Rhine Meadow Camps, German Rhineland • April 17, 1945 By this date in 1945 and over the next 2 months, American, British, and French armies established 19 Rhine Meadow camps (German, Rheinwiesenlager) principally on the west bank of the Rhine River in the German states of North-Rhine Westphalia and Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate) (see map below). The Rhineland camps were…
Monte Cassino, Italy • April 17, 1944 On this date in 1944, 52,000 soldiers of the untested Polish II Corps under Maj. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders quietly moved into position under the cover of darkness and smokescreen. The Polish II Corps, part of Gen. Oliver Leese’s British Eighth Army, relieved the exhausted New Zealand II Corps, which since…
Monte Cassino, Italy · April 17, 1944 On this date in 1944, 52,000 soldiers of the untested Polish II Corps under Maj. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders quietly moved into position under the cover of darkness and smokescreen. The Polish II Corps, part of Gen. Oliver Leese’s British Eighth Army, relieved the exhausted New Zealand II Corps, which since March…