http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/aug40/f03aug40.htm
Italians invade British Somaliland
Saturday, August 3, 1940 www.onwar.com
In East Africa... The Italians invade British Somaliland. In Abyssinia the Italians have a total force of 350,000 men of whom 70 percent are native troops. The British forces in East Africa, also including many colonial troops, are less than 25,000 men of whom only four battalions are in Somaliland. The Italians allot seven times this force to the invasion along with an overwhelmingly superior artillery contingent. General Nasi is in command. There are three main lines of advance: toward Zeila in the north, Hargeisa in the center and Odweina on the right.
In the English Channel... There are German attacks on shipping.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/03.htm
August 3rd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Bomber Command: 4 Group (Whitley). Bombing - oil refineries at Mannheim and Dusseldorf.
77 Sqn. Eight aircraft to Mannheim. All bombed primary.
78 Sqn. Three aircraft to Dusseldorf. One bombed primary, two bombed Mannheim as alternative. Two force landed on return.
RAF Fighter Command: Weather, cloudy, bright intervals. Luftwaffe attacks shipping by day. At night South Wales, Crewe and Liverpool are bombed.
Losses: Luftwaffe, 4; RAF 0.
Dull weather reduces German Channel activity, nuisance sorties include one by a Ju88 which flew so low by Wembury Cliff searchlight site that gunners fired down upon it. Scotland, Tyneside, Humber, Harwich and Crewe had night raids or mining. Swansea had the heaviest raid with 10 HEs being dropped.
The Icelandic trawler Skutull saved 27 shipwrecked men from the Atos which was torpedoed near Scotland. Among these men was a survivor from the Swedish merchant Tilia Gorthon, which was sunk by U-38 on 20 June.
At 1900, the Rad was stopped with gunfire by UA and the crew had to abandon ship after it was discovered that she carried contraband. At 2015 a coup de grâce was fired that broke the ship in two and caused her to sink within 15 minutes.
Minesweeper HMS Romney launched.
Destroyer HMS Quorn commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Union annexes Lithuania which becomes a Soviet Socialist Republic. (Jack McKillop)
BRITISH SOMALILAND:General de Simone crosses the Ethiopian frontier into British Somaliland with 12 Eritrean battalions and four Blackshirt battalions. He has six battalions in reserve.
On the morning of the invasion he spoke to his motor-cycle troops, “as only a valorous soldier can speak”, according to one present. “Your task is to be the vanguard, an arduous and difficult work which I know you will carry out to your uttermost. Our end is to reach Berbera and reach it we will.”
The British force of five battalions and a camel corps cannot hold out for ever - something of an understatement considering Somaliland’s defence budget of just GBP 900.
JAPAN: Tokyo: Japan protests at the US embargo on aviation fuel exports.
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Livermore launched. (Dave Shirlaw)