August 8th, 1940 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Battle of Britain:
RAF Fighter Command: Weather, cloudy, bright intervals.
Heavy Luftwaffe attacks on Channel convoy CW9 (codenamed Peewit) comprising 29 ships
plus naval escort (the first Westbound since 25 July) off Dover and the Isle of Wight. Heaviest air
fighting so far, involving 150+ aircraft. Ju87s prove very vulnerable. German shore radar
detects the convoy and E-boats attack it in the Dover Straits sinking two coasters (Holme
Force and Fife Coast) and damaging others.
Off Portland the Sister CE9 Channel convoy was proceeding easterly when at 06:39 two
of its balloons were shot down. At 08:30 Ju 87s escorted by JG 27 and LG 1 attacked from
the direction of Cherbourg. British radar detected them and five 11 Group squadrons and
one from 10 Group were sent up to tackle the raiders. Between 08:49 and 09:43 two assaults
each of 100-plus raiders attacked the convoy (15 miles west of the Isle of Wight), which
lost SS Conquerdale and SS Empire Crusader. By the end of the engagement RAF fighters
could accurately claim five of the enemy and St. Catherine's Point gunners another two.
At about 12:48 the second assault on CW8 developed,
just east of the Isle of Wight delivered by 60 Ju 87s of three Stuka Geschwaderen - Nos.
2, 3 and 77. After disposing of the balloon cover the Stukas dive-bombed and scattered the
ships. but Hurricanes of Nos. 43, 145, 238 and 257 Squadrons and Spitfires of 609 Squadron
- over 50 fighters - arrived. Sqn. Ldr J.A. Peel of No. 145 Squadron fires the first shots of
this the first official day of the Battle of Britain. Three Stukas were shot down and four
damaged along with an escorting Bf110 of V/LG 1 and three Bf109s, three more '110s and a
'109 were damaged.
RAF lost three pilots and their Hurricanes.
Late afternoon saw another Stuka raid on the now re-organised convoy. Seven Squadrons
of Hurricanes met them. At least two more
Stukas and two '109s were shot down by 145 and
43 Sqn. shot down the Gruppenkommandeur of II/JG 27.
At night Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham (for the first time) are bombed.
Midlothian and Truro suffer heavy raids.
Two misplaced parachute sea mines exploded near Stannington Sanatorium near Plessy
Viaduct, four miles south of Morpeth (Co. Durham) bringing down the boiler house roof and
blasting the hospital.
Losses: Luftwaffe 31; RAF 20.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Horatio
launched.
INDIA:
The so-called Linlithgow offer is made. It states that Dominion status for India was the
objective of the British government but refer to neither date nor method of
accomplishment.
Viceroy Linlithgow had gone so far as to recommend that Dominion status be granted a year
after the end of the year. This has been blocked by the implacable enemy of Indian
independence, Winston Churchill.
U.S.A.: The motion picture
"Pride and Prejudice" opens at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, this drama, based on the Jane Austen novel, stars Greer
Garson, Laurence Olivier, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Sullivan, Ann
Rutherford and Marsha Hunt.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-37 sinks SS Upwey Grange.