Gotenhafen, German-Occupied Poland • January 23, 1945 On this date in 1945 German Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz launched Operation Hannibal, a seaborne evacuation or, as Germans called it, a rescue operation (Rettungsaktion) of well over a million people trapped by war in Latvia, East Prussia, and German-occupied Poland. Mounted by naval, merchant marine, and civilian vessels,…
East Prussia, Germany • October 16, 1944 In the summer of 1944 Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany was knocked off balance by one-two punches delivered almost simultaneously by the Western Allies’ invasion of Northwestern France, codenamed Operation Overlord (June–August 1944), and the Soviet Union’s offensive, Operation Bagration (June–August 1944), which began with the reconquest of Belorussia…
Moscow, Soviet Union • June 23, 1944 On this date in 1944 along a 450-mile/724 kilometer front some 2.4 million Soviet frontline and support troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 aircraft smashed through German lines in present-day Belarus (White Russia and Belorussia in some earlier sources), an area of operations roughly half the size of California. Sabotage of rail networks…
Moscow, Soviet Union • June 23, 1944 On this date in 1944 along a 450-mile front some 2.4 million Soviet frontline and support troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 aircraft smashed through German lines in present-day Belarus (White Russia and Belorussia in some earlier sources). Sabotage of rail networks and bridges by guerrillas several days before June 23 impeded German…
Washington, D.C. • November 7, 1941 On March 11, 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Act, which was a government-back program under which the still-neutral United States would begin supplying Great Britain and members of the British Commonwealth (Australia and New Zealand, for instance), Free French Forces led by Gen….
Moscow, Soviet Union · June 23, 1944 On this date in 1944 along a 450-mile front some 2.4 million Soviet frontline and support troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 aircraft smashed through German lines in present-day Belarus (White Russia in some earlier sources). Sabotage of rail networks and bridges by guerrillas several days before June 23 impeded German…
Moscow, Soviet Union · June 23, 1944 On this date in 1944 along a 450-mile front some 2.4 million Soviet frontline and support troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 aircraft smashed through German lines in present-day Belarus (White Russia in some earlier sources). Sabotage of rail networks and bridges by guerrillas several days before June 23 impeded German movement of…