European Theater

European Theater

Normandy’s Little Victims

War spared no one. As modern armies clashed in France’s Normandy countryside, French civilians found themselves in the crossfire or on the receiving end of bombs and heavy weapons. Read more

European Theater

Greeting the Liberators: The Civilians of Normandy

The Germans were gone. After more than four years of occupation, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht had been evicted from France’s Normandy region by the American and British armies. Read more

European Theater

The 12th Army Group Gets Going

By Steve Ossad

A few months after the Normandy campaign and with other fronts competing for the American public’s attention, Lt. Read more

European Theater

Failure of Hitler’s Terror Weapons

During any war, combating countries predictably issue reports andcreate publicity more favorable to their own side. Often the difference is subtle, but sometimes it is profound. Read more

European Theater

Who Fired Terry Allen and Ted Roosevelt, Jr., the best Combat Generals?

During World War II, Terry de la Mesa Allen and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,were ”relieved” during a victorious campaign. Read more

European Theater

The Race to Liberate Paris

Flying a tortuous route from North Africa tothe French coast of Normandy via Casablanca and Gibraltar, an unarmed Lockheed Lodestar of the Free French Air Force broke through cloud cover over the English Channel on the morning of Sunday, August 20, 1944. Read more

European Theater

D-Day’s Concrete Fleet: Making the Mulberry Harbors

No Allied amphibious invasion in World War II left such a bitter legacy as Operation Jubilee, the ill-fated British-Canadian raid on the northern French port of Dieppe on Wednesday, August 19, 1942. Read more

European Theater

Operation Dragoon: Second D-Day in Southern France

Winston Churchill was against it. So was Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark in Italy. But the American chiefs of staff were for it, and so was General Dwight D. Read more

European Theater

The Legend of Lightning Joe Farinholt, the Four-Time Silver Star Recipient

Not all of the 68 infantry divisions available to the U.S. Army during World War II were made up of draftees and enlistees. Read more

European Theater

Rommel’s Ghost Division

The appointment of Erwin Rommel as commander of the 7th Panzer Division (nicknamed the “Ghost Division”) in February 1940 seems, in the light of his many triumphs in France and North Africa, an unremarkable and perfectly natural choice. Read more

European Theater

George Preddy, Jr.: The USAAF’s Greatest P-51 Ace

Darwin, Australia, was hot even though it was mid-winter. On the afternoon of July 12, 1942, four newly deployed pilots of the U.S. Read more

European Theater

What Made The Bren Gun One of the Most Iconic British WWII Weapons

While all the combatant nations engaged in World War I fielded machine guns during the conflict, the British Army’s Vickers was arguably the best medium machine gun of the war, while their Lewis gun—an American design but perfected by the English—was the most effective light machine gun. Read more

European Theater

Sherman Tanks vs. Tiger Tanks: Which Was Best at the Bulge?

When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more

European Theater

American Athletes and Spectator Sports During World War II

In the 1940s, war disrupted the lives of millions of people around the globe: fuel rationing, food rationing, shortages of all kinds, and, of course, the death and destruction that was visited on cities, nations, and whole populations. Read more

European Theater

Patton’s Panthers: The Story of the 761st Tank Battalion

In the Academy Award-winning film Patton, the setting was all wrong when actor George C. Scott delivered General George S. Read more

European Theater

Battle of Meximieux: American Infantry & French Resistance

Nineteen-year-old Private First Class Peter Gaidosh of East Rochester, NY, was enjoying that rarest of wartime treats—a hot breakfast of fresh eggs, coffee, and pancakes—on the front lines. Read more

European Theater

The Pointe du Hoc Rangers: a Madman’s D-Day Mission

On the morning of June 6, 1944, the 2nd Ranger Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, began its ascent of a sheer 100-foot precipice called Pointe du Hoc. Read more

European Theater

Colonel Creighton Abrams at the Battle of the Bulge

On the chilly afternoon of Tuesday, December 26, 1944, a column of mud-caked Sherman tanks, halftracks, scout cars, and tank destroyers of the U.S. Read more

European Theater

New Year’s Day Defense in Alsace

Like something out of a dream, a soldier walked into the command post. He unspooled a line of wire, hooked a field phone to it, checked the line, and handed the receiver to the officer in charge, Captain Howard Trammell, saying, “Someone wants to talk to you.” Read more

European Theater

Leading the Way: William Orlando Darby’s Rangers in World War II

On a June morning in 1942, a battalion of American soldiers stepped down from a train at Fort William in the northern highlands of Scotland. Read more