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
When General George C. Marshall visited London in April 1942, the new chief of the British Combined Operations Command, Lord Louis Mountbatten, introduced him to a “very odd-looking individual … [who] talks well and may have an important contribution to make.” Read more
European Theater
Sergeant Nicholas Mashlonik watched closely as the Panzerkampfwagen (PzKpfw) VI Tiger heavy tank rampaged through the village of Elsdorf in the Rhineland-Westphalia region of Germany on February 27, 1945. Read more
European Theater
Few events in human history have been so fraught with drama as the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Read more
European Theater
When Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, chief of the German General Staff, presented German leader Adolf Hitler with estimates of Russian strength for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler declared that the numbers were “completely idiotic” and “pure bluff.” Read more
European Theater
History is almost never “chiseled into stone.” The fog of time can be blown away when new information emerges. Read more
European Theater
On the morning of August 19, 1942, the Canadian 2nd Division sailed across the English Channel and attacked the Nazi-held port of Dieppe, France. Read more
European Theater
On December 10, 1944, Generalleutnant (equivalent to major general in the U.S. Army during World War II) Fritz Bayerlein was called to a meeting at Kyllburg (Eifel) to participate in a map exercise involving an advance to the Meuse River. Read more
European Theater
“You’re crazy to go out there!” a paratrooper shouted to medic Al Mampre as he bolted from a trench outside of the Dutch town of Eindhoven. Read more
European Theater
“To cap it all, down came the fog, the sort you sometimes get at sea—one minute clear, the next in a fog bank—so we relied on our radar a lot. Read more
European Theater
Roy Altenbach, a soldier from a German-speaking family in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was assigned to the 47th Medium Maintenance Company, 22nd Ordnance Battalion. Read more
European Theater
Company B’s jeeps, armored cars, and self-propelled guns stood lined up on a narrow road, their crewmen anxious to move out. Read more
European Theater
The name Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—associated with tank warfare in Europe and North Africa during World War II—might conjure up mental images of the famous “Desert Fox” riding in a panzer, reviewing maps, or commanding battles. Read more
European Theater
By Flint Whitlock
His world was literally crashing down in flames around him. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, which he had created out of nothing but his own will—an empire that he had once boasted would last for a millennium—was on fire and being torn apart by shot and shell, besieged on all sides. Read more
European Theater
Private Leon Goldberg pulled the trigger on his heavy, water-cooled M-1917 Browning machine gun and fired bursts of .30-caliber rounds into the attacking German infantry. Read more
European Theater
Twelve Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVPs) carrying Captain William Callahan’s F Company and Captain Eccles Scott’s G Company—some 400 men—slapped the English Channel’s rough waves as they approached Omaha Beach’s Les Moulins Draw. Read more
European Theater
The M29 Weasel was a machine conceived by a bizarre British chemist obsessed with ice for a unit that did not exist and a mission that never occurred. Read more
European Theater
The green light lit up the inside of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain’s fuselage, and 20 paratroopers from Easy Company’s Stick 70, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division charged out the door. Read more
European Theater
Despite being caught up in the tide of isolationism prevalent duringthe interval between the world wars, the United States Army was lucky enough to have Congressional funding for the further development and expansion of its fledgling air arm, known initially in 1926 as the Army Air Corps and in 1941 renamed the Army Air Forces. Read more
European Theater
The town of Affile in Italy’s Lazio region erected a mausoleum to Italian Army Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in August 2012. Read more
European Theater
Gray skies hung low and a steady drizzle dripped through the tall, dense fir trees near the German-Belgian border on the morning of Thursday, November 16, 1944, during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Read more
