August 3rd, 1940 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - oil refineries at Mannheim and
Dusseldorf.
77 Sqn. Eight aircraft to Mannheim. All bombed primary.
78 Sqn. Three aircraft to Dusseldorf. One bombed primary, two bombed Mannheim as alternative.
Two force landed on return.
RAF Fighter Command: Weather, cloudy, bright intervals. Luftwaffe attacks shipping by day.
At night South Wales, Crewe and Liverpool are bombed.
Losses: Luftwaffe, 4; RAF 0.
Dull weather reduces German Channel activity, nuisance sorties include one by a Ju88 which flew so low by Wembury Cliff searchlight site that gunners fired down upon it. Scotland, Tyneside, Humber, Harwich and Crewe had night raids or mining. Swansea had the heaviest raid with 10 HEs being dropped.
The Icelandic trawler Skutull saved 27 shipwrecked men from the Atos which
was torpedoed near Scotland. Among these men was a survivor from the Swedish
merchant Tilia Gorthon, which was sunk by
U-38 on
20
June.
At 1900, the Rad was stopped with gunfire by
UA and the crew had to abandon
ship after it was discovered that she carried contraband. At 2015 a coup de
grāce was fired that broke the ship in two and caused her to sink within 15
minutes.
Minesweeper HMS Romney launched.
Destroyer HMS Quorn commissioned.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Union annexes
Lithuania which becomes a Soviet Socialist Republic.
BRITISH SOMALILAND: General de Simone crosses the Ethiopian frontier into British Somaliland with 12
Eritrean battalions and four Blackshirt battalions. He has six battalions in reserve.
On the morning of the invasion he spoke to his motor-cycle troops, "as only a
valorous soldier can speak", according to one present. "Your task is to be the
vanguard, an arduous and difficult work which I know you will carry out to your uttermost.
Our end is to reach Berbera and reach it we will."
The British force of five battalions and a camel corps cannot hold out for ever -
something of an understatement considering Somaliland's defence budget of just GBP 900.
JAPAN:
Tokyo: Japan protests at the US embargo on aviation fuel exports.
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Livermore launched.