Oppenheim, Germany · March 22, 1945 On this date in 1945, one day before the British 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was due to launch Operation Plunder, the long-awaited northern offensive across the Rhine River at Rees and Wesel in North Rhine-Westphalia, Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., sneaked a division of…
Berlin, Germany • February 6, 1941 During the German invasion of France in 1940, an ambitious general named Erwin Rommel distinguished himself as the “lead from the front” commander of the 7th Panzer Division. Disregarding the performance-enhancing effects of his consumption of Army-issued Pervitin, a methamphetamine soldiers dubbed “Panzer Schokolade,” Rommel was a daredevil by…
London, England · January 21, 1943 Arguably one of Germany’s greatest assets early in World War II was the Enigma machine. It could encrypt and decrypt sensitive diplomatic and military messages in billions of ways (actually 10 to the 23rd power). The location of U‑boats in the Atlantic, supply convoys, and the orders of battle were…
SHAEP HQ, Versailles, France · January 1, 1945 Nazi Germany’s position on the Western Front had declined precipitously after the D-Day landings of Allied troops on June 6, 1944. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third U.S. Army was driving rapidly into the enemy’s rear. The German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) was aware that German troops were…
Cologne, Germany · November 15, 1944 As the Allied offensive ground on west of the Rhine River, dozens of German tank and infantry divisions gathered in assembly areas northwest of the city of Cologne and in the thick forest cover of the Eifel Mountains on this date in 1944. Conceived by Adolf Hitler, the plan,…
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 starting pouring into neighboring Tunisia from bases in Italy. Operation Torch, under the command of Gen. Dwight…
El Alamein, Egypt · November 2, 1942 On this date in 1942 in northern Egypt, Gen. Erwin Rommel (aka “Desert Fox”), brilliant commander of the German Afrika Korps, signaled to Adolf Hitler that he and his men would have to retreat after the British Eight Army, led by Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery, decisively bested them…
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 Holland. For days the lightly armed men of the British 1st Airborne Division had held the northern end of a key bridge that crossed the…
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…
Antwerp, Belgium · September 4, 1944 Almost three months after D-Day British troops, assisted by members of the Belgium resistance, entered Antwerp on this date in 1944. Opening the Belgian port, whose 10 square miles of docks, 20 miles of waterfront, and 600 cranes were 80 miles from open sea on the Scheldt River, was meant to solve the…