Air Operations, Europe

• 10 Mosquitos are sent to the Scholven/Buer oil plant, 8 Halifaxes and 4 Stirlings lay mines off the Biscay coast, 8 Mosquitos are on flying bomb patrols and 7 aircraft are involved on Resistance operations.
• There are no losses.

• Despite poor weather that results in more than 550 abords, 462 8th Air Force B-17s and B-24s attack numerous tactical targets, including V-weapons sites, bridges, rail junctions, marshalling yards, and several airfields.
• 9 B-17s are lost
• Escort for the heavy bombers is provided by 588 VIII Fighter Command fighters. 86 VIII Fighter Command P-47 fighter-bombers attack the St.-Andre-de-L'Eure Airdrome. VIII Fighter Command pilots claim the destruction of 15 locomotives during the day.
• 1 fighter and its pilot are lost

• Approximately 280 IX Bomber Command B-26s and A-20s attack the V-weapons headquarters at Chateau de Ribeaucourt as well as German Army strongpoints at Caen, fuel dumps, and road and rail bridges.
• 9th Air Force escort fighters and IX TAC fighter-bombers conduct armed-reconnaissance missions over a broad area of France, but especially in the Normandy battle area, where numerous tactical targets are attacked.
• 9th Air Force fighter pilots down 3 Luftwaffe fighters over France during the morning.

• 12th Air Force B-25s and B-26s attack a rail line near Parma, and several marshalling yards.
• XII TAC A-20s attack fuel dumps.
• XII TAC fighter-bombers attack lines of communications north of the rather fluid US 5th Army battle area.

• 15th Air Force heavy bombers attack targets in the Vienna area: the Markersdorf, Munchendorf, and Zwolfaxing Airdromes; a marshalling yard; refineries at Korneuburg and Vosendorf; and the Floridsdorf oil storage facilities.
• Escort pilots of the 52nd, 82nd and 325th Fighter Groups down 29 Axis fighters near Vienna, including many twin-engine bomber destroyers.
• 14 15th Air Force aircraft are lost

• 15th Air Force heavy bombers attack the Veszprem Airdrome.

Air Operations, Far East

Yahata iron and steel works and several other key military industrial targets are hit by the second B-29 raid in three weeks. The US bombers are using air bases in China.

Allied Command

Chiang Kai-shek agrees in principle with Roosevelt's request that Stilwell should have operational command of the Chinese army, but he asks for a personal representative of the President to be sent to China.

Argentina, Home Front

Juan Perón is appointed Vice-President by Pres Julián Farrell. From this moment Perón rapidly becomes virtual dicator.

Battle of the Atlantic

Sunderland 'H' of No 10 Squadron RAAF sights fully surfaced U-243 at a range of 6 miles. At 2 miles the U-boat opens fire, but the accurate fire of the plane's front gunner quickly silences the gunfire. 6 depth charges are dropped with a perfect straddle around the stern. Shortly thereafter the crew is seen launching dinghies and taking to the water. The survivors of the U-boat are rescued by the Canadian destroyer escort HMCS Restigouche.

U-243

Britain, Home Front

1,750 barrage balloons are put in position south of London to combat the V-1.

Capt F. J. Walker, an 'ace' U-boat hunter, dies at the age of 50.

Burma-China

On the Salween front 5 Chinese divisions surround Teng-chung.

With the commander of the Japanese Southern Army, Field Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi, having sanctioned the abandonment of the Imphal operation, the Japanese 15th Army is ordered to retreat across the Chindwin. It is the final acceptance of defeat by Mutaguchi in the battle of Imphal-Kohima in which the Japanese lsot 53,000 men out of the 85,000 committed.

Eastern Front

Advancing north of the Pripet Marshes, Rokossovsky's men take Baranovichi, midway between Minsk and Brest-Litovsk.

More than 60,000 men of the German 4th Army have fallen during repeated break-out attempts, the majority of its 40,000 survivors being captured by Soviet forces. The 4th Army has effectively ceased to exist.

The 1st and 3rd Belorussian Fronts continue to push west. Elements of the 65th Army, together with Group Pliev and part of the 28th Army, take Baranovichi after a furious battle with remnants of the German 9th army.

Operation BAGRATION has succeeded in destroying Army Group Center. The Stavka and Red Army have successfully broken the individual armies in small-scale encirclement operations before trapping the remnants in a larger cauldron thrown around Minsm. For the Ostheer the defeat eclipsed even Stalingrad, some 20 infantry, 1 security, 3 panzer grenadier, 1 panzer and 2 Luftwaffe field divisions being destroyed and 350,000 ment being lost. The German front in the central sector simply no longer exists.

English Channel

The British frigate Trollope is bady damaged by a German motor torpedo boat off Cap d'Antifer, France with the loss of 63 of her crew.

Guam

For the next 12 days a squadron of US carriers and destroyers under the command of Rear-Adm Charles T. Joy begins a series of daily bombardments of the defenses of Guam. On the 14th Adm Walden L. Ainsworth's battleships will join in this work of demolition.

Hungary, Politics

With the Red Army fast approaching, Hungary's leader, Adm Miklos Horthy, orders a halt to the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Italy

With the capture of Rosignano the American 34th Div is able to speed up its advance on Leghorn. The 88th Div occupies Volterra and the heights north and east of the town. Units of the French Expeditionary Corps mount an offensive in the direction of San Gimignano, west of Poggibonsi, and capture Height 380, about 2 miles north of Highway 68.

Mariana Islands

On Saipan having overcome Japanese resistance in Harakiri Gulch, the Americans advance all along the line towards the north of the island. Americans witness mass suicides in large numbers as marines move to occupy Mount Marpi, the last significant defended terrain on the island.

Occupied Soviet Union

Because the Soviets are approaching Kovno, the German begin to move Jews in the ghetto to concentration camps in Germany. Many Jews take refuge in undergroung hideouts that they have prepared, only to be flushed out with dogs, smoke grenades and grenades. Around 2,000 Jews die of asphyxiation as the ghetto is razed to the ground; a further 4,000 Jews are transported west.

Pacific

• The US submarine Bonefish (SS-223) sinks the Japanese guardboat Moji Maru (3757t) east of Borneo.
• The US submarine Tautog (SS-199) sinks the Japanese army cargo ship Matsu Maru (887t) off Honshu.

Southwest Pacific

Gen MacArthur's headquarters submits the RENO V plan, outlining a series of offensive actions from the Vogelkop Peninsula and Morotai in western New Guinea to southern Mindanao in the Philippines for late October, an attack on Leyte in mid-November, and an attack on Luzon in April of 1945. To accomplish his plan, he requires six divisions, including one airborne and one armored division.

Western Front

In the course of an attack from the west by the 78th Div, the Americans of VIII Corps overrun La Haye-du-Puits. The 8th Div only just arrived from England, goes into the line in the sector between the 79th and 90th Divs. Units of the VII Corps continue their difficult advance along the Carentan-Pèriers road, while the XIX Corps, reinforced by the newly landed 35th Div, continues to advance on St Lô.

In the eastern sector, at 4:20a.m. and after a 'Titanic' artillery barrage, the British I Corps launches its offensive, Operation CHARNWOOD, against Caen with, from left to right of the line, the 59th and 3rd British and 3rd Canadian Divs. Advances up to 5 km are made. The first Allied troops enter the city from the northeast.

Images from July 8, 1944

British Troops Herd Cattle

A 81mm Mortar Squad

Marines Take Cover behind a M4 Sherman Tank

A Handley Page Halifax over Caen

Infantry Pass Sherman Tanks

Priest Self-propelled Gun Passes a Humber Scout Car

Sherman Tanks of 33rd Armored Brigade

V-1 Damage at Montford Place

A Priest 105mm Self-propelled Gun

A Stuart and Sherman Tanks

Gun Crew Man a 40mm AA Gun