warecka Street near Nowy Świat (North Śródmieście district). In the center Maria Stypułkowska-Chojecka "Kama". On the right Krzysztof Palester "Krzych".
Warsaw Uprising - Soldiers from Parasol on Warecka Street 1 September 1944 · Jerzy Chrzanowski · Public domain · Source
The Warsaw Rising

The order for W-Hour

At the afternoon command meeting on 31 July, Chruściel arrived at about 17:30 with reports that Soviet forces had entered Praga. After reviewing the situation with senior underground leaders and the Government Delegate, Bór-Komorowski ordered the Warsaw District to begin the Rising at 17:00 the following day. The report about Praga proved premature: the Soviet armoured battle remained east and north-east of the city. The order nevertheless served an established political purpose within Operation Tempest, which sought to have the legal Polish underground authorities emerge in control of the capital…

Continue in The Warsaw Rising →