Today In History

5,000 Canadian troops, 1,000 British Commandos, 50 US Rangers, and 58 British Churchill tanks landed at Dieppe, France at 0500 hours in Operation Jubilee via 9 landing ships, covered by 8 destroyers, many smaller warships, and many aircraft. British and Americans were successful in destroying a German battery near Varengeville, but British and Canadian troops on a nearby beach were pinned down, suffering 1,179 killed before the mission's end. As German aircraft counterattacked, British destroyer HMS Berkeley and several smaller ships were sunk. The operation was called off by 1100 hours in dismal failure. 2,190 Allied troops were captured along with all of the tanks and heavy equipment. The British RAF lost 106 aircraft. The Germans suffered only 311 killed and 48 aircraft shot down in the defense.



At Dieppe, France, Corporal Franklin Koons, 1st Ranger Battalion, becomes the first US infantryman to kill a German soldier in combat during WW2; at nearby Berneval, Lieutenant Edwin.D. Loustalot, 1st Ranger Battalion became the first Ranger and US infantry officer to be killed in action in Europe during WW2 as he fell while leading a charge against an enemy gun post.

Despite being wounded three times, Captain Pat Porteous, liaison officer with British No. 4 Commando, led a text book bayonet charge through a hail of machine-gun fire to eliminate (with deadly hand-to-hand combat) the Varengeville-sur-Mer battery in France which threatened the safety of the ships laying off the coast 0f Dieppe. For this gallant action, Captain Porteous would be awarded the Victoria Cross.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" speech in the House of Commons in London, England, United Kingdom.

Adolf Hitler directed the transfer of units away from the Moscow, Russia area in order to bolster the siege on Leningrad (aiming for the linking up with Finnish forces) and the battles in Ukraine (aiming for the oil fields in the Caucasus region).

Japanese submarine I-30 departed Lorient, France with 50 T-Enigma coding machines (which would enable communications between Japanese Navy and German Navy), blueprint of air-defense radar, 5 G7a torpedoes, and 3 G7e electric torpedoes, and other technologies on board.

In Bucharest, Romania, King Mihai I removed Marshal Ion Antonescu from power and began to publicly engage the Soviet Union diplomatically. To the northeast, Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front and 3rd Ukrainian Front encircled German 6th Army.

Adolf Hitler ordered the end of the euthanasia program that had already killed 70,273 mentally-ill people. Some doctors would continue to kill the mentally-ill through the end of the European War.