August 8, 1916
The Portuguese government announces increased military support for the Allied cause.
British attack on Guillemont is lacking artillery support. Advancing British troops are met with extremely accurate German artillery and then devastating machine-gun fire. The Liverpool Scottish Batallion loses ten of its twenty officers and ninety-six out of six hundred men. After dark Captain Noel Chavasse, batallion medical officer, carries out a mission to collect ID discs, reducing the number listed as missing, and to rescue wounded soldiers. Chavasse recovers several of the wounded, including three lying only twenty-five yards from German trenches. He is using his electric torch and calling out to any British soldier, and is wounded in the thigh for his efforts. For this Chavasse is awarded the Victoria Cross.
Air War:
0830 Austrian ace observer Johann Frint, riding with pilot Ernst Franz in Hansa-Brandenburg C.I 26.15, shoots down a Nieuport for victory number 6. Number 1 for Franz.
1030 German pilot Kurt Student, in a Fokker E.III, shoots down French Nieuport 12. Lt Hubert de Fels crash-lands safely behind his own lines. Observer SLt Emile Deviterne slightly wounded.
1200 English pilot Henry Evans, in DH.2 7878, shoots down a Roland C.II for victory number 4.
German pilot
Walter von Bülow-Bothkamp, in a two-seater, shoots down an "Enemy Aircraft" for victory number 3.
French pilot Marcel Burguin, in a single-seat Nieuport, shoots down a Fokker E.III for victory number 1. Lt. Benno Berneis is killed when the eindecker catches fire.
North Sea:
Norwegian coaster SS T
hore Hafte, 353 tons, travelling from Stettin, Germany to Haugesund, Norway, is sunk by a mine with the loss of 1 crew member.
Gulf of Lyon:
Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, commanding U-35, sinks two more Allied ships:
0500 Italian barque
Speme, 1,229 tons.
1600 British freighter SS
Imperial, 3,818 tons, travelling in ballast from Marseille to Montreal.
Von Arnauld's score is now 72 ships and 157,623 tons.
Caribbean Sea:
American schooner
Jessie, 131 tons, carrying a load of logwood from Jacmel, Haite to New York, is wrecked off Cape Maisí, Cuba.
Atlantic Ocean:
British full-rigged sailing ship
Langdale, 2,047 tons, bound from Portland, Oregon for the Azores with a load of flour, is wrecked off São Miguel Island (aka St. Michaels) in the Azores.
(Another version has this as French ship
Langlade, on her way to France. Both from Wrecksite.eu.)
Note:
UB-44, previously noted here as disappearing on or after August 4th, as per U-boat.net. According to Wikipedia German records have
UB-44 departing Cattaro on August 8th, and possibly sunk by British torpedo boat
HMS 368, as reported by a newspaper in Athens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_UB-44