European Theater

European Theater

Veterans Remember the Disaster at Dunkirk

BACKSTORY: After Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Hitler’s regime. Read more

European Theater

Saint Sever Tank Duel: M4 Sherman vs. Mark V German Panther

The Normandy landings, the fighting at St. Lô and Caen, Operations Goodwood and Cobra, and the subsequent Argentan-Falaise Pocket have always drawn major attention from historians, with respect to the early struggle for supremacy in France. Read more

European Theater

A Scout in Patton’s Third Army

The Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter plane dove out of the sky with machine guns firing. The pilot’s target—a pontoon bridge being stretched across Germany’s Werra River by American engineers. Read more

European Theater

High-Spirited Stupidity

Paratrooper Lt. Col. Bill Yarborough was flying into hell. As he prepared to jump from a Douglas C-47 transport plane then approaching the coast of Sicily, hundreds of American antiaircraft gunners below started shooting at him. Read more

European Theater

Insight: Bombing the Abbey

For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more

European Theater

The Film and Battle of San Pietro

By Michael E. Haskew

The monotonous rattle and snap of the film projector provided a steady accompaniment to the images flickering across the screen in the darkened room. Read more

European Theater

The Story of Bill Millin, Lord Lovat’s Mad Piper of Sword Beach

It was the evening of Monday, June 5, 1944, and an armada of almost 5,000 ships stood off the southern coast of England, primed and ready for the greatest amphibious invasion in history. 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

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

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

Operation Biting: the Bruneval Raid to Capture German Radar

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

Daylight Bombing Gamble: The Schweinfurt–Regensburg Mission

In early 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England firmly entrenched in the belief that continuous and accurate daylight precision bombing was the only way to decisively crush German industrial capacity. Read more

European Theater

The End of the Battle of the Bulge

Wednesday, December 27, 1944, found the military situation in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium stalemated. After 12 days of unrelenting struggle, the American and German forces on this part of the Western Front found themselves locked in brutal combat, unable to drive each other back. Read more

European Theater

The 36th Infantry Division: From the Alamo to Operation Anvil

Operation Anvil, the invasion of southern France, was originally planned for June 1944, the same time as the Normandy invasion. Read more

European Theater

Hell in a Small Place: the Canadian Paratroopers of Operation Varsity

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

WWII Fighter Aces: Ralph K. ‘Kid’ Hofer

He could be described as reckless, impulsive, undisciplined, lucky, fearless, and also as one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of the U.S. Read more

European Theater

The Invention of Radar vs. The Luftwaffe

Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more

European Theater

Walter Cronkite: The War As He Saw It

Walter Cronkite is the acknowledged dean of American journalists, an icon whose distinguished career spanned 60 years. Cronkite is best known as the anchorman and managing editor of The CBS Evening News, a position he occupied from 1962 to 1981. Read more

European Theater

The Mystery of Slapton Sands: Operation Tiger

In the early 1970s, a former British Royal Air Force policeman–turned-hairdresser, Ken Small, visited South Devon on England’s Channel coast. Read more

European Theater

The Siege of Malta in WWII: Holding on to the Island Fortress

When World War II began in September 1939, just nine months before the Siege of Malta, its three small islands in the central Mediterranean were still considered part of the British Commonwealth. Read more

European Theater

A List of American Commanders in WWII Who Lost Their Lives

General George S. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” Read more