http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/08.htm
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.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 343 August 8, 1940
Battle of Britain Day 30. Germans launch continuous attacks on a large convoy (CW9 codenamed Peewit) of 25 merchant ships with Royal Navy escorts moving through the Straits of Dover and heading West to the Atlantic Ocean. Torpedo boats attack before dawn, sinking British steamers Ouse, Holme Force (6 dead) and Fife Coast (5 dead). 300 Stukas escorted by 150 Messerschmitts fight a running battle with RAF fighters as Peewit moves through the English Channel. Dutch steamer Ajax (4 dead) & British steamers Coquetdale and Empire Crusader (5 dead) are sunk. Luftwaffe loses 17 Stukas, 26 Bf109’s and 9 Bf110’s. RAF loses 13 Hurricanes, 4 Spitfires and a Blenheim. http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/august8.html
East Africa. General Archibald Wavell (British Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command), based in Cairo, finally sends regular British Army troops (2nd Battalion of the Black Watch, Royal Highlanders) to British Somaliland, realizing the desperate situation. It is too little, too late. Italians bomb Berbera.
At 1.14 AM, U-37 sinks British MV Upwey Grange (5380 tons of frozen beef from Argentina to Britain) 200 miles West of Ireland. The crew and passengers take to the lifeboats but 1 boats is never seen again (33 crew, 3 passengers lost). 42 crew and 8 passengers are picked up after three days by the British trawler Naniwa 50 miles from the coast, transferred to destroyer HMS Vanquisher and landed at Liverpool. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/455.html
Operation Tube. Another British submarine HMS Proteus reaches Malta from Gibraltar with spares for the newly-arrived Hurricanes.
German armed merchant cruiser Widder sinks Dutch collier Oostplein carrying 5,850 tons of coal from Britain to Buenos Aires (all 34 crew rescued by Widder).