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)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 338 August 3, 1940
Battle of Britain Day 25. Typical British weather comes to the rescue. Widespread fog in the morning and heavy low cloud in the afternoon covers most of Southern England and the Midlands. There are a few German raids on shipping. Overnight, Luftwaffe bombs Bradford, Liverpool, Crewe (Northern England) and the Firth of Forth Scotland.
At 8.10 AM North of Ireland, U-57 sinks Swedish steamer Atos (1 dead, 21 crew and 6 passengers picked up by Icelandic trawler Skutull). 1 passenger is a sailor from Swedish steamer Tilia Gorthon (sunk by U-38 on 20 June) being repatriated from Liverpool to Sweden.
At 7 PM 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, West Africa, UA stops Yugoslavian steamer Rad with gunfire and discovers she is carrying chemicals from USA to Durban, South Africa. The crew takes to the lifeboats and UA sinks Rad at 8.15 with a torpedo. All 29 crew are picked up by British steamer Grodno and landed at Freetown, Sierra Leone. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/448.html
British Somaliland on the East coast of Africa is surrounded by Italian colonies (Italian Somaliland, Ethiopia and Eritrea) and is a tempting target for Mussolini to win an early victory against the British. It is lightly held by about 4,000 colonial soldiers under Brigadier Arthur Reginald Chater, including the Somaliland Camel Corps, with little artillery and no tanks, armoured cars or anti-tank weapons. In the early hours, 25,000 Italian troops commanded by General Guglielmo Nasi (with armoured vehicles including some tanks, artillery and air support) attack British Somaliland from Ethiopia.