D-Day Diary - August 1944

3 August 1944

US Third Army, Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr., advances into Brittany

4 August 1944

Hill 112 finally captured by 53rd (Welsh) Division.

6 August 1944

Mount Pincon captured.

7 August 1944

Start of Operation Totalize; nightime assault by massed armour towards Falaise.

First use of the Kangaroo armoured personnel carrier.

German troops recapture Mortain

8 August 1944

Death of Wittmann; Shermans of A Squadron, 1 st Northamptonshire Yeomanry engage three Tigers. Trooper Joe Ekins, gunner on a Sherman Firefly, knocks out all three in the space of 12 minutes. Wittmann is among those killed.

10 August 1944

German forces withdraw under pressure from Mortain.

11 August 1944

Operation Grouse, a British plan to follow up retreating German forces.

12 August 1944

Battleship HMS Rodney, operating out of Portland , bombards German gun positions on the Channel Island of Alderney.

14 August 1944

Operation Tractable; Canadian scheme to follow up Totalize using mass bombing to neutralize the German defences.

15 August 1944

Operation Dragoon; allied forces land in the South of France.

US Forces in western France begin their advance to the River Seine.

17 August 1944

Falaise captured by Canadians.

7th Armoured Division leads an advance to the River Seine.

20 August 1944

Resistance forces in Paris organise a general uprising against the German garrison.

21 August 1944

Falaise pocket closed. Hitler is told that German 7th Army no longer functions as a fighting force.

25 August 1944

Paris liberated by French 2nd Armoured Division under General Leclerc.

US 3rd Infantry Division, advancing from the south, reaches Avignon .

Toulon liberated by Free French troops.

28 August 1944

5th Battalion the Dorsetshire Regiment, 43rd Wessex Division, spearheads the British advance across the Seine .

Patton's troops each the Marne River at Chateau Thierry

Free French forces of General de Lattre de Tassigny liberate Marseilles .

30 August 1944

Allied Forces in Italy commence assault on the Gothic Line.

Canadian forces enter Rouen .

31 August 1944

11th Armoured Division crosses the Somme near Amiens

FIVE DAYS LATER THEY ARE IN ANTWERP

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