Stalingrad, Soviet Union • November 1, 1942 By one German count, over five million Red Army soldiers had been taken prisoner since Adolf Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union begun 16 months earlier. As for the number of Soviet service personnel killed and disabled, there was only a rough estimate, but clearly…
Washington, D.C. • October 17, 1941 Starting on September 1, 1941, two years into the Battle of the Atlantic, U.S. warships began escorting convoys of Britain-bound merchantmen from the North American coast. Convoys departed from Newfoundland off the coast of Canada and ended in the mid-Atlantic at Iceland, a Danish possession whose defense the U.S….
Antwerp, Belgium • September 4, 1944 Almost three months after D-Day British troops, assisted by members of the Belgian resistance, entered Antwerp on this date in 1944. They seized Belgium’s port on the Scheldt River before the Germans could destroy its installations. Opening Western Europe’s largest deep-water port, whose 10 square miles of docks, 20 miles of…
Shanghai, China • August 13, 1937 The Battle of Shanghai began on this date in 1937. It was the first major battle of World War II (the European conflict erupted two years later), and it eventually involved nearly one million combatants. When hostilities broke out Minister of War (1937–1938) Field Marshal Hajime Sugiyama advised Emperor Hirohito…
Prague, Czechoslovakia • August 3, 1945 Following Germany’s defeat in 1945, Czechoslovakia’s president Edvard Beneš pursued a policy of “no mercy” toward the roughly three million ethnic Germans and Hungarians living in his country. The 61‑year-old Beneš had held the same office of president in prewar Czechoslovakia when, abandoned by his French and British allies,…
The Berghof, Bavaria, Germany • July 11, 1944 Adolf Hitler had been the target of four assassination attempts before he became head of state in January 1933 and perhaps two dozen afterwards. On this date in 1944 Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg arrived at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, Hitler’s Bavarian retreat near Berchtesgaden, carrying a…
Fort William Henry Harrison, Helena, Montana • July 9, 1942 On this date in 1942 the First Special Service Force was activated as a joint U.S.-Canadian force. Regarded as parents of the U.S. Green Berets, the United States Special Operations Command, and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, these volunteers were the shock troops of the…
Berlin, Germany • July 1, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Gestapo (German secret police) arrested outspoken Lutheran theologian and pastor Martin Niemoeller. The next year Niemoeller, still incarcerated, was tried by a three-judge “special court” (a Nazi Sondergericht) for activities against the State. Niemoeller’s court-appointed defense counsel defended the cleric, insisting Niemoeller had raised…
Berlin, Germany · June 8, 1940 In an operation remarkable for its precision and boldness, Germany launched Operation Weseruebung, the invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940, seized its capital, Oslo, and captured the important port of Narvik in Northern Norway. Narvik boasted an ice-free harbor during the long Scandinavian winters, and it was the rail…
Moscow, Soviet Union · April 15, 1943 On this date in 1943 Soviet Gen. Géorgui Zakharov placed a patrol of six Yak‑7s with Soviet pilots under Free French command. The initial six French pilots formed a mixed patrol of six French and six Russian planes. The brainchild of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the…