General Willi Bittrich, whom Model sought to reach, was the commander of the 2nd S.S. Armored Corps. Two divisions of this corps. the 9th and 10th, like the S.H.A.E.F. dreaded it and as the Dutch Resistance had reported, had just regrouped and re-equipped northeast and east of Arnhem. The 9th, under
Even when he heard above him the roar of that huge surge on the morning of September 17, Student was not immediately aware of the danger it posed. Simply, it reminded him of the time when it was he who directed the parachute drops on Rotterdam or Crete. And, when his chief of staff came to join him
In Nijmegen, however, the capture of the bridge over the Waal proved difficult and dangerous. General Gavin had planned to storm this bridge on Monday morning, but even before he could give the signal to leave, the enemy had counter-attacked, coming from the Reichswald, and recovered the eastern are
On Sunday morning, September 17, Operation Market Garden began. The weather was as expected:light wind, good visibility; a few patches of stratus had disappeared by 10 a.m.From Dorset to Lincolnshire, at 22 airfields (8 British and 14 American), troops began to board. These were the 38th Group of th
Urquhart was therefore forced to choose landing zones quite far from the city. He could not retain the open ground which is about 6 kilometers north of Arnhem because, while the area was very dry and hidden from the city by woods, it was cut too many dunes and bushes to allow landing. of a large num
In fact, his division had not taken part in the operations of Normandy; it had remained in reserve in England. For the past three months, he and his men had been planning a number of operations that had never taken place, either becauseweather conditions or because they had been canceled as being im
The restricted priority that Eisenhower was actually preparing to assign to the airborne operation in the form of additional supplies and transportation seemed, to both Dempsey and Montgomery, absolutely unfair. The Americans, on the other hand, felt that even a limited priority was not justified fo
Montgomery then devised his plan. It was a question of blasting the crust of the German cover by means of a series of airborne operations. By seizing the successive bridges which lie between the Dutch frontier and the Rhine (see map), he hoped to be able to clear the way for a rapid advance of the S
Holland, September 1944 Eisenhower finally admits to Montgomerys daring plan:to rush through the Netherlands with his armored and airborne troops to outflank the German defences. But Market Garden was not equipped with all the necessary means. It was ultimately the failure in front of Arnhem that p
The Battle of the Rio de la Plata 13 December 1939 was the first major naval battle of World War II, which ended with the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf von Spee after a three month campaign against British merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Admiral Graf von Spee followin
The conditions under which the fighters of both sides took part in the battle were particularly extreme. For the Soviets surrounded in Stalingrad, the main tactical difficulty was the obstacle constituted by the Volga, making crossings to supply the troops perilous. At many points, the German army
Although General Paulus held, for a time, nine-tenths of the city, the Axis forces were powerless against the extraordinary moral strength of the Soviets and their tactics of encirclement. The latter is perhaps inspired by that used in the 13th century by the Russo-Vareg prince Alexander Nevsky, who
Isolation of German forces and suicide orders Cut off from their rear by the encirclement maneuver carried out by the Soviets, the German forces could only count on themselves. Shortly after, the loss of the Tatzinskaya and Morozovskaya airfields further aggravated the situation. The German air for
In autumn, Soviet General Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov, responsible for strategic planning in the Stalingrad region, concentrated Soviet forces in the steppes north and south of the city. The German northern flank was particularly vulnerable, as it was defended by Hungarian and Romanian units with
The fight raged for every street, every factory, every house, every basement and every staircase. The Germans call this invisible urban war Rattenkrieg (rat war) and a scathing joke spread about it:Once the kitchen is captured, we always fight for the living room... The Soviet soldiers fought in a
Stalin forbade the evacuation of civilians from the city, believing that their presence would encourage greater resistance from the defenders. Civilians, including women and children, were put to work improving the protective fortifications and continuing to work until the end in the tractor factori
In November 1942, the Wehrmacht had deployed, under the command of Friedrich Paulus, the Sixth Army, composed of: IV Army Corps * 29th Motorized Infantry Division * 397th Infantry Division * 361st Infantry Division VIII Army Corps * 76th Infantry Division * 113th Infantry Division XI Corps * 4
The Operation Braunschweig, from July 23, 1942 is preponderant in the German failure. While it was planned during Blau that a strong group comprising the 6th Army and especially the 4th Panzer Army, covered on the Don by the ARMIR (Armata Italiana in Russia), the Hungarians and the Romanians, plus t
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major turning point in World War II in its significance and nature: * It marks the beginning of the uninterrupted retreat of the German army in Eastern Europe until the final defeat in 1945 with the conquest of Berlin by the Red Army. * It is considered the bloodiest
To defend Sevastopol, the Soviet coastal army had almost 106,000 men, 600 guns, about 100 mortars and 38 tanks; the Soviet perimeter defense airfields lined up 55 airworthy aircraft. For its part, the 11th German army was strong with 204,000 men, 670 guns - of calibers ranging from 76 to 800 - 450 m
Detail of the vault of the collapsed transept crossing, with charred pieces of the spire frame, April 26, 2019 • INRAP/SERVICE DE PRESSE It has been more than a year since a fire destroyed part of Notre-Dame de Paris on April 15, 2019. As of July 30, an exceptional law entrusted Inrap (National
Visiting the British Museum is something like entering a time machine that transports you chronologically and geographically to those times and places in the history of the world that you dream of since you studied them or saw them in a book. The tour of the museum can take whole days if you want
Immediately after the formation of the front in Normandy, after the successful landing of the Allied forces there, the objective of the Allied leadership was to anchor the German armored forces in the sector of the British 2nd Army (2nd Army) so as to give the ability for the US 1st Army (1st Army)
During World War I the Germans used airships for military purposes. The famous Zeppelins were used mainly for exploration and naval attack missions, and the British and Americans would also use them extensively throughout the conflict. In the following years it continued its development, dedicated