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• Operation Goodwood III: British carrier aircraft (33 Barracuda dive bombers, 10 Hellcat fighters, 5 Corsair fighters, 29 other fighters) from HMS Indefatigable, Furious, and Formidable attacked German battleship Tirpitz, scoring 2 hits. ww2dbase [Tirpitz | CPC]
• Aircraft of No. 466 Squadron RAAF conducted minelaying operations off of Helgoland, Germany. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Germans evacuated Bordeaux, France and took up fortified positions on the Gironde River outside the city. ww2dbase [TH]
• Six members of a Liberator bomber crew shot down near Hanover, Germany were beaten to death by a mob of German civilians led by sisters Margarethe Witzler and Kathe Reinhardt. One of the victims, left for dead in the pile of battered bodies, survived to tell the tale. In Aug 1945, seven of the mob, including the sisters, were sentenced to hang by a US military commission. ww2dbase [AC]
• Allied forces liberated Cannes in southern France. ww2dbase [Invasion of Southern France | AC]
• Distrustful of the Army, Adolf Hitler ordered construction of a new Westwall under Nazi Party supervision. ww2dbase [CPC]
• Soviet troops captured Kishinev, Moldova. ww2dbase [CPC]
• USS Pollack attacked a Japanese freighter with three torpedoes in the Pacific Ocean; all torpedoes missed. ww2dbase [Pollack | CPC]
• Louis Mountbatten arrived in Colombo, Ceylon. ww2dbase [Louis Mountbatten | CPC]

• USS Marcus Island arrived at Tulagi, Solomon Islands. ww2dbase [Marcus Island | Tulagi | CPC]
• USS Columbia arrived in the Solomon Islands. ww2dbase [Columbia | CPC]

• In Burma, Major-General Frederick J. Loftus-Tottenham took command of the 81st (West African) Division in the Kaladan valley and found it seriously short of non-commissioned officers since no British reinforcements had arrived; he therefore resorted to promoting Africans, who proved to be entirely satisfactory. ww2dbase [AC]

• Zang Xilan, flying a P-40N fighter, led 13 other P-40N fighters from Enshi Airfield in Hubei Province, China to strafe river traffic on the Yangtze River. He shot down two Japanese aircraft and destroyed several small boats. ww2dbase [Zang Xilan | Enshi, Hubei | CPC]

• Italian 10th MAS Flotilla's "Mataluno Column" was relocated from Sesto Calende, Italy to Villefranche-sur-Mer, France. Operations began on the same day. ww2dbase [Villefranche-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | CPC]

• Princess Mafalda of the House of Savoy, wife if Prince Philipp of the House of Hesse, was seriously injured by Allied bombing at Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany, where she was imprisoned. ww2dbase [Buchenwald Concentration Camp | Weimar | CPC]

• USS Whale departed Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii for her ninth war patrol. ww2dbase [Pearl Harbor Navy Base and Ford Island Naval Air Station | Whale | Pearl Harbor, Oahu | CPC]

• Escort carrier USS Bogue and her task group arrived at Argentia, Newfoundland. ww2dbase [Bogue | Argentia | DS]

• Submarines USS Harder and USS Hake attacked two Japanese destroyers off Dasol Bay, Luzon, Philippine Islands, but was in turn subjected to a heavy depth charge attack. USS Harder was sunk with all hands lost. ww2dbase [Harder | South China Sea | AC, CPC]

• The Romanian Royal Guards blocked the German attempt to occupy Bucharest as Romania declared war on Germany. German Luftwaffe responded by bombing the Royal Palace. ww2dbase [Jassy-Kishinev Offensive and Romania's Surrender | Bucharest | AC]

• A heavy anti-aircraft gun position in Annerley Road, Penge, London, England, United Kingdom took a direct hit from a V-1 flying bomb, killing all 7 of the gun crew. The anti-aircraft guns along the coast had another good day thanks to their proximity fuzed shells taking account of over 65 flying bombs, many before they reached the mainland. The spectacle of seeing the bombs get hit and explode had become somewhat of a daily routine along the coast, many of the impact sites were visited by curious boys on their cycles before any home guard unit got to them. Parts of the bombs were being collected as trophies, a spark plug being the big prize. ww2dbase [V-Weapons Campaign | Vergeltungswaffe 1 | VT Radio Proximity | London, England | HM]

• 4145th Army Air Force Base Unit was named the operating unit of Alamogordo Army Air Field near Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States. ww2dbase [Alamogordo Army Air Field | Alamogordo, New Mexico | CPC]

24 Aug 1944 Interactive Map