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
By February 1945, the green Allied formations that landed on D-Day had become hard professional armies. Army, corps, and division commands had been shaken down and were operating efficiently. Read more
European Theater
Following its swift advance to the Rhine, the American 100th (Century) Infantry Division resumed its pursuit of retreating German forces. Read more
European Theater
Three German soldiers crept through the snow. They had infiltrated the American front line during a counterattack. Major William F. Read more
European Theater
After almost two months of bloody and desperate fighting, the Allies had failed to break through the German defenses that had been limiting their hold on Normandy since D-Day. Read more
European Theater
The German crewmen occupied the various stations in their tank as they approached the American roadblock ahead. It was 2100 hours on Christmas Eve, 1944, just outside the town of Manhay, Luxembourg, which was occupied by elements three different U.S. Read more
European Theater
It was loud. It was violent. Gunfire ripped into 1st Lt. Grant G. Stout’s Republic P-47D Thunderbolt fighter high over Dortmund, Germany, near midday on March 19, 1945, and the aircraft trembled and shook. Read more
European Theater
The commander of the U.S. Third Army, General George Patton, Jr., took no great pleasure in the end of the war in Europe; he already knew that despite his lobbying of many influential figures in Washington, D.C., Read more
European Theater
On a cold, dark December morning in 1944, B Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Regiment began the slow ascent up Hill 351. Read more
European Theater
When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the world changed forever.
Not only was Hitler determined to pay back Germany’s enemies for his country’s defeat during the Great War, but he was also determined to rid Germany and the rest of Europe of persons whom his twisted Aryan ideology believed were “inferior” or “subhuman.” Read more
European Theater
“In the early hours of 8 February 1945, I climbed into my command post, which consisted of a small platform halfway up a tree,” Lt. Read more
European Theater
On September 8, 1940, a new German movie, Jud Suss, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It opened to rave reviews and received the Golden Lion award. Read more
European Theater
On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, at nearly three in the morning, Chicago-native Lieutenant John E. Peters safely landed Snooty, his Douglas C-47 Skytrain, on the massive 5,800-foot runway at Greenham Common airfield in southern England. Read more
European Theater
By January 1942, Britain was still in the fight of her life. Germany had occupied all western Europe, controlled the Mediterranean, and was threatening British colonies in North Africa. Read more
European Theater
The black uniformed German panzer crews climbed into their Panther tanks at 10 pm on June 8, 1944. Read more
European Theater
The GIs defending Pillbox No. 9 watched in despair as a weak January sun set behind them. Read more
European Theater
The political and military reasons for launching Operation Goodwood have been discussed in virtually every book written about the Normandy campaign. Read more
European Theater
Early on the morning of Sunday, October 15, 1944, a platoon of the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) waited on a hill for its first action in the rugged Vosges Mountains of eastern France. Read more
European Theater
On July 28, 2018, at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel near Dulles Airport, outside Washington, D.C., Mariusz Winiecki, a 42-year-old Polish professor, told an audience of Americans about his experiences growing up in the small town of Szubin, 150 miles southeast of Warsaw. Read more
European Theater
During the 12 years of the highly militarized society of the Third Reich, some 20 million Germans—men and women as well as children—donned a uniform of one kind or another. Read more
European Theater
Swirls of black smoke billowed high above the steeples and splintered roofs as Lieutenant Ronald Speirs surveyed the stucco exteriors of storefronts and dwellings pocked by the scars of urban battle. Read more
