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http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/03.htm

August 3rd, 1941

GERMANY: In his Sunday sermon today the Bishop of Munster, Clemens August Graf, courageously spoke out against the Nazi murders of the sick and the old. He said: “It is a terrible doctrine which seeks to justify the murder of innocent people and which allows the violent killing of invalids, cripples, the incurably ill, the old and the weak who are no longer able to work ... once the principle that it is permissible to kill “unproductive” humans has been admitted and applied then we must all pity ourselves when we, too, grow old and weak.”

FINLAND: After three days’ intense fighting the divisions of Maj. Gen. Laatikainen’s II Corps break through Soviet defences in southern Karelia. (Mikko Härmeinen).

LATVIA: Jelgavia: SS Einsatz-Kommandos under Lieutenant Hamann murder 1,550 Jews.

U.S.S.R.: A German encircling movement closes on Russian forces near Pervomaysk on the Bug.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Maplin, a fighter catapult ship, scores her first success when a Hurricane launched from her deck shoots down a Focke-Wulf Condor.

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Quinte launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: US President Franklin D Roosevelt travels from Washington, DC to the Naval Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut by train. In the evening, he boards the presidential yacht USS Potomac (AG-25) and, accompanied by the tender USS Calypso (AG-35), sets sail to Point Judith, Rhode Island, where the ships anchor for the night. (Jack McKillop)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: The German submarine U-401 is sunk southwest of Ireland, in position 50.27N, 19.50W, by depth charges from the RN’s destroyer HMS Wanderer and corvette HMS Hydrangea and the Norwegian destroyer HMS St. Albans (I-15) (formerly USS THOMAS (DD-182)). All hands on the U-boat, 45 men, are lost. (Jack McKillop and Rom Babuka)