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
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
Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more
European Theater
When the United States was plunged into World War II on December 7, 1941, more than 16 million Americans answered their country’s call and donned a uniform. Read more
European Theater
Lieutenant Richard Britt, navigator aboard a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber named Chattanooga Choo Choo, woke up to find himself trapped in the wreckage. 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
The most contentious of command rivalries during World War II involved General George S. Patton, Jr., of the U.S. Read more
European Theater
When the call came that morning, it was not unlike the 25 times previously when they had flown, or all those other times when weather intervened and postponement was ordered. Read more
European Theater
The attempted crossing of the Rapido River in Italy by two infantry regiments of the U.S. 36th Division in January 1944 was one of the costliest failed attacks made by American forces during World War II. Read more
European Theater
If there was a name of a prospective target that caused Allied airmen in the European Theater of Operations to blanch in the fall of 1943 and the spring of 1944, it was Ploesti. Read more
European Theater
Just boys facing danger, please God make them men; If they live through the danger, make them boys once again. —Sergeant Ginger Woodcock, June 5, 1944
On the morning of June 6, 1944, the greatest amphibious fleet in history bore in toward the coast of Normandy. Read more
European Theater
On a moonless night in January 1944, in the Haute Savoie region of southeast France, the drone from the engine of a RAF bomber could be heard in the distance. Read more
European Theater
When one thinks of carrier warfare in World War II, the Japanese and U.S. navies usually come to mind. Read more
European Theater
Due largely to their use in the postwar U.S. Army Air Forces and present proliferation among the air show community, the North American P-51 Mustang is thought of by many as the most important American fighter of World War II. Read more
European Theater
They came out of the sea, out of the darkness, and they brought death, terror, and destruction with them. Read more
European Theater
By 1945, the German Luftwaffe’s fighter wing had at its disposal jet fighters, rocket planes, and some of the most advanced, and most feared, piston-engine craft in the world. 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
The Allied decision to invade North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch, was reached in the summer of 1942 after lengthy—and sometimes bitter—arguments between interested parties. Read more
European Theater
A man who was close to Adolf Hitler and hardly impartial later saidthat the Führer had “a mood of merriment” for a brief period that day. Read more
European Theater
Originally part of Ralph Baer’s “Shooting Gallery” expansion, Dogfight was released for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. There were no scores per se, and certainly no characters, missions, or upgrades. Read more
European Theater
American men left behind a great deal when they left home to fight a world war. They lost their identities, their families, and almost all their worldly goods, but they improvised. Read more
