European Center of Military History
Gold Remains a Good long-term Investment Whether the dollar goes up or down, gold is still going to be a good investment because we have virtually all the important central bankers focused on growth and not inflation. Gold is a dynamic metal....
Request for Identication - Crashed Plane 1945 I need the following answers : (Body) German or British ? (Plane) German or British ? I have studied the photos for more than an hour and I am still wondering because the Cockpit looks like an AAF P-38's...
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 Another Wartime photos set and like the one before it's a really good one. Joe Summers Pontoon bridge over the Rhine River. Note signs : (left) seems to be a "one way - Red Ball Express",...
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 And here is the next set Wartime photos of the 17th Airborne Division. My Dad took a photo of the same concrete bunker from a distance. It had a Russian star on top of it when he took the photo....
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 Well, these new photos are fields photos and request from me some researches. This is exactly what I like to do, so it will take a little more time as usual to be posted. And once again thanks to Cindy...
Dec
31
2009
A-1 The Corps of Intelligence Police (CIC)-1 (1917-1940)
1. Purpose and Scope
The material in this manual is designed to furnish information on the historical development of the Counter Intelligence Corps. It covers the period from 1917 to 1945, with special emphasis on the war years. An attempt has been made, from the documents available, to describe the history and mission of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the various theaters of operations.
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Oct
29
2009
Suddenly the plane shot upward, roaring away from the airfield. We all smashed back against our seats. Maybe the wheels won’t come down, someone said in a small voice. Snuffy Nixon, the navigator, stuck his head in the cabin and broke the silence. Don’t worry, folks. I just got mixed up in my figuring and picked the wrong country. Not France ! we cried. No, said Snuffy, it’s not France. But it’s not England, either. He grinned over at me. This is Kay’s home. We almost landed in southern Ireland !
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Oct
27
2009
Big Brass gathered for the Cairo Conference were concerned mostly with world-wide strategy. But they also wanted to hear testimony on the war raging right there in the Mediterranean… so Gen Marshall dispatched a special C-54 to bring the star witness. Instead of flying over in lonely pomp, Gen Eisenhower made a characteristic gesture. He invited about a dozen of his lower-rank staff members to go along : There’s no use wasting all the space in this big plane, he explained. Besides, it may be the only chance you’ll ever get to visit the Middle East.
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Oct
24
2009
General Eisenhower told me about it as we drove down from the villa, where I picked him up every morning, to the hotel headquarters of AFHQ in Algiers : It’s a top level secret, he confided, but I can tell you because you’re in on it. He smiled. In a week or so you’re going to be driving the President of the United States.
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Oct
23
2009
For Me, that strange late Spring was filled with the scent of orange blossoms. I couldn’t smell the ordinary jasmine, the poppy fields; I could neither see nor hear the war being readied against Mussolini. I expected to be married before June melted into the African summer. Dick, now a full colonel, was in Oran with II Corps HQs. Gen Eisenhower not only promised each of us at least several days’ leave after our marriage, already approved by the Army after its usual ninety-day waiting period; he also offered, as a sort of refuge from the war, the use of his little farm outside Algiers. We would have a full-fledged honeymoon in North Africa. Dick arrived in Algiers the last week of May, en route to Gen Truscott’s 3rd Inf Div’ Hqs at Mateur. Ive got a command, at last, he told me. Got what I always wanted, a regiment and actual field duty.
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Oct
19
2009
Troopship life evolved into a world without privacy, a world of restless boredom and endless rumor. Fortunately, my two cabin companions were old friends : Ethel Westermann, the dispensary nurse who had been out to Telegraph Cottage for innumerable bridge sessions, and Jean Dixon, a friendly Washington girl whose British husband had been killed in the Royal Air Force. We took turns sleeping on a dirty mattress wedged into the floor beside a double-decker bunk. With three separate sittings for each meal, we spent much of the days inching along the deck in snake-like lines. Even loafing space was rationed. We queued, slept, and strolled; strolled, slept, and queued.
Between times, we joined the gossip-manglers.
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Jun
15
2009
Category : Anzio Beach Head, Italy
XXIX – 22 February 1944
A. Operations Report
The attack to destroy the enemy pocket at Cle Buon Riposo did not succeed. Under heavy enemy barrage, the troops had to fight in difficult terrain with deep ravines. Up to the present, 150 prisoners have been brought in.
In the morning, and again in the afternoon, the 715th Infantry Division attacked Cle Biadaretto, 2 km north of Cle di Padiglione, and the Cle Carano hills. However, due to the enemy’s defensive fire, these attacks were halted short of their objectives.
At 1900, the 3rd Pzr Gren Div took over the sector formerly occupied by the 26th Pzr Div. The 67th Pzr Gren Regt of the 26th Pzr Div was attached to the 3rd Pzr Gren Div.
To complete the mission successfully, the 14th Army requested the Commander in Chief Southwest to strengthen it with one complete division ready for combat service, possibly a mountain division for greater mobility in wooded areas; one heavy mortar and one medium howitzer battalion; one engineer assault battalion; and additional portable radio sets, of which the Army has a shortage of 468.
We intend to shorten the main line of resistance on the east flank of the LXXVI Panzer Corps by seizing the Biadaretto and Carno hills, as well as destroy as quickly as possible all enemy units still in the area of Cle Buon Riposo, in order to relieve units of the 3rd Pzr Gren Div in the area west of the highway.
After the 3rd Pzr Gren Div has taken over the present sector of the 26th Pzr Div and parts of the western flank of the 29th Pzr Gren Div, it will be attached to the I Parachute Corps. When fighting has ceased in the area of Biadaretto, the remaining units of the 715th Inf Div will be withdrawn in order to take over the sector of two battalions on the eastern flank of the 362nd Inf Div. All forces committed south of the area will be attached to the 715th Inf Div.
On or about 26 February the Army plans a breakthrough to the Mussolini Canal, from the north, crossing a general line from Pte della Crocetta to Isola Bella. Units to participate in this attack will be :
- 362nd Infantry Division
- Panzer Division Herman Goering
- 26th Panzer Division.
The attack will be made from the west flank of the 362nd Inf Div. If this action meets with success, the Army intends to push on to the lower Spaccassassi Creek. The two battalions of the 15th Pzr Gren Div (earmarked for the 29th Pzr Gren Div) which are at present in transit, will be held in reserve in the are west of Velletri. After the 29th Pzr Gren Div has been withdrawn from its present front sector, it will be used either for the attack against Fosso di Spaccassassi and to roll up the enemy lines southwest of Cisterna from the west, or to make a surprise attack from north of the area of Borgo Podgora against the enemy units fighting in the area of Isola Bella.
Experience has shown that the enemy reacts every quickly to the regrouping of our forces. It is, therefore, imperative that the regrouping be concealed, and it is of particular importance that the enemy be engaged along the entire line by continuous raids. These raids will have the secondary purpose of improving the local front. By means of all types of deceptive measures, the enemy must be misled as to the actual assembly area of the assault divisions. To aid this deception further, I Parachute Corps will erect dummy tanks in the area around Adrea.
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Apr
13
2009
The 9th Infantry Division was activated at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on August 1, 1940 as the 9th Division then it participated in both October and November 1941 Carolina Maneuvers and was sent later to amphibious training under the Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Corps.
Re-designated as 9th Infantry Division on August 1 1942, the division left Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey on November 25 1942.
On December 11 1942, the 9th Infantry Division departed the New York Port of Embarkation and landed in North Africa on December 25 1942, less elements of the division which assaulted on November 8 1942 in Casablanca. From there, the 9th Infantry Division arrived in Palermo, Sicily on July 31 1943 and was sent back to England on Novermber 25 1943.
The division landed then in France on June 10 1944, crossed into Belgium on September 2 1944 and entered Germany on September 14 1944 where it remained active thru 1946.
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Apr
04
2009
Inevitably, I had heard of the impending North African invasion. Talk in the back seat of my staff car was more Top Secret than anything on paper. In general, I knew about as much about Torch Operation as most senior commanders in the early autumn of 1942. One month before the birthday party I had taken Gen Eisenhower out to Telegraph Cottage in a hurry. For once he seemed preoccupied. He obviously didn’t want to talk; I had long made it a habit not to ask questions, ever. As we sped through Kensington he mumbled something about ‘big doings for a colonel’. The rest of the ride was in heavy silence. But Generals, three-star Generals don’t usually get excited over colonels. I knew something big was up. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, the General said as he got out at the cottage.
Mickey will look after you.
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Mar
06
2009
Within a fortnight I was driving a new general, Carl (Tooey) Spaatz. The now-famous and retired Tooey Spaatz was, in early 1942, a grimly silent major general. As chief of the new Eighth Air Force, he had a gigantic job. And he spent every waking moment pondering over problems involved in the daring principle of daylight bombing. A rather unspectacular, balding man who would hardly stand out in a crowd, he called to mind that pensive statue : The Thinker. He concentrated so intensively that I often thought he was asleep. Naturally, he had no time for the ordinary little details of everyday life. He was, in fact, coldly impatient with them. That’s how I came to drive for General Spaatz. His temper had finally boiled over because his sergeant was late again in arriving at a conference. The Yank chauffeur was naturally bewildered like many other Americans by the maze of tangled little streets which history had forced upon London. When the General heard of my MTC experience, he requested that I be loaned out to his headquarters immediately.
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Feb
15
2009
This is the wartime story of an American GI. In fact, this is the story of a GI like many other GI’ stories. It’s about friendships, cold, winter, rain, snow, mud, blood, war and dead. But this story has something else. It is the story over one of these GIs who were in Verviers and Liège during the period September 1944 to December 1944. This GI, Orville Iverson – Ivy – had built a strong friendships with the Jacquet Family from Verviers. Especially Claude and Ninette.
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