XIX Corps Breaks through the Siegfried Line
In a lesser-known operation that presaged the horrors of the deadly Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the XIX Corps broke through the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany, in October 1944.
In a lesser-known operation that presaged the horrors of the deadly Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the XIX Corps broke through the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany, in October 1944.
“No greater fighting combat team has ever deployed for battle,” General Douglas McArthur noted after the war of the 158th Infantry Regiment “Bushmasters,” which was made up predominantly of Mexican Americans and members of the Pima and Navajo tribes from Arizona.
In the span of only a few days in October 1943, the US Army Air Forces was forced to reconsider its entire strategic bombing endeavor in the European theater.
Prior to World War II, there was a thriving American wristwatch industry, but it became a casualty of the war.
German technology surpassed the Allies' with the production of radio-guided weapons that worked in a combat environment. As early as 1943, the Henschel (Hs) 293 and the Ruhrstahl X-1 (Fritz X) were the first guided bombs employed in combat. These weapons debuted around the time of the Allied assault on Salerno and were a new concern for fleet defense.
Churchill’s famous quip about the Royal Air Force’s “few” was inspirational, but Fighter Command wasn’t so few and even had several advantages.
The cascade of disasters that followed Benito Mussolini’s entry into World War II made possible a resurgence of anti-Fascism in Italy.
Historians have debated the logic of fighting to liberate Brest, with some arguing that it would have made more sense to simply bypass the city and isolate the garrison.
The strength, depth, and impact of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising made it one of the largest and most important anti-fascist campaigns in Europe during World War II.
Despite the impending defeat of the Wehrmacht in France, the victory over Germany would not be complete until the capital of France was liberated, and the Vichy government replaced.