http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/23.htm
August 23rd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Battle of Britain:
RAF Fighter Command: Little activity due to cloudy, showery weather.
Night attacks on Bristol, South Wales (Cardiff).
Some Luftwaffe bombers drop their bombs on London when they are unable to find their targets. The attack is unintentional, and against explicit instructions of the German high command. (Jack McKillop)
Manston received 30 more bombs at 01:25 and three Ju88s attacked Thorney Island.
Other incidents involved the Scillies, where 15 HEs fell on and around the radio station. At Colchester there were 40 casualties and Cromer, Harwich, Maidstone, Portsmouth and Tangmere were all bombed.
Losses: Luftwaffe, 2; RAF, 0.
U-37 sinks SS Keret and SS Severn Leigh. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
Berlin: The propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, worried by recent British successes, orders that ridicule of the English way of life must stop and the enemy’s fighting spirit be stressed instead.
NBBS reports that the shelling of Dover by long-range artillery from the French coast indicates a German intention to land in that area.
ROMANIA: A DC-3-227 of the Romanian airline LARES (Linile Aeriene Romane Exploatate cu Statul) crashes at Cluj; all 21 on the aircraft are killed. (Jack McKillop)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA:
Heavy mining in the Strait of Sicily by Italian surface ships leads to the loss of destroyer HMS Hostile on passage from Malta to Gibraltar 18 miles SE of Cape Bon, Tunisia at 36 53N, 11 19E in what was previously thought to have been a safe area. She is eventually scuttled and sunk by torpedo from HMS Hero after her crew has been transferred. Extensive Italian fields in the ‘Sicilian Narrows’ sink and damage many RN ships over the next three years. (Alex Gordon)(108)
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Edmunston laid down Esquimalt, British Columbia. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: From the “Christian Science Monitor”, Pg. 7: “U.S. Builds Biggest Bomber And Fastest Combat Plane”
General Arnold displayed the world’s fastest military airplane—the Lockheed interceptor— to William S. Knudsen, Chairman of the National defence Advisory Committee, and told for the first time its performance figures.
Its speed. General Arnold said. Is 460 miles an hour at two-thirds throttle, but it is stepped up past 500 miles per hour when “wide open.”
Its range is 1,100 miles; rate of climb 4,000 feet a minute; armament, one rapid fire cannon, shooting a one-pound shell, and four machine guns.
(Will O’Neil)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 358 August 23, 1940
Battle of Britain Day 45. Another very quiet day. Following yesterday’s gale, cloudy weather and showers prevent large German raids. British aircrews rest and recuperate, while airfields are repaired. German reconnaissance missions are flown over the Channel and single aircraft attack South coast towns in Devon and Hampshire and towns in the Midlands. Off the East coast of Scotland, Heinkel He115 torpedo bombers sink 2 merchant ships and damage another. Again, there is widespread bombing of British towns overnight. 3 German bombers are shot down (1 by antiaircraft fire) but the RAF loses no fighters. Notably, since the big raid of 15 August, RAF has added 85 fighters (20 Spitfires and 65 Hurricanes).
At 3.17 AM, British destroyer HMS Hostile hits a mine which breaks her back 18 miles off Cape Bon, Tunisia (5 killed, 3 wounded). The survivors are taken off by destroyers HMS Hero & Mohawk and landed at Malta. Hostile is sunk by torpedoes from HMS Hero. http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-27H-Hostile.htm
Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, Australian destroyer HMAS Stuart and British destroyers HMS Diamond, Ilex & Juno shell the Italian seaplane base at Bomba, Libya.
U-37 torpedoes 2 steamers in the Atlantic 500 miles West of Ireland; at 2.22 AM, Norwegian SS Keret (13 killed, 7 survivors in a lifeboat and a raft are picked up next day by British steamer Trident and taken to Sydney, Nova Scotia) and at 12.50 PM, British SS Severn Leigh (crew abandons ship in 4 lifeboats. U-37 shells Severn Leigh to silence her radio sinking 2 lifeboats, killing 32 crew and 1 gunner. 10 survivors safely reach Outer Hebrides, Scotland, on 5 September). http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/473.html