European Theater
Staff Sergeant Audie Murphy advanced inland from the beaches of southern France with his rifle platoon until, near the small town of Ramatuelle, intense machine-gun and small-arms fire from a boulder covered hill forced them to hit the dirt. Read more
European Theater
Snow and biting cold covered American foxholes in the Vosges and the Alsace plain as GI wristwatches ticked down the last hours of December 31, 1944, awaiting the German attack. Read more
European Theater
During the last days of the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath of World War II in Europe, the Allied hunt for the high-ranking Nazis closest to the Führer was vigorous. Read more
European Theater
Around noon on June 6, 1944, a German soldier wielding a machine gun burst into a small church six miles from Utah Beach in Normandy, France, ignoring the Red Cross flag hanging from the door. Read more
European Theater
Not long after they landed at Normandy in July 1944, Pennsylvania’s 28th Infantry Division earned a begrudging nickname from their German foes in the hedgerows—the “Bloody Bucket Division,” after their blood-red “Keystone” shoulder patches and vicious fighting tactics. Read more
European Theater
The 1944 invasion of France, the breakout from the beaches, the surprise German counterattack in the Ardennes, and the final reckoning with the Third Reich have all been exhaustively chronicled. Read more
European Theater
I am riding a borrowed bike along the Rhine, passing the Schaum-Hof, where last night I dined on a deck overlooking the river with a stately Dutch lady friend of a friend. Read more
European Theater
As French resistance to the Nazis collapsed following the lightning invasion of May 10, 1940, General Charles de Gaulle chose exile in Great Britain, cloaking himself in the mantle of guardian of his nation’s honor. Read more
European Theater
After years of obscurity, the untold story of the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion will captivate audiences worldwide with the release of the feature film The Six Triple Eight. Read more
European Theater
By the time of the waning of the summer of 1944 in western Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s victorious Allied armies had forged a battle line from the Dutch province of Maastricht in the north to Belfort near the Swiss border in the south. Read more
European Theater
When Hollywood’s Tyler Perry heard a story about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the U.S. Army’s only all-female, all-Black unit of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) to go overseas in World War II, he knew he had to make a movie about it. Read more
European Theater
Men of the Medical Detachment of the 2nd Battalion, 274th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division, arrived in France in December 1944, and within days found themselves in action in Alsace-Lorraine as the unit was sent to help blunt the German offensive—Operation Nordwind. Read more
European Theater
Allied forces had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula since landing at Salerno on September 9, 1943. Read more
European Theater
Four miles above the snow-covered city of Steyr, Captain Jack Horner peered down through his Norden bombsight in a desperate attempt to identify the target. Read more
European Theater
In most people’s mind the Iron Cross is inescapably linked to the Third Reich. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was responsible for adding a “marching swastika” front and center, to the decoration’s black core in 1939. Read more
European Theater
The island of Sicily, lying in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia and the toe of the Italian peninsula, is no stranger to war and conquest. Read more
European Theater
It’s called Mein Skizzenbuch (My Sketchbook)—a 72-page booklet of pencil drawings and watercolors by noted German war artist Ernst Eigener, a soldier with Propaganda Co. Read more
European Theater
Lieutenant Jimmie Monteith, Company L, 16th Infantry Regiment, arrived off Omaha Beach with the first assault wave, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Read more
European Theater
Vice Admiral Norman Denning said of Ian Fleming, the “ideas man” who worked at British Naval Intelligence, that a lot of his proposals “were just plain crazy.” Read more
European Theater
“I say, better wake up.”
Red Tobin opened one eye, rolled over, and found his squadron mate, Pilot Officer John Dundas, shaking him by the shoulder and staring into his face. Read more
Military History