Washington, D.C • December 22, 1941 On this date in 1941 the Japanese public glimpsed their first photos in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun of their country’s devastating attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the worst military catastrophe in American history. On the same date, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister…
Gulf of Salerno, Italy • September 9, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Italy, the Allies from their strongholds in North Africa and Sicily invaded the boot-shaped Italian mainland at the historic port of Salerno 29 miles/47 km southeast of Naples (Operation Avalanche), with diversionary landings at Reggio di Calabria (Operation Baytown, September 3, 1943), which lay…
Reims, France • May 7, 1945 Five days after the suicide of Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945, Adm. Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, an emissary from Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, arrived in the French cathedral town of Reims, headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, looking pale and tired. For the second…
Oslo, Norway • May 8, 1945 On May 5, 1945, five days after Adolf Hitler’s suicide in the catacombs beneath his Reich capital, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, sent a telegram to resistance leaders in Norway, who passed it to the hardline commander in chief of German armed forces…
Washington, D.C. · December 22, 1941 On this date in 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and their respective chiefs of staff assembled in Washington, D.C., for their first strategic conference as combatants-in-arms. The First Washington Conference, codenamed Arcadia, was the second face-to-face meeting (there would be nine in all) between…
Tunis, Tunisia · November 9, 1942 On this date in 1942, one day after the largest amphibious invasion force in history to that time landed Allied troops on the Algerian and Moroccan coasts, German troops, tanks, and aircraft started pouring into neighboring Tunisia from bases in Italy. Operation Torch, under the command of Gen. Dwight…
London, England · October 1, 1938 The storm clouds of war in Europe seemed to have parted on this date in 1938 in London, one day after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had returned from his triumph in Munich. Three visits to Germany had been required to part the clouds: the first to the Berghof…
SHAEF HQ, Versailles, France · September 30, 1944 On this date in 1944 staff at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) estimated that since the start of the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944, one million German soldiers had been killed, captured, or taken prisoner by Allied armed forces. By the…
Berlin, Germany · September 26, 1944 On this date in 1944 the German news agency announced the surrender of 600 British troops in a small village west of Arnhem in the Netherlands. For days the lightly armed men of the British 1st Airborne Division had held the northern end of a key bridge that crossed…
Salerno, Italy · September 9, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Italy, the Allies from their strongholds in North Africa and Sicily invaded the Italian mainland at Salerno south of Naples (Operation Avalanche), with diversionary landings at Calabria (Operation Baytown, September 3, 1943), which lay on the “toe” of the Italian Peninsula, and Taranto (Operation…