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
Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s Fifth Army, comprising the U.S. VI and British X Corps, headed north from the Salerno battlefield in September 1943, German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, commander of Army Group C in southern Italy, implemented new defensive tactics and fortifications. Read more
European Theater
In the winter of 1944-1945, within Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, better known as the launching pad of the Battle of the Bulge, two war crimes were committed. Read more
European Theater
“Our mission was Berlin. We flew in that dreaded position—last and lowest in the squadron.”
Archie Mathosian, B-17 Radio Operator, A/C #521 (Skyway Chariot), 100th Bomb Group (H), USAAF
“Last and lowest in the squadron.”These Read more
European Theater
At first, no one cared much about the forest. The objective of the First U.S. Army was the Siegfried Line, the much vaunted defensive line that protected Germany from invasion from the west. Read more
European Theater
Major General George S. Patton, Jr. had no patience for soldiers disobeying the rules of combat at his Desert Training Center in Southern California. Read more
European Theater
Dusk came early as they boarded the convoy of trucks, their olive-drab forms softened by baggy trousers and heavy field jackets. Read more
European Theater
In the early morning of June 6, 1944, LCA (Landing Craft, Assault) 668 was gliding across the choppy, green waters of the English Channel, transporting First Sergeant Len Lomell, Staff Sergeant Jack Kuhn, and most of the 2nd Platoon, 2nd Ranger Battalion. Read more
European Theater
Much of what we know today about World War II are the visual images—both still and moving—that combat photographers took to document all phases of this costly human tragedy. Read more
European Theater
“At Tarnopol we endured heavy Russian fire but in Normandy we were hit again and again, day after day by British artillery that was so heavy the Frundsberg [10th SS Panzer Division “Frundsberg,” named after 16th-century German knight and general Georg Von Frundsberg] bled to death before our eyes. Read more
European Theater
Dwight David Eisenhower began life as David Dwight Eisenhower in Abilene, Kansas, on October 14, 1890, the third of five sons. Read more
European Theater
British General Sir Bernard Montgomery was given command of two Allied armies for the invasion of Normandy: Lt. Read more
European Theater
The 83rd U.S. Infantry Division had been mobilized for World War I in September 1917. Its unit patch was a downward-pointing black triangle with the letters O-H-I-O stitched as an abstract gold monogram in the center. Read more
European Theater
Early in 1945, in the Northern Appenine mountains of Italy, T/5 Harvey, a radioman with the 10th Mountain Division, is carrying his WW2 radio backpack, the ever-handy SCR-300, into combat for the first time. Read more
European Theater
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
European Theater
Nobody knew it in the 6th Armored Divisions 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, but the tide of the Battle of the Bulge had turned by the time the outfit moved into snow-covered fields and forests near Bastogne. Read more
