On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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patriots reptdly drive Gers from Warsaw Old City dist; capture skyscraper and utilities
US tank columns 38 mi from St Nazaire, 40 mi from Nantes and 7 mi from St Malo; Gers rept Amers 60 mi west of Rennes and 75 mi from Brest; other US forces strike out toward Paris southeast of Avranches; DNB repts Ger withdrawal between Vire and Caen; RAF rocket-firing Typhoons hit Ger transports leaving Aunay-sur-Odon region; fighting reptd at Mortain and St Pois; Amers penetrate Barenton and occupy 1/3 of St Sever Forest, penetrate to within 2 mi of Vire; Vire not yet under Allied control; Gers retake several places around Aunay; Brit take Villy-Bocage and Noyers; Canadians again try to clear triangle between Odon and Orne Rivers; maps
1944Christopher Gunning, English composer (died 2023)[†]
Christopher Gunning was an English composer of concert works and music for films and television.
1944Maurice Turnbull, Welsh cricketer and rugby player (born 1906)[†]
Maurice Joseph Lawson Turnbull was a Welsh cricketer who played in nine Test matches for the England cricket team between 1930 and 1936.
1944World War II: At least 1,104 Japanese POWs in Australia attempt to escape from a camp at Cowra, New South Wales; 545 temporarily succeed but are later either killed, commit suicide, or are recaptured.[†]
Japanese people are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.1% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 119.9 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately five million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as Nikkeijin (日系人).
1944World War II: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp (Gęsiówka) in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.[†]
A labor camp or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons. Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, intended to abolish camps of forced labor.
1944World War II: The Nazis begin a week-long massacre of between 40,000 and 50,000 civilians and prisoners of war in Wola, Poland.[†]
The Wola massacre was the systematic killing of between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles in the Wola neighbourhood of the Polish capital city, Warsaw, by the German Waffen-SS, Ordnungpolizei, Sicherheitdienst and the SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger, which took place from 5 to 12 August 1944. The massacre was ordered by Heinrich Himmler, who directed to kill "anything that moves" to stop the Warsaw Uprising soon after it began.