British Eighth Army
Tobruk, the vital Libyan seaport on the coast of Cyrenaica, fell to General Erwin Rommel and his victorious Afrika Korps in less than 24 hours after an unexpected and devastating air, armor, and infantry attack on June 21, 1942. Read more
British Eighth Army
Geijsteren Castle sits north of the Dutch town of Venlo on the banks of the Meuse River. In late 1944, the castle was a strongpoint in the local German defenses and under attack by elements of the British Sixth Guards Tank Brigade. Read more
British Eighth Army
The desert sky lit up like a summer lightning storm on the night of December 31, 1941. The distant thunder of hundreds of guns rolled across the sandy, stony ground. Read more
British Eighth Army
By the evening of January 22, 1944, it was increasingly apparent that a drastic shift in strategy was needed to break the bloody debacle that had developed in central Italy. Read more
British Eighth Army
On the morning of September 13, 1943, Col. Gen. Heinrich G. von Vietinghoff, commander of the German Tenth Army, faced a difficult decision. Read more
British Eighth Army
I was born in Los Angeles in 1924 and attended local schools. In high school I enrolled in ROTC and, when I could, I went skiing for fun. Read more
British Eighth Army
Bradley could have been referring to German General Erwin Rommel. While Rommel was winning the war of desert armor tactics during 1941-1942 in the North African Campaign, he was losing the war of logistics. Read more
British Eighth Army
It was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more
British Eighth Army
An army that will be poised for victory requires élan, military intellect, a penchant for tactical and strategic innovation, and the zeal to use the most qualified individuals for training and leadership. Read more
British Eighth Army
The term “United Nations” was in large part derived from the large number of nations that joined in common cause between 1939 and 1945 to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy during World War II. Read more
British Eighth Army
‘‘As I floated down, the whole dropping zone seemed to be on fire; tracer bullets had set the tinder-dry stubble alight. Read more
British Eighth Army
The Ninth Air Force began life on August 21, 1941, as the 5th Air Support Command at Bowman Field, Kentucky, and was activated on September 1, 1941. Read more
British Eighth Army
In September 1942, two patrols of armed jeeps and trucks of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) raided the German airfield at Barce. Read more
British Eighth Army
As the last days of 1943 slipped away, World War II in Italy ground to a miserable stalemate. Read more
British Eighth Army
An old cliché admonishes, “Bad things always come in threes.” Whether it was thought of as a law of nature or merely coincidence, a rapid succession of events in North Africa during the summer of 1942 seemed to confirm this widely held notion among the officers and men of the British Eighth Army. Read more
British Eighth Army
By the autumn of 1943, the Allied armies fighting in Italy had discovered that Winston Churchill’s description of Italy as the “soft underbelly of Europe” had been a falsehood of monumental proportions. Read more
British Eighth Army
When one gazes upon the bookshelves in the Military History section of a well-endowed library, one cannot help but notice the number of volumes dedicated to the battles for North Africa during World War II and particularly to the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Read more
British Eighth Army
After his heady series of victories in the spring and early summer of 1940, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was in for a frustrating six months. Read more
British Eighth Army
By early April 1941, Lt. Gen. Erwin Rommel’s German Afrika Korps, combined with Italian units, had cleared the British from Libya except for the seaport of Tobruk. Read more
British Eighth Army
In the early morning hours of March 23, 1943, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division was preparing to attack. Read more
