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 a field hospital in Normandy, France, 1st Lt. Madeline “Del” D’Eletto was watching an Army doctor operate on a soldier’s head injury when one of her fellow nurses asked, “What do I do with this?” Read more
European Theater
As the Belgian town of La Gleize burned to the ground around him, 29-year-old SS Lt. Col. Read more
European Theater
Teddy Roosevelt Junior had enjoyed a distinguished career even before D-Day. He had commanded a battalion in France during the Great War, served as secretary of the Navy from 1921 to 1924, been the governor of Puerto Rico from 1929 to 1932, and been governor-general of the Philippines for a year in the early 1930s. Read more
European Theater
It was February 1945, and the Bombing of Dresden had yet to commence. At this point in the war, the citizens of the capital of the German state of Saxony were beginning to think that they were living a charmed life. Read more
European Theater
BACKSTORY: Dan Dougherty graduated from Central High School in Austin, Minnesota in June 1943 and was immediately activated from the Army Reserve. Read more
European Theater
By Kevin M. Hymel
“OH MY GOD!” thought tanker Joe Cotten. “We’re shooting machine guns at a Tiger Royal!” It was late December 1944 in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, near the German border. Read more
European Theater
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
In October 1939, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill famously described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Read more
European Theater
The blue arrows on Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third Army situation maps in his mobile headquarters trailer all pointed eastward. Read more
European Theater
George Patton knew exactly what he wanted to be from childhood on. “When I was a little boy at home, I used to wear a wooden sword and say to myself, ‘George S. Read more
European Theater
On the nights of August 21 and 24, 1939, two dark ships slipped out of the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven and turned west toward the English Channel. Read more
European Theater
“We went to London in ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer and pick up our U.S. Read more
European Theater
With his troops in a bitter fight with German forces in northern France in the late summer of 1944, General Omar Bradley, commander of the Allied 12th Army Group, could not believe his ears. Read more
European Theater
For once, the ULTRA message came late. Normally, the decoding machines and hard-working British cryptographers at Bletchley Park had an abundance of German Army messages to go through, but in the first days in August 1944, the German panzer divisions had gone to radio silence, which suggested they were going to attack, but not in which direction. Read more
European Theater
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
