The European Theater of Operations (ETO) during World War II is generally regarded as the area of military confrontation between the Allied powers and Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The European Theater encompassed the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Eastern Front, Western Front, and Arctic areas of operation.
European Theater
The Normandy landings, the fighting at St. Lô and Caen, Operations Goodwood and Cobra, and the subsequent Argentan-Falaise Pocket have always drawn major attention from historians, with respect to the early struggle for supremacy in France. Read more
European Theater
The Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter plane dove out of the sky with machine guns firing. The pilot’s target—a pontoon bridge being stretched across Germany’s Werra River by American engineers. Read more
European Theater
Paratrooper Lt. Col. Bill Yarborough was flying into hell. As he prepared to jump from a Douglas C-47 transport plane then approaching the coast of Sicily, hundreds of American antiaircraft gunners below started shooting at him. Read more
European Theater
For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more
European Theater
“We went to London in ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer and pick up our U.S. Read more
European Theater
Q: Could you give us a little personal background before we talk about your war experiences?
SIMS: I was born on April 29, 1925, at Sheffield in Yorkshire. Read more
European Theater
By Michael E. Haskew
The monotonous rattle and snap of the film projector provided a steady accompaniment to the images flickering across the screen in the darkened room. Read more
European Theater
It was the evening of Monday, June 5, 1944, and an armada of almost 5,000 ships stood off the southern coast of England, primed and ready for the greatest amphibious invasion in history. Read more
European Theater
By summer’s end 1944 Adolf Hitler, along with much of his staff, began to realize that Germany was in serious danger of losing the war. Read more
European Theater
The popular conception of the struggle in the air over northern Europe during World War II is of squadrons of sleek fighters racing over the German heartland to protect contrailed streams of lumbering bombers stretching beyond sight. Read more
European Theater
Through the long, lovely days of the summer of 1940, almost two years before Operation Biting or the “Bruneval Raid,” Royal Air Force Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes turned back the might of the Luftwaffe over southern and southeastern Britain. Read more
European Theater
In early 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England firmly entrenched in the belief that continuous and accurate daylight precision bombing was the only way to decisively crush German industrial capacity. Read more
European Theater
During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more
European Theater
Wednesday, December 27, 1944, found the military situation in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium stalemated. After 12 days of unrelenting struggle, the American and German forces on this part of the Western Front found themselves locked in brutal combat, unable to drive each other back. Read more
European Theater
Operation Anvil, the invasion of southern France, was originally planned for June 1944, the same time as the Normandy invasion. Read more
European Theater
In the hut no one spoke, no one joked. The assembled British and Canadian paratroop commanders awaited the briefing from their brigade commander on their next major operation. Read more
European Theater
He could be described as reckless, impulsive, undisciplined, lucky, fearless, and also as one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of the U.S. Read more
European Theater
Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more
European Theater
Walter Cronkite is the acknowledged dean of American journalists, an icon whose distinguished career spanned 60 years. Cronkite is best known as the anchorman and managing editor of The CBS Evening News, a position he occupied from 1962 to 1981. Read more
European Theater
In the early 1970s, a former British Royal Air Force policeman–turned-hairdresser, Ken Small, visited South Devon on England’s Channel coast. Read more
