British Eighth Army
For the Allied tankers and infantrymen of the American, British, Canadian, and Free French armies battling German Panther and Tiger tanks in Normandy in the summer of 1944, the Sherman tank’s failures were glaringly evident as their own shells bounced off the hulls of the Nazi armor and they were themselves destroyed at a far greater range by the powerful German tanks. Read more
British Eighth Army
The style of leadership practiced in Britain’s Eighth Army during the early years of the Desert War left much to be desired. Read more
British Eighth Army
After the humiliating fall of France in June 1940, two impassioned patriots—a general and an infantry captain—refused to accept defeat and determined, against all odds, to exact retribution from the German invaders. Read more
British Eighth Army
A big challenge faced Maj. Gen. Brian G. Horrocks, an infantryman, when he was cross-posted to take command of the British Army’s 9th Armored Division in March 1942. Read more
British Eighth Army
As the landing craft carrying the invading Allied ground forces of Operation Overlord motored toward the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, they were protected and supported by the largest aerial armada the world has ever seen. Read more
British Eighth Army
Many students of World War II history know General Sir Claude Auchinleck as the Commander-in-Chief Middle East, who, after taking over for General Sir Archibald Wavell in late June 1941, oversaw the fluctuating fate of Britain’s Eighth Army while combating German General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps during Operations Crusader and Gazala. Read more
British Eighth Army
British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery has gone down in history as the victor of El Alamein and the relentless nemesis of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s famed “Desert Fox.” Read more
British Eighth Army
In November 1942, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch, caused a short but intense conflict with French forces loyal to the Vichy regime in power on the European mainland. Read more
British Eighth Army
For the Allied armies in Italy, the final winter of World War II was one of planning, replenishment, and the continuing effort to make existence in a war-ravaged land in the midst of snow and ice as bearable as possible. Read more
British Eighth Army
February 1941 saw the fortunes of war favor the British in the North African wasteland of Cyrenaica (modern Libya). Read more
British Eighth Army
By early 1945, less than a year before General George S. Patton’s mysterious death, Adolf Hitler’s armies were almost exhausted. Read more
British Eighth Army
The first published photo of one of the odd—but highly versatile —frontline vehicles of World War II appeared on the cover of the July 1942 edition of German Propaganda Minister Dr. Read more
British Eighth Army
“They had lost their country but kept their honor,” future British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said of General Wladyslaw Anders and the Polish II Corps, men in the strange position of trying to win the liberation of their homeland by fighting in Italy. Read more
British Eighth Army
The Gustav Line, stretching across Italy at its narrowest part between Gaeta and Ortona, was a formidable system of defenses, some of it in coastal marshes but mainly in mountainous country through which ran fast-flowing rivers. Read more
British Eighth Army
When most people think of the Italian Army in North Africa during World War II, they tend to believe that the average Italian soldier offered little resistance to the Allies before surrendering. Read more
British Eighth Army
Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, was the only operation in World War II in which generals Bernard Montgomery and George S. Read more
