A Sherman tank from the Canadian 27th Tank Regiment rolls through the shattered, deserted streets of Caen after the Germans pulled out. The British/Canadians lost thousands of men and 300-500 tanks. The delay in securing Caen badly damaged Montgomery’s reputation among the Allies.

European Theater

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.

Despite running an organized and effecient army, Adolf Hitler's war machine couldn't quite compete with the Allies when it came to the factory.

European Theater

War Machines: The Failure of German Mechanization in WWII

By Allyn Vannoy

“Hitler’s generals, raised on the dogma of Clausewitz and Moltke, could not understand that war is won in the factory.” Read more

European Theater

The Airborne Infantry “Cricket”: Dime Store Toy Becomes D-Day Legend

By Richard A. Beranty

Made popular by the Band of Brothers portrayal of Easy Company, the U.S. paratrooper “cricket” was in fact used to identify each other in the predawn hours of the D-Day invasion. Read more

European Theater

The Nazi ‘Gold Train Incident’

By Peter Kross

By the spring of 1945, Hitler’s thousand year Reich had come crashing down in flames. The Allied armies that had landed at Normandy almost one year earlier had penetrated deep inside Germany. Read more

British infantrymen wade through pounding surf onto the invasion beaches of Sicily during the opening phase of Operation Husky.

European Theater

George Patton & Bernard Montgomery in Operation Husky

By Maj. Gen. Michael Reynolds

Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, was the only operation in World War II in which generals Bernard Montgomery and George S. Read more

European Theater

Germany in World War II: The Long Surrender

By Charles Whiting

It was said on May 8, 1945, that some of the victors wandered around in a daze. They were puzzled by a strange silence. Read more

European Theater

Veterans Day Special: A Gallery of Heroes

By Al Hemingway

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

Princess Ecaterina Caradja: Angel of Ploesti

By Duane Schultz

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

German fighters take on American P-47 Thunderbolts from the 56th Fighter Group, 61st Fighter Squadron near the Dutch border in March 1944. The center plane, “Our Gal Sal,” was piloted by Lieutenant Robert Shoens.

European Theater

Victory Delayed: The Battle for Air Supremacy in World War II

By Eric Hammel

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

The rivalry between General George S. Patton, Jr., and Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery became a significant obstacle in Allied cooperation.

European Theater

Patton and Montgomery: Fighting the Nazi Army (And One Another)

By Michael Hasew

The most contentious of command rivalries during World War II involved General George S. Patton, Jr., of the U.S. Read more

Flying high above sun-tinged clouds, a formation of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses streaks away from a target in Germany after dropping its cargo of destruction. The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombed German cities by day, while the British Royal Air Force kept up the round-the-clock air offensive at night.

European Theater

390th Bomb Group’s Risky Run Over Merseburg

By Milton J. Elliott III

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

World War II’s Deadly Rapido River Crossing

By Richard A. Beranty

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

B-24 Liberators of the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force, one with an engine on fire, streak away from the Ploesti refineries they have just bombed in a painting by Robert Taylor.

European Theater

Operation Tidal Wave Takes Aim at Ploesti

By Sam McGowan

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

Paratroopers and their supplies descend into danger during a daylight airborne operation in The Drop by Albert Richards.

European Theater

Attack on The Merville gun battery during D-Day

By Robert Barr Smith

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

A squad of French Resistance fighters, some sighting automatic weapons, anticipates action against the Nazis, August 1944.

European Theater

The OSS: Assisting French Resistance in the Haute Savoie Region

By Al Hemingway

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

On the armored flight deck of the HMS Formidable crewmen fold the wings of a fighter plane that has just landed.

European Theater

The HMS Illustrious & Other Armored British Carriers Left Their Mark

By Sam McGowan

When one thinks of carrier warfare in World War II, the Japanese and U.S. navies usually come to mind. Read more

A twin-boomed P-38 Lightning flies over snow-capped mountain peaks. With its tremendous range and firepower, the P-38 saw service in every major theater of World War II.

European Theater

What Made the Lockheed P-38 Lightning So Special?

By Sam McGowan

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

Operation Archery: The British Commando Raid

By Robert Barr Smith

They came out of the sea, out of the darkness, and they brought death, terror, and destruction with them. Read more

Determination and drive helped make young German pilot Adolf Galland an ace and General.

European Theater

German Fighter Ace Adolf Galland

By Patrick Worden

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

Operation Torch: The Allied Invasion of North Africa

By Roy Morris Jr.

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