London, England · January 15, 1944 On this date in 1944 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed command of the Allied Expeditionary Force preparing to liberate France from the stranglehold of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. A month earlier President Franklin D. Roosevelt had designated the 53‑year‑old army general Supreme Allied Commander for Operation Overlord, the invasion of…
When September 17–25, 1944 Where The Netherlands, near the town of Arnhem, on the Lower Rhine River, and Germany. Operation Market Garden is identified by blue arrow. Who Allied paratroops and glider-borne infantry: The First Allied Airborne Army under the tactical command of Lt. Gen. Frederick Browning (1896–1965), made up of the British 1st Airborne…
Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I, distinguished for his exploits on the Italian front. Between the two world wars he held battalion commands, served as an instructor at a war college, and authored several military textbooks, catching the eye of Hitler, who asked him to conduct a tour of Hitler Youth…
Montgomery saw service in France during World War I, rising to the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1919 he briefly commanded a battalion in the British Army of the Rhine. Later he saw service in India and in the British mandate of Palestine, where, promoted to major general in October 1938, he put down an…
When August 15 to end of September 1944 Where Southern France, part of former Vichy France Who Anglo-American airborne unit, the 1st Airborne Task Force, and amphibious elements and a fully mobilized unit of the Allied tanks, tank destroyers, and mechanized infantry of the U.S. Seventh Army, under the command of Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch (1889–1945),…
When August 1 to October 2, 1944 Where Warsaw, capital of German-occupied Poland Who More than 40,000 Polish irregulars in the pro-Western Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) under Gen. Antoni Chrusciel (1895–1960) versus (initially) 11,000 German troops under the overall command of Lt. Gen. Reiner Stahel (1892–1955). Also, more than 5,000 SS personnel, including Waffen-SS,…
When June 22 to December 5, 1941 Where The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, plus present-day Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Western Russia. By July 1941, after Finland had joined the German onslaught to the north of Leningrad, the Eastern Front would eventually stretch from the Baltic Sea in the north to the…
When July 9/10 to August 17, 1943 Where The Italian island of Sicily
When September 1939 to May 1945 Where Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Irish Sea, Labrador Sea, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Outer Banks (U.S. coast), and Arctic Ocean Who U-boats of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) under Rear (later Grand) Admiral Karl Doenitz (1891–1980) and aircraft of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) under…
When June 22 to August 19, 1944 Where Belorussia, Soviet Union (Belarus), Baltic States, and Eastern Poland Who Army Group Center under Field Marshal Ernst von Busch (1885–1945); after June 28, 1944, Gen. Walter Model (“Hitler’s fireman”) (1892–1945). Soviet forces were the First Baltic Front under Gen. Ivan Bagramyan (1897–1982), the First Belorussian Front under Gen….
