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
On May 4, 1943, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 56th Fighter Group was ordered to meet a formation of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers returning from a run over Antwerp, Belgium. Read more
European Theater
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
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
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
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
During World War II, Terry de la Mesa Allen and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,were ”relieved” during a victorious campaign. Read more
European Theater
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
WWII
