Hitler issued Directive No. 17, declaring his intention to intensify air and sea warfare against the English in order to "establish the necessary conditions for the final conquest of England."[3]
American General John J. Pershing gave a nationwide radio broadcast urging that aid be sent to Britain. "It is not hysterical to insist that democracy and liberty are threatened," Pershing said. "Democracy and liberty have been overthrown on the continent of Europe. Only the British are left to defend democracy and liberty in Europe. By sending help to the British we can still hope with confidence to keep the war on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where the enemies of liberty, if possible, should be defeated."[7] That same day, Charles Lindbergh appeared at a pro-isolationism rally in Chicago and said that "if our own military forces are strong, no foreign nation can invade us and if we do not interfere with their affairs none will desire to."[8]
The Italians captured Odweina in British Somaliland.[6]
The American ambassador to BelgiumJohn Cudahy said that the food situation in Belgium and northern France was desperate and suggested that the Nazis seemed to be expecting outside aid to solve the food shortage for them.[9] This comment would be controversial for touching on the issue of the British blockade.[10]
Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle signed an agreement on the military organization of the Free French. Churchill agreed to allow the French units to have as much autonomy as possible.[11]
The Louisiana hurricane made landfall at Sabine Pass, Texas. The hurricane would cause record flooding across the Southern United States before dissipating on August 10.
Exeter Blitz: Exeter, Devon was bombed for the first time, by a lone raider that did little damage.
German military commander Alfred Jodl issued a directive titled Aufbau Ost ("Reconstruction East"), ordering that transport and supply facilities be improved in the east so the logistics would be in place for an attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.[15]
Sumner Welles read a formal statement at a press conference calling John Cudahy's recent remarks "in violation of standing instructions of the Department of State" and said that they were "not to be construed as representing the views of this government." The statement went on to say that the incident "illustrates once again the importance which must be attributed by American representatives abroad to the Department's instructions to refrain at this critical time from making public statements other than those made in accordance with instructions of the Department of State."[16]
The German military operation known as Adlertag ("Eagle Day") was put into action with the goal of destroying the Royal Air Force, but the attempt failed.
The Canberra air disaster killed ten people, including three ministers of the Australian Cabinet.
Vichy France passed a law aimed at Freemasonry by banning secret societies.[22]
Died:Peter Eckersley, 36, English cricketer, politician and Fleet Air Arm aviator (plane crash); James Fairbairn, 43, Australian pastoralist, aviator and politician; Henry Gullett, 62, Australian cabinet minister; Geoffrey Street, 46, Australian cabinet minister; Brudenell White, 63, Australian Army officer
In the biggest air engagement of the Battle of Britain up to this point, the Luftwaffe attempted to overwhelm the RAF with a series of major air attacks. The Germans lost 76 aircraft to the British 34, and to the Germans the day became known as Black Thursday.[25]
48 volunteers of the U.S. 29th Infantry Regiment made the first U.S. Army parachute jump from an aircraft in order to explore its applications in battle.[6]
The Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and wife Gala arrived in New York to escape the war in Europe. They would not return to Europe for eight years.[26]
Wendell Willkie made a speech in his hometown of Elwood, Indiana formally accepting the Republican nomination for president. Willkie promised to return "to those same American principles that overcame German autocracy once before, both in business and in war, to out-distance Hitler in any contest he chooses in 1940 or after." Willkie said that the reason for France's defeat was because that country had become "absorbed in unfruitful political adventures and flimsy economy theories," drawing a parallel to the Roosevelt Administration.[28]
In the Battle of Britain the air battle known as The Hardest Day was fought, with an inconclusive result. The Germans lost 69 aircraft and the British 29.[6]
The weather in Britain from this day through August 23 was wet with plenty of low cloud, causing a drop in the frequency of air raids. British ground crews took advantage of the lull in the fighting to repair damaged planes and airfields while Hermann Göring fumed at the loss of time.[29]
Gallup published the results of a poll asking Americans whether they approved of a proposal to sell 50 old destroyer ships to England. 62% approved of the idea, 38% disapproved.[30]
The "tree of liberty", planted in Saverne after Alsace was restored to France at the end of World War I, was chopped down by members of the Hitler Youth.[32]
Died:Ernest Thayer, 77, American writer and poet; Leon Trotsky, 60, Russian Marxist revolutionary and politician (assassinated)
The British destroyer Hostile struck a mine off Cape Bon, Tunisia and had to be scuttled.
King George VI commanded that the names of all Germans and Italians be stricken from the lists of British titles and decorations. The order affected Benito Mussolini, who had been made a member of the Order of the Bath in 1923, as well as King Victor Emmanuel III who had been a member of the Order of the Garter. No prominent Nazis were affected as few Germans held any British titles.[33]
Portsmouth suffered the most casualties sustained in a single raid up to this point in the Battle of Britain. Over 100 were killed and 300 injured.[36]
The Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the financial heart of London and Oxford Street in the West End, probably unintentionally as the German bomber pilots had likely made a navigational error and did not know they were over the city. Winston Churchill was outraged at what he perceived to be a deliberate attack and ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin in retaliation.[37][20][21]
The German battleship Bismarck was commissioned into service.
The RAF bombed Berlin for the first time in the war. Damage was slight and nobody was killed, but it came as a loss of face for Hermann Göring, who had boasted that Berlin would never be bombed.[37] Hitler authorized the bombing of London in retaliation.[21]
The French colony of Chad joined the Free French side and declared war on Germany and Italy.[6][40]
The Luftwaffe bombed the town of Wexford on the south-east coast of Ireland, killing three women. Ireland protested to Germany over the incident.[41][6]
No. 1 Fighter Squadron RCAF became the first Royal Canadian Air Force unit to engage enemy planes in battle when it encountered German bombers over southern England.[42]
Vichy France announced that it would allow 6,000 Japanese troops to be stationed in Indochina and use ports, airfields and railroads for military purposes. However, the French government attempted to delay the implementation of this plan for as long as possible.[6]
Texel Disaster: Two British Royal Navy destroyers were lost by running into a minefield off the coast of the occupied Netherlands with the loss of around 400 men, 300 of them dead.[45]
^Coppieters, Bruno. "Legitimate Authority." Moral Constraints on War: Principles and Cases, Second Edition. Ed. Bruno Coppieters and Nick Fotion. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. p. 59-60. ISBN9780739129913.
^Shapiro, Paul A. (2015). The Kishinev Ghetto, 1941–1942: A Documentary History of the Holocaust in Romania's Contested Borderlands. University of Alabama Press. p. 99. ISBN9780817318642.
^"1940". graumanschinese.org. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
^Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1954). Germany and the Soviet Union. E. J. Brill. p. 112.
^"Cudahy Draws Reprimand For Belgium Views". Ellensburg Daily Record. Ellensburg, Washington. August 9, 1940. pp. 1–2.
^Morgan, Daniel; Taylor, Bruce (2011). U-Boat Attack Logs: A Complete Record of Warship Sinkings from Original Sources 1939-1945. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books. p. 55. ISBN9781848321182.
^McNeese, Tim (2006). Salvador Dali. Chelsea House. p. 93. ISBN9781438106915.
^Davis, Frank. "WolfPack: The German Submarine War in the Atlantic, 1939-1940." The War Against Hitler: Military Strategy in the West. Ed. Albert A. Nofi. Da Capo Press, 1995. p. 54. ISBN9780938289494.
^Bimberg, Edward L. (2002). Tricolor Over the Sahara: The Desert Battles of the Free French, 1940-1942. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 24. ISBN9780313316548.