From left, Russian military leaders Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Semyon Budyonny, Kliment Voroshilov, Vasily Blyukher, Aleksandr Yegorov. Only Voroshilov and Budyonny survived the Great Purge.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
In Moscow, the London-based Polish government-in-exile on August 15, 1941, signs a military cooperation agreement with the government of the U.S.S.R. Meanwhile, the Germans decree that all Jews in occupied Russia must wear two yellow badges and they will receive food rations only in excess of those needed by gentiles. They must also join public-works crews. In the U.K., captured German spy Josef Jakobs — tried and convicted by a military tribunal — is executed by a military firing squad at the Tower of London. Jakobs will be the last person ever executed at the historic castle.
August 16 marks the eighth day (since August 9th) that eight German and three Italian submarines have made repeated, though unsuccessful, attacks on convoy HG-69, northwest of Gibraltar. In Ukraine, the Germans capture the Soviet naval base at Mykolaiv, including minor warships, ammunition and repair facilities.
On the Eastern Front, the attacks of German Army Group South reach the Dniepr River at Dnepropetrovsk on August 17 and the town is captured. In the north, Novgorod, on the shores of Lake Ilmen, is also taken by the Germans. In Tokyo, the U.S. government presents a formal warning to the Japanese regarding continued expansion in southeast Asia. No decision is rendered, however, on the Japanese proposal of a meeting between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Konoe. In the North Atlantic, the Panamanian cargo freighter SS Longtaker, owned by the U.S. Maritime Commission, is torpedoed by German submarine U-38 and sunk. Only three of the 27-man crew survive.
As a result of public protests, Adolf Hitler on August 18 orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany’s systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and handicapped. However, practitioners of the euthanasia program are then transferred to concentration camps, where they continue their trade. On the Eastern Front, Gen. Semyon Budyonny, commanding the Soviet armies in the Ukraine, begins to withdraw as many of his troops as possible behind the line of the Dniepr River. In the area of German Army Group Center there are fierce engagements near Gomel, east of the Pripet Marshes. In the north, the German forces of Army Group North take Kingisepp, on the Luga River, east of Narva. There is also heavy fighting near Novgorod, on the Volkhov River, north of Lake Ilmen. In Belgrade, Serbia, the German armed forces’ radio station — Soldatensender Belgrad — airs a little-known, two-year-old recording by German vocalist Lale Andersen: “Lili Marleen.” The station’s signal can be heard as far away as North Africa, and the song — about a soldier pining for his sweetheart — is an instant hit, becoming a favorite of both Axis and Allied soldiers in North Africa and the Middle East and, later, in Europe.
On August 19, the Royal Navy carrier HMS Argus sets sail for the Soviet Union carrying a cargo of Hawker Hurricane fighters to the Soviet Union, along with RAF pilots who will fly them in combat for the first few weeks. The 449 men of the U.S. Marine Corps 1st Defense Battalion establish the first permanent military garrison on Wake Island in the Pacific.
On the Eastern Front, the German 17th Army gains a bridgehead over the Dnieper River at Kremenchuk, Ukraine. German troops reach Gatchina, about 45 miles south of Leningrad, on August 20. Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, former military commander of the area, calls on the citizens of Leningrad to defend their city to the death. In Yugoslavia, Italian troops occupying Gospić, Croatia, discover evidence of the mass murder of Jews and Serbs by local Ustaše members. In France, a second roundup of Jews begins at the behest of the German Gestapo — over 4,200 Jews are arrested.
On August 21, the first Allied Arctic convoy, of seven ships, sails from Iceland bound for Arkhangelsk, in the Soviet Union, carrying war supplies. On the Eastern Front, Hitler orders Army Group North to encircle Leningrad, thinking that the loss of the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution would be extremely demoralizing to the Soviets. In the north, the Germans take Chudovo, northeast of Novgorod, cutting the main rail link between Leningrad and Moscow. In Finnish attacks farther north, Kexholm is taken from the Soviets. In the center, the Soviets pull out of Gomel after a long struggle and a series of counterattacks. In the south, the Germans take Kherson on the lower Dniepr River.
