European Theater

European Theater

D-Day Casualties: Operation Overlord by the Numbers

The largest amphibious invasion in history began on the night of June 5-6, with the roar of C-47 engines preparing to take off , and climaxed on the beaches of Normandy. Read more

European Theater

The WW2 Paratrooper: First-Hand Accounts of the D-Day Invasion

What was it like to be a WW2 paratrooper, parachuting into Normandy in the opening minutes of June 6, 1944—D-Day? Read more

European Theater

Raid on St. Nazaire

The British flotilla moved with determination into the Loire estuary after midnight on May 28, 1942. Read more

European Theater

Battle of Hurtgen Forest: Hell in a Dark Wood

At the town of Schmidt in the Hürtgen Forest, it was hard to see through the thick mist and steady drizzle on the cold and damp morning of Saturday, November 4, 1944. Read more

European Theater

Armored in Lorraine: Battle of Arracourt

Scouts for the U.S. Third Army on foot and in armored vehicles cautiously approached the town of Luneville on the east side of the Moselle River in the rolling hills of north- eastern France on September 15, 1944. Read more

European Theater

Captured! Belgium’s Mighty Fort Eben-Emael

At 4:25am in the predawn darkness of May 10, 1940, nine German gliders silently skidded to a stop on the hilltop of the most heavily defended fortress in Europe, disgorging 71 highly trained German Fallschirmjäger. Read more

European Theater

Battle of Metz: Patton’s Bloody Fortress Battle

Lieutenant General George Patton’s Third Army had come a long way since it was activated on August 1 in Normandy. Read more

European Theater

The Imperial War Museum

Although Britain has a number of war museums, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is acknowledged as the Holy Grail of them all—the one you must visit when in London. Read more

European Theater

New Years Battle at Ludweiler: Delaying Operation Nordwind

“Lieutenant Rochester, take a look at this.”

The American patrol halted next to an abandoned industrial building. Read more

European Theater

Operation Varsity: Flying Gliders Across the Rhine

March 24, 1945. The green light flashed from the C-47 tug plane, prompting the glider pilot being pulled behind it to release his tow rope over Landing Zone N, just east of the Rhine River. Read more

European Theater

Herrlisheim: What Became of the 12th Armored Division’s Lost Battalion

On January 17, 1945, as Allied forces prepared to descend on Germany itself and put an end to the war in Europe, an American tank battalion disappeared. Read more

European Theater

Why America Participated in the Allied Bombing of France in WWII

By any standard, the ancient city of Rouen, in Upper Normandy, is a historical treasure. Within its magnificent High Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral (which was portrayed in a famous series of paintings by the Impressionist Claude Monet as well as by his contemporary Camille Pissarro) is a tomb containing the heart of Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) who had been King of England and the Duke of Normandy. Read more

European Theater

How To Make a Fake Tank

Deception is a vital tool in war. During World War II, the British developed a dummy tank to fool enemy surveillance planes into thinking they had more tanks than they needed, were strong where they were weak, and were preparing to attack where they were not. Read more

European Theater

A Good Samaritan

The iconic photograph the Blinded Soldier, New Guinea taken on Christmas Day 1942, reveals a wounded and barefoot Australian soldier, Private George “Dick” Whittington of the 2/10th Battalion, being led down a path through a surrounding field of tall kunai grass to an Allied field hospital at Dobodura in Papua, the eastern third of the world’s second largest island, New Guinea. Read more

European Theater

Before the Battle of the Bulge: Forming the 551st “GOYAs”

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

Could an M4 Sherman Tank Even Survive Against a German Panther?

The German Panzer-kampf-wagen V (Panther) tank was superior to the American M4 Sherman in almost every respect, but it could not guarantee victory at every encounter. Read more

European Theater

The Trampled Swastika

On April 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Reich Chancellor and Führer of Germany, emerged from his underground bunker in the center of Berlin. Read more

European Theater

Smashing Hitler’s Atlantic Wall

After overrunning France and other Western European countries in 1940, Adolf Hitler was certain that the Allies would one day attempt to invade the European continent and attack through the occupied countries to destroy his regime. Read more

European Theater

Waves of Murderous Assault: The Battle of Britain

Gerald “Zulu” Lewis peered from his Hurricane and spotted 20 German Bf-110s circling with a heavy escort of fast and deadly Bf-109 fighters over Redhill, south of London. Read more

European Theater

Hobart’s Funnies

The elite German paratroopers, who were some of the finest fighters in the service of the Third Reich, believed they were exceptionally well prepared to defend the deep water port of Brest on France’s Brittany coast against an impending attack by the Allies. Read more