1st August 1944 – the Polish Home Army (the main resistance organization in Poland) stages an uprising in Warsaw to liberate the Polish capital from the occupying Germans before the arrival of the Red Army, now within 10 miles of Warsaw. Collaboration between the AK (Army Krajowa or Home Army) and Soviet partisans in Poland had been difficult after the discovery of the Katyn Massacre. On 30th November 1943 the AK had launched Operation Tempest, aimed at securing control of Polish cities and had some success, although the AK were taken prisoner by the Red Army as they advanced.
The Warsaw Rising was initially successful in taking control of large areas of the city and liberating 350 Jews from the Gęsiόwka concentration camp, which was in process of ‘liquidation’. However Himmler still managed to send most of the 67,000 Jews still remaining in the ghetto at Łódź, south-west of Warsaw (the second largest ghetto in German-occupied Europe), to their deaths in Auschwitz. Isolated from and unsupported by the Soviet Army and suffering a fierce response from the Germans including many atrocities (some 30,000 non-combatants were slaughtered in the Old Town alone), the AK finally capitulated at the beginning of October. Although on 30th July Radio Moscow had called on the citizens of Warsaw to rise up and 'join the struggle against the Germans' Warsaw was not liberated by the Soviets until 17th January 1945 – by then the Germans had destroyed 85% of the city’s buildings. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)
On 1st August Soviet troops captured Kaunas, now the second largest city in Lithuania but then the capital.
End of the Battle of Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands. US troops landed on 24th July and defeated a 9,000 strong garrison of Japanese.
The US 3rd Army under Lt-General Patton becomes operational on the Allies western flank, tasked with liberating Brittany and seizing the ports on the Brittany coast. Lt-General Courtney Hodges now commands the US First Army Group while General Omar Bradley is Commander-in-Chief of the US forces in France - 12th Army Group.
Montgomery's VII and XXX Corps are attacking on an axis south-east from Caumont. In Operation Bluecoat Le Bény-Bocage, south of Caumont, is liberated virtually undamaged by the British 11th Armoured Division. "Most of Second Army were very tired by now, above all the infantrymen of 15th Scottish, 43rd Wessex and 50th Northumbrian Divisions" (from ‘Overlord’ by Max Hastings, Macmillan 2016 edition).
61st Recce continued its role supporting the 50th (Northumbrian) Division in Operation Bluecoat - according to Eric Brewer, of ‘B’ Squadron’s Assault Troop, on 1st August they had“Recced for the Divisional attack, met stiff opposition 2 miles forward of there” although he started a letter home including "At the present moment I am listening to the radio. I heard Victor Silvester* this morning on music while you work so you can guess I am taking it easy..." (Extracts from Eric Brewer’s diary and letters included by kind permission of Derek Brewer and his family.)
*A popular English bandleader.
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