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WWII On This Day: September 8

What happened on September 8 during World War II? This date brings together 9 events from 1939, 1940, 1941, 1943 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1939
The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing on the Polish depot at Westerplatte, September 1939.
Schleswig-Holstein firing on Westerplatte, 1 September 1939 · Public domain · Source
Invasion of Poland 1939

German armour reaches Warsaw and is repulsed

Elements of 4th Panzer Division reached Warsaw's western approaches on 8 September and attempted to enter through the Ochota sector. Polish defenders used anti-tank weapons, barricades and prepared positions to stop the armoured thrust. The action exposed the growing need for infantry, artillery and engineering support once a fast panzer advance reached defended urban ground. German armies were already moving to isolate the capital and destroy Polish forces west of the Vistula. Warsaw's commanders used the temporary success at the approaches to strengthen the defensive perimeter and prepare the city…

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1940
London, 7th September 1940 · London's dock area. Tower Bridge stands out against a background of smoke and fires. New York Times Paris Bureau Collection.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA 541917) · Public domain
The Blitz

Londoners take the Underground

As the nightly raids continued, Londoners increasingly entered Underground stations with bedding and food whether or not the stations had been formally designated as shelters. The deep platforms offered psychological and physical protection that many surface shelters could not match. Government resistance was based partly on transport requirements and partly on fears that large numbers of people would remain underground and fail to work. Practice forced policy to change. Authorities gradually organised bunks, sanitation, ticketing and medical arrangements while keeping the system operating during the day. The Tube was never…

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1941
A patrol of the Australian 2/13th Battalion waiting in an anti-tank ditch outside Tobruk, 8 September 1941.
A patrol of the Australian 2/13th Battalion waiting in an anti-tank ditch outside Tobruk, 8 September 1941. Australian War Memorial 020779 · public domain Australia Source
Tobruk and Operation Crusader

Australian patrols continue as the garrison is relieved by sea

Australian 2/13th Battalion soldiers were photographed waiting in an anti-tank ditch on 8 September before moving into ground beyond their lines. Patrols of this kind denied the besiegers a secure approach to the wire and tested where enemy posts could be raided. At the same time much of the 9th Division was being replaced by British and Polish units brought in by sea. The rotation changed who defended the fortress, but not its dependence on the dangerous Tobruk ferry.

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Exhausted Soviet prisoners arriving at Stalag X B Sandbostel in northern Germany, probably autumn 1941, some supporting companions unable to walk.
Unidentified German guard photographer / Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2005-0146 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity

German POW regulations formalise discriminatory treatment

On 8 September the Armed Forces High Command issued a consolidated regulation for handling Soviet prisoners. It drew together earlier instructions and confirmed that Soviet captives were managed under a distinct body of military orders. The regulations formed one element of a system that allocated less food, relied on inadequate confinement and authorised unusually severe disciplinary treatment. The standards imposed on Soviet prisoners differed fundamentally from those applied to many British and American captives.

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A German panzer officer photographed during the advance toward Leningrad in 1941.
A German panzer officer photographed during the advance toward Leningrad in 1941. Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-210-0112-01A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Operation Barbarossa

The land routes to Leningrad are cut

Army Group North reached Lake Ladoga at Shlisselburg on 8 September and severed Leningrad's last direct land connection with the Soviet interior. The city's rail and road links east were cut. Leningrad remained Soviet-held. Supplies and evacuations could still move across Lake Ladoga, while Soviet forces defended the city and the approaches. German plans shifted toward blockade and siege as the mobile forces required for further assault were increasingly tied to wider strategic priorities. The northern campaign had therefore reached a major geographic objective without eliminating the city as a…

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Soldiers of the Leningrad Front in trenches before an offensive, 1 September 1941. Used for the opening phase of the siege rather than as a same-day photograph of Mga or Shlisselburg.
Soldiers of the Leningrad Front in trenches before an offensive, 1 September 1941. Used for the opening phase of the siege rather than as a same-day photograph of Mga or Shlisselburg. RIA Novosti archive #58228 / Vsevolod Tarasevich · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

Shlisselburg closes the land ring

Eighteenth Army captured Shlisselburg and reached Lake Ladoga, cutting Leningrad's final land connection to the Soviet interior. A Luftwaffe raid the same day burned warehouses at Badayev. The loss worsened the immediate supply position, while the winter famine grew from the larger blockade, inadequate reserves and repeated failures in the transport system.

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1943
Italian soldiers captured by German forces on Corfu after the armistice of 8 September 1943, photographed in September 1943.
Italian soldiers captured by German forces on Corfu after the armistice of 8 September 1943, photographed in September 1943. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-177-1459-32 / Cuno · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Nazi Forced Labour

Italian soldiers are deported as military internees

When the armistice between Italy and the Allies was announced on 8 September 1943, German forces disarmed the Italian army and took about 800,000 Italian soldiers captive in Italy, southern France, the Balkans and Greece, most of them without a fight. Many of the captives were deported to the Reich and put to work as military internees, a status under which Wehrmacht guards watched the camps and the men worked in factories, on farms and on building sites.

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British troops unloading from landing ship LST 383 on the Salerno coast on 9 September 1943.
Imperial War Museums NA 6630 · British official photograph · Public domain (UK Government)
The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

Eisenhower announces the armistice; Badoglio broadcasts Italy’s change of sides

Eisenhower announced the Italian armistice on the evening of 8 September 1943. Badoglio then broadcast a statement that Italy had accepted Allied armistice terms, instructing its forces to cease hostilities against the Anglo-Americans. The announcement spread unevenly through Italian commands. German units already positioned for Operation Achse moved to disarm their former allies and take over key towns and communications points.

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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

A damaged B-24 adds another crew to the rescue network

A B-24 of the 455th Bomb Group was hit after a bombing mission on a bridge north of Belgrade. Nine crewmen bailed out; one was captured by German forces, while Chetnik units recovered others, including a badly wounded airman. Sergeant Curtis Diles and surviving crewmates moved through local hands until they reached the new emergency landing ground at Koceljeva. Their experience shows why Halyard was more than the C-47 flights: every extraction depended on a ground chain finding scattered men first.

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