Cairo, Egypt • November 24, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Egypt, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (leader of a sometimes forgotten ally) continued their series of talks during their Cairo Conference (November 23–27, 1943). Churchill and his party had hoped to establish a…
Berlin, Germany • August 16, 1944 On this date in 1944, two-and-one-half months after the Allies had landed on the Normandy coast of German-occupied Northwestern France (Operation Overlord) and one day after thousands of servicemen from the U.S. Seventh and French First armies had landed by air and sea on the French Riviera in the…
Côte d’Azur on the French Mediterranean • August 15, 1944 The Allied assault on German-occupied Southern France originally was to have kicked off simultaneously with the Allies’ June 6, 1944, invasion of Northwestern France (Operation Overlord)—the intent being that the Germans would think twice before sending reinforcements from Southern France to the Normandy beachheads and that, with…
London, England • June 2, 1944 In June 1943 in Algeria, North Africa, the Free French founded the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFNL). Much political maneuvering was needed to merge the Free French, whose nucleus consisted of Frenchmen who had escaped German capture at Dunkirk, the Channel port in Northwestern France (May 26 to June 4,…
Off the Normandy Coast, France • May 29, 1944 The German Kriegsmarine experimented with a half-dozen stealthy combat vessels that could send torpedoes crashing into Allied ships. Perhaps the most unusual was the Neger (“Negro,” a play on the name of its designer, Richard Mohr, i.e., Moor). Almost 25 ft long, the battery-powered Neger was shaped…
Toulon Harbor, French Mediterranean • November 27, 1942 Between November 10 and 12, 1942, Germany and Italy engaged in a joint operation (German, Unternehmen Anton, or Case Anton) to occupy Marshal Philippe Pétain’s Vichy France, the French Riviera, and the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. These 3 areas comprised the so-called “Free Zone,” which was an…
Paris, Occupied France • August 10, 1944 On August 1, 1944, almost two months after the initial D-Day landings in Normandy, France, more than 14,000 personnel and equipment from 41-year-old Gen. Philippe Leclerc’s Free French 2nd Armored Division began landing on Utah Beach. Leclerc (1902–1947) juggled three roles: He was a subordinate divisional commander in an…
Marseille, Occupied France • July 31, 1944 On this date in 1944 French poet, writer, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished on a reconnaissance flight off the Mediterranean coast near Marseille, France. Best known for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and to a lesser extent for books about his aviation adventures,…
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…
Toulon Harbor, French Mediterranean · November 27, 1942 Between November 10 and 12, 1942, Germany and Italy engaged in a joint operation (German, Unternehmen Anton, or Case Anton) to occupy Marshal Philippe Pétain’s Vichy France, the French Riviera, and the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. These three areas comprised the so-called “Free Zone,” which was…