The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, South America’s only force to fight in World War II, contributed greatly to the Allied victory in Italy.

Mark W. Clark

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force Invades Italy

By Nathan N. Prefer

The term “United Nations” was in large part derived from the large number of nations that joined in common cause between 1939 and 1945 to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy during World War II. Read more

Mark W. Clark

Savagery at Salerno

By Michael E. Haskew

As the 450 ships of the Operation Avalanche invasion force approached Salerno on the evening of September 8, 1943, the Allied troops, packed tightly aboard transport vessels, broke into wild celebration. Read more

In December 1943, the First Canadian Infantry Division was ordered to capture the Italian port  town of Ortona.

Mark W. Clark

Little Stalingrad: The Struggle for Ortona

By Jerome Baldwin

By the autumn of 1943, the Allied armies fighting in Italy had discovered that Winston Churchill’s description of Italy as the “soft underbelly of Europe” had been a falsehood of monumental proportions. Read more

The American vehicle was a true workhorse of World War II.

Mark W. Clark

The Magnificent Jeep

By Michael D. Hull

General of the Army George C. Marshall called it America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare. General Dwight D. Read more

Mark W. Clark

George C. Marshall: Architect of Victory

by Michael D. Hull

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disturbed in the autumn of 1938 by the Munich agreement, at which the rights of Czechoslovakia were signed away, and by reports of mounting air strength in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Read more

Mark W. Clark

First Deadly Round at The Battle of Monte Cassino

by David H. Lippman

By December 1943, the phrase “sunny Italy” had evolved from being a travel agent’s selling point to becoming an ugly joke for the British and American troops of the Allied Fifth Army, advancing north from Naples to Rome. Read more

The Douglas C-47 was a workhorse of air transport during World War II.

Mark W. Clark

Tale of the Biscuit Bomber: The C-47 in WWII

By Sam McGowan

Even though, technically at least, it was not a combat airplane, the performance of the Douglas C-47 transport led General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower to label it as one of the most important weapons of World War II. Read more

At the end of 1943 the Allied armies battling their way north in Italy came up against the German Gustav Line and ground to a halt.

Mark W. Clark

Barrier at Monte Cassino

By John Brown

The Gustav Line, stretching across Italy at its narrowest part between Gaeta and Ortona, was a formidable system of defenses, some of it in coastal marshes but mainly in mountainous country through which ran fast-flowing rivers. Read more

From Around the Network

  • Despite his daughter’s pleas, Mussolini ordered his own son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, executed by firing squad after his conviction for treason.

    WWII

    Benito Mussolini & Count Galeazzo Ciano
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  • General George S. Patton’s vehicle was hit by an Army truck on December 9, 1945. Investigators considered the accident trivial, but Patton later died from his injuries, fueling conspiracy theories.

    WWII

    Was General Patton Murdered? New Light on an Old Conspiracy
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  • In December 1944, a small radio code-breaking unit intercepted a message that should have tipped off the Allies to the Battle of the Bulge attack.

    WWII

    Codebreaking at the Battle of the Bulge
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