August 1: Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploies,ti, Romania.

August 2: John F. Kennedy's Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by a destroyer.

August 4: The aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11) is launched at Newport News, Virginia.

August 5: United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) formed, consolidating the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WFTD). - John F. Kennedy and crew are found by Solomon Islands coastwatchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana with their dugout canoe.

August 6: Battle of Vella Gulf: Americans defeat a Japanese convoy off Kolombangara, as the U.S. Army drives the Japanese out of Munda airfield on New Georgia.

August 14: Rome is declared an open city by the Italian government, with Italy offering to demilitarize the capital in return for an Allied agreement not to bomb the city further.

August 14: The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

August 17: The US 7th Army under General George S. Patton meets the British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery in Messina, Sicily, completing the Allied invasion of Sicily.

August 23: The Battle of Kursk ends with a serious strategic defeat for the German forces.

August 24: Heinrich Himmler is named Reichminister of the Interior in Germany .

August 26: Lord Louis Mountbatten is named Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia.

August 28: King Boris III of Bulgaria dies under suspicious circumstances; his 6-year-old son, Simeon II (who would later be elected in 2001 as Prime Minister Simeon Sakskoburggotski), ascends to the throne.

August 29: Occupation of Denmark - Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities. (source: Wikipedia)