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WWII On This Day: September 3

What happened on September 3 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1939, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1939
A Warsaw demonstration after Britain and France declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939.
A Warsaw demonstration after Britain and France declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939. Unknown photographer · Public domain (PD-Poland) · via Wikimedia Commons Source
Invasion of Poland 1939

Britain and France enter the war

Britain declared war on Germany at 11:00 on 3 September after its ultimatum expired; France followed later that day. The invasion of Poland had become a general European war. French forces entered the Saar region in a limited advance while the main German field forces remained concentrated in Poland. The scale and tempo of the western action left the eastern campaign free from the major diversion Polish planners had expected. Polish headquarters continued to fight inside an alliance strategy that assumed German strength would eventually face significant pressure in the…

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A child survivor of Athenia is passed ashore from the Norwegian rescue ship Knute Nelson at Galway after the sinking.
A child survivor of Athenia is passed ashore from the Norwegian rescue ship Knute Nelson at Galway after the sinking. Press Agency photographer / Imperial War Museums HU 51014 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence Source
The Opening Convoy War

U-30 torpedoes Athenia

Hours after Britain declares war, U-30 torpedoes the passenger liner Athenia northwest of Ireland. The ship is carrying more than 1,400 passengers and crew, including many civilians leaving Europe; 117 people die. The attack contradicts the German restrictions then governing attacks on passenger ships and immediately creates the impression in Britain and the United States that unrestricted submarine warfare may already have begun. Fritz-Julius Lemp does not report the sinking by radio. When the incident reaches BdU through broadcasts, Dönitz reiterates the existing prize-law restrictions and Hitler orders that passenger…

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1942
Red Army soldiers carrying a Soviet flag through the ruins of Stalingrad in 1943.
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R76619 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of Stalingrad

Sixth and Fourth Panzer Armies join west of the city

On 3 September leading elements of Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army made contact near Pitomnik west of Stalingrad. The junction closed the gap between the German forces approaching from the northwest and south, but 62nd and 64th Armies had already withdrawn toward the inner city defences and avoided being trapped on the open steppe. German commanders now faced a different battlefield. The Soviet bridgehead was compressed against the Volga, while Soviet attacks north of Stalingrad continued to pin formations on Sixth Army’s exposed flank. The German armies could concentrate…

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1944
Allied landing craft off the Île d'Or at Le Dramont, Camel Beach, during the landing in Provence, August 1944.
Landing craft off the Île d'Or at Le Dramont, Camel sector, August 1944 · Public domain · Source
Operation Dragoon

Lyon is liberated

The Germans withdrew from Lyon and French and American troops entered a city where the Resistance had already risen. Before leaving, the Gestapo had shot prisoners at Bron and Saint-Genis-Laval. Lyon had been the centre of the Resistance in the southern zone and the place where Jean Moulin had been arrested and tortured in 1943. Its liberation carried more political weight in France than any other event of the campaign except Paris.

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