On this day...... 8 August

1653: A brief action was fought off the Texel on the evening of 8 August, between the English and Dutch fleets.  The main battle was joined on 10 August after a spell of bad weather.

1758: A Royal Navy squadron under Commodore Howe, and troops under Lieutenant General Thomas Bligh, devastated Cherbourg during a raid.

1915: The Turkish battleship Haireddin Barbarossa was sunk by the submarine HMS E-11 in the Sea of Marmora.

1918: Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig unleashed Rawlinson's Fourth Army, 440,000 strong, and Debeney's French First Army in an assault on the Amiens sector of the Western Front.  The Germans expected the attack to take place further north, and were taken by surprise.  Similar in scale to the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916, it produced quite different results.  Led by over 400 tanks, the thrust broke through the German trenches, and for the first time in the Great War, demoralised German units surrendered wholesale.  General Ludendorff described 8 August as "the black day of the German Army of the war".  Fourth Army included the Cavalry Corps, Australian Corps, Canadian Corps, and III Corps, plus two attached US infantry regiments.  Five Victoria Crosses were won that day:

• Lieutenant Brillant, a French Canadian officer (posthumous)
• Lieutenant Gaby, 28th Australian Battalion (killed in action three days later)
• Corporal Miner, 2nd Central Ontario Regiment (posthumous)
• Corporal Good, Quebec Regiment
• Private Croak, Quebec Regiment (posthumous)

1940: The Luftwaffe launched repeated attacks against a convoy in the English Channel, resulting in three major air actions.  The day's events are recorded on the RAF's Battle of Britain website.

1944: RAF aircraft began long-range supply flights to drop supplies to the Polish Home Army engaged in the Warsaw Uprising.  Polish aircrew flying with the RAF suffered particularly heavy casualties in the attempt, taking appalling risks to try to deliver aid.