Operation Overlord

The Nevada and I Survived the War

I am of Polish, Irish, and American Indian descent and grew up in the small (population 3,800) northern Illinois town of Geneva. Read more

Operation Overlord

M4 Sherman: “Blunder” or “Wonder” Weapon?

For the Allied tankers and infantrymen of the American, British, Canadian, and Free French armies battling German Panther and Tiger tanks in Normandy in the summer of 1944, the Sherman tank’s failures were glaringly evident as their own shells bounced off the hulls of the Nazi armor and they were themselves destroyed at a far greater range by the powerful German tanks. Read more

Operation Overlord

Walter Cronkite: The War As He Saw It

Walter Cronkite is the acknowledged dean of American journalists, an icon whose distinguished career spanned 60 years. Cronkite is best known as the anchorman and managing editor of The CBS Evening News, a position he occupied from 1962 to 1981. Read more

Operation Overlord

Sub Hunters Over the Bay of Biscay

“Am over enemy submarine in position …”

Cut off in mid-transmission, this contact report came from a U.S. Read more

Operation Overlord

Tactical Thunder: The Ninth Air Force

As the landing craft carrying the invading Allied ground forces of Operation Overlord motored toward the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, they were protected and supported by the largest aerial armada the world has ever seen. Read more

Operation Overlord

Blue and Gray at Omaha Beach

The U.S. 29th Infantry Division was formed in July 1917, three months after America entered World War I. Read more

Operation Overlord

The Battle of Hürtgen Forest: Army Rangers vs Fallschirmjägers

Mired in combat during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest of Germany, an American soldier wrote in December 5, 1944: “The road to the front led straight and muddy brown between the billowing greenery of the broken topless firs, and in the jeeps that were coming back they were bringing the still living. Read more

Operation Overlord

General Percy Hobart: Britain’s Genius Tanker

An army that will be poised for victory requires élan, military intellect, a penchant for tactical and strategic innovation, and the zeal to use the most qualified individuals for training and leadership. Read more

Operation Overlord

Night of the Bloody Tiger: German Raid on a D-Day Exercise

Operation Bolero, the marshaling of Allied forces for the planned 1944 invasion of Normandy, was in full swing by late 1943, and much of England had been turned into a great armed camp. Read more

Operation Overlord

Operation Jupiter: The Fight for the Key to Normandy

The Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, produced a bitter struggle for control of the invasion beachhead. Read more

Operation Overlord

An Army Combat Engineer’s Story of the D-Day Invasion

Nineteen-year-old army combat engineer Jay Rencher blinked the salt spray from his eyes, filled his lungs, and again plunged beneath the cold, roiling waves. Read more

Operation Overlord

Vierville-sur-Mer: Cracking a Critical Draw at Omaha Beach

Shortly after 8 am on June 6, 1944, a German officer overlooking the Vierville-sur-Mer Draw on Omaha Beach reported that the soldiers defending the beach were repelling the Americans: “The enemy is in search of cover behind the coastal zone obstacles. Read more

Operation Overlord

SEALs: the Birth of the Navy’s ‘Special Warfare’ Force

Today’s Navy SEALs (for Sea, Air, and Land special warfare experts) have a history shrouded in secrecy. Commissioned in 1962, they are the most elite shore-area Special Forces in the world, concentrating on very select and often-clandestine intelligence gathering and precision strike missions. Read more

Operation Overlord

Bovington Tank Museum

If armored vehicles are your interest, the Tank Museum at Bovington Camp, Dorset, is your holy grail. This cavernous museum, measuring 50,000 square feet, holds the world’s finest and most comprehensive collection of over 250 armored vehicles from 26 countries. Read more

Operation Overlord

Free France Resurgent: Charles de Gaulle in World War II

On the evening of June 16, 1940, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain was appointed Prime Minister of France. It was a critical time. Read more

Operation Overlord

General Omar Bradley: Dwight D Eisenhower’s Indispensible Lieutenant

Great commanders need great subordinates. In the campaigns in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of World War II, General Dwight D. Read more

Operation Overlord

Poles in the West: Fighting in the Falaise Pocket

The dismemberment of Poland by the German and Soviet armies in September and early October 1939 saw the temporary destruction of the Polish armed forces. Read more

Operation Overlord

The D-Day Invasion: The Road to Operation Overlord

Soon after the tattered British Expeditionary Force was miraculously rescued from Dunkirk in June 1940, planners at the War Office in London began dreaming of returning to the German-occupied European continent. Read more

Operation Overlord

Luxembourg’s Hoffman Museum

You won’t find the familiar little triangular signs, “Warnung Minen!” hanging on barbed wire today in Western Europe, with one exception. Read more

Operation Overlord

The U.S. Army Medical Corps: Caring for the Casualties in World War II

For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more