Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Sunday, August 1, 1943. Operation Tidal Wave, Murder of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Airborne accidents and losses.

Operation Tidal Wave, the low level U.S. Army Air Force bombing of Polesti with B-24s took place.


The raid involved 177 B-24s, of which 54 were lost.  Oil production from Romania, Germany's largest supplier, was temporarily halted but would ultimately be restored.

Germany scored an inscription success with the raid as it was able to decipher Allied radio traffic regarding it and that the planes would fly from Libya.

The Gestapo executed a party of eleven nuns of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a Polish Roman Catholic community, at Navahrudak, Poland, which is now in Belarus.  The Sisters had offered their lives in exchange for those of Polish prisoners, and were executed in defiance of their offer.  They have been declared Blessed by the Catholic Church for their martyrdom.

Japan affected to grant independence to Burma, while in actuality governing it.

Race riots broke out in Harlem due to a white NYPD police officer shooting and wounding Pvt. Robert Bandy during a fight.  Rumors spread that he had been killed, and the riots ensued.  The riots would result in the death of six African American New Yorkers.

William D. Becker, the Mayor of St. Louis, died in a Waco glider accident.  He was a passenger in the military glider, whose wings buckled in flight.

Military gliders of the era were frightenly dangerous, and I can't imagine riding on one voluntarily, let alone as part of a demonstration.  Maj. William B. Robertson, President of the Robertson Aircraft Corporation, which built the gilder, also died in the crash.

Soviet pilot Lydia Litvyak, who had scored eleven areal victories against the Luftwaffe, was shot down and killed in the Battle of Kursk.

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