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August 8th, 1940

UNITED KINGDOM: Battle of Britain:
RAF Fighter Command: Weather, cloudy, bright intervals.

Heavy Luftwaffe attacks on Channel convoy CW9 (codenamed Peewit) comprising 29 ships plus naval escort (the first Westbound since 25 July) off Dover and the Isle of Wight. Heaviest air fighting so far, involving 150+ aircraft. Ju87s prove very vulnerable. German shore radar detects the convoy and E-boats attack it in the Dover Straits sinking two coasters (Holme Force and Fife Coast) and damaging others.

Off Portland the Sister CE9 Channel convoy was proceeding easterly when at 06:39 two of its balloons were shot down. At 08:30 Ju 87s escorted by JG 27 and LG 1 attacked from the direction of Cherbourg. British radar detected them and five 11 Group squadrons and one from 10 Group were sent up to tackle the raiders. Between 08:49 and 09:43 two assaults each of 100-plus raiders attacked the convoy (15 miles west of the Isle of Wight), which lost SS Conquerdale and SS Empire Crusader. By the end of the engagement RAF fighters could accurately claim five of the enemy and St. Catherine’s Point gunners another two.

At about 12:48 the second assault on CW8 developed, just east of the Isle of Wight delivered by 60 Ju 87s of three Stuka Geschwaderen - Nos. 2, 3 and 77. After disposing of the balloon cover the Stukas dive-bombed and scattered the ships. but Hurricanes of Nos. 43, 145, 238 and 257 Squadrons and Spitfires of 609 Squadron - over 50 fighters - arrived. Sqn. Ldr J.A. Peel of No. 145 Squadron fires the first shots of this the first official day of the Battle of Britain. Three Stukas were shot down and four damaged along with an escorting Bf110 of V/LG 1 and three Bf109s, three more ‘110s and a ‘109 were damaged.
RAF lost three pilots and their Hurricanes.

Late afternoon saw another Stuka raid on the now re-organised convoy. Seven Squadrons of Hurricanes met them. At least two more Stuka’s and two ‘109s were shot down by 145 and 43 Sqn. shot down the Gruppenkommandeur of II/JG 27.

At night Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham (for the first time) are bombed. Midlothian and Truro suffer heavy raids.

Two misplaced parachute sea mines exploded near Stannington Sanatorium near Plessy Viaduct, four miles south of Morpeth (Co. Durham) bringing down the boiler house roof and blasting the hospital.

Losses: Luftwaffe 31; RAF 20.

Minesweeping trawler HMS Horatio launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

INDIA: The so-called Linlithgow offer is made. It states that Dominion status for India was the objective of the British government but refer to neither date nor method of accomplishment.
Viceroy Linlithgow had gone so far as to recommend that Dominion status be granted a year after the end of the year. This has been blocked by the implacable enemy of Indian independence, Winston Churchill.

U.S.A.: The motion picture “Pride and Prejudice” opens at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, this drama, based on the Jane Austen novel, stars Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford and Marsha Hunt. (Jack McKillop)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-37 sinks SS Upwey Grange.