Polish Jews are marched to a local barn, locked inside and subsequently burned to death. July 11 – WWII: United States Army forces make an assault on Piano Lupo, just outside Gela, Sicily. Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army within the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia) peak. July 12 – WWII: Main engagement of the Battle of Prokhorovka – The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw in one of the largest tank battles in military history. July 19 – WWII: Rome is bombed by the Allies, for the first time in the war. July 24 – WWII: Operation Gomorrha: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night; American planes bomb the city by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 42,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings. July 25 – Benito Mussolini, Fascist Prime Minister of Italy since 1922, is arrested after the Grand Council of Fascism withdraws its support. "Il Duce" is replaced by General Pietro Badoglio. August August 1 – Operation Tidal Wave: 177 B-24 Liberator bombers from the U.S. Army Air Force bomb oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania. August 2 – WWII: John F. Kennedy's PT boat PT-109 is run down by Japanese destroyer Amagiri. August 4 – WWII: The aircraft carrier is launched at Newport News, Virginia. August 5 – WWII: United States Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) are 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 – WWII: 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 WWII: 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. The Quadrant Conference begins in Quebec City; Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. August 17 – WWII: The Seventh U.S. Army, under General George S. Patton, meets the Eighth British Army under Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery in Messina, Sicily, completing the Allied invasion of Sicily Operation Hydra: The British Royal Air Force sets out to bomb