European Theater

European Theater

Villers-Bocage: Wittmann’s Tigers, the Desert Rats, and Allied Disaster

British General Sir Bernard Montgomery was given command of two Allied armies for the invasion of Normandy: Lt. Read more

European Theater

With the “Ragtag Circus” Across Europe: The Story of Frank Fauver

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

SCR-300 WW2 Radio Backpack: The “Walkie Talkie” That Shaped the War

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

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

European Theater

Battle of the Bulge POWs: One Man’s Story of Capture

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

European Theater

Battle of the Bulge Tank Duel On Christmas Eve

The Battle of the Bulge is famously known as the largest battle fought by the U.S. Army in World War II. Read more

European Theater

Amazing Photography of Normandy: D-Day Plus 1 Year

On June 6, 1945, two Stars & Stripes newspaper reporters traveled to Normandy with a mission: to photograph the effects of the year-old D-Day landings on the beaches, towns, and fields. Read more

European Theater

D-Day Casualties: Operation Overlord by the Numbers

The largest amphibious invasion in history began on the night of June 5-6, with the roar of C-47 engines preparing to take off , and climaxed on the beaches of Normandy. Read more

European Theater

The WW2 Paratrooper: First-Hand Accounts of the D-Day Invasion

What was it like to be a WW2 paratrooper, parachuting into Normandy in the opening minutes of June 6, 1944—D-Day? Read more

European Theater

Raid on St. Nazaire

The British flotilla moved with determination into the Loire estuary after midnight on May 28, 1942. Read more

European Theater

Battle of Hurtgen Forest: Hell in a Dark Wood

At the town of Schmidt in the Hürtgen Forest, it was hard to see through the thick mist and steady drizzle on the cold and damp morning of Saturday, November 4, 1944. Read more

European Theater

Armored in Lorraine: Battle of Arracourt

Scouts for the U.S. Third Army on foot and in armored vehicles cautiously approached the town of Luneville on the east side of the Moselle River in the rolling hills of north- eastern France on September 15, 1944. Read more

European Theater

Captured! Belgium’s Mighty Fort Eben-Emael

At 4:25am in the predawn darkness of May 10, 1940, nine German gliders silently skidded to a stop on the hilltop of the most heavily defended fortress in Europe, disgorging 71 highly trained German Fallschirmjäger. Read more

European Theater

Battle of Metz: Patton’s Bloody Fortress Battle

Lieutenant General George Patton’s Third Army had come a long way since it was activated on August 1 in Normandy. Read more

European Theater

The Imperial War Museum

Although Britain has a number of war museums, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is acknowledged as the Holy Grail of them all—the one you must visit when in London. Read more

European Theater

New Years Battle at Ludweiler: Delaying Operation Nordwind

“Lieutenant Rochester, take a look at this.”

The American patrol halted next to an abandoned industrial building. Read more

European Theater

Operation Varsity: Flying Gliders Across the Rhine

March 24, 1945. The green light flashed from the C-47 tug plane, prompting the glider pilot being pulled behind it to release his tow rope over Landing Zone N, just east of the Rhine River. Read more

European Theater

Herrlisheim: What Became of the 12th Armored Division’s Lost Battalion

On January 17, 1945, as Allied forces prepared to descend on Germany itself and put an end to the war in Europe, an American tank battalion disappeared. Read more

European Theater

Why America Participated in the Allied Bombing of France in WWII

By any standard, the ancient city of Rouen, in Upper Normandy, is a historical treasure. Within its magnificent High Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral (which was portrayed in a famous series of paintings by the Impressionist Claude Monet as well as by his contemporary Camille Pissarro) is a tomb containing the heart of Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) who had been King of England and the Duke of Normandy. Read more

European Theater

How To Make a Fake Tank

Deception is a vital tool in war. During World War II, the British developed a dummy tank to fool enemy surveillance planes into thinking they had more tanks than they needed, were strong where they were weak, and were preparing to attack where they were not. Read more