On 25 April 1945, 700 bombers and fighters of the U.S. 15th Air Force raided Linz, Germany, the town where Adolf Hitler grew up. Although neither the air crews nor the people of Linz could know it, it would be the last major Allied air raid of the Second World War. And one of the costliest in terms of U.S. casualties. Mike Croissant's uncle Ellsworth Croissant was one of the bombardiers on that air raid.  That connection led the retired CIA analyst to write a book about it: Bombing Hitler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe. It's a very pers ..read more

Mussolini was not happy about being in the Axis by 1943. And Stalin refused to attend the Casablanca Conference with Churchill and Roosevelt. Meetings of the summit and other senior leaders of the Axis and Allied powers through the war show the evolution of each side's war aims between 1939 and 1945. Map: The Kursk salient, spring 1943     Image 1: Roosevelt and Churchill aboard the HMS Prince of Wales at the Argentia Conference, August 1941.   Seated: President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left) and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Standing directly behind them: Admiral Ernest J. Ki ..read more

In April 1943, Jewish people forced into the grossly overcrowded ghetto in Warsaw rose up against the nazis, killing hundreds of SS soldiers. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising failed, but its memory lives on.    SS members force Jewish people out of shelters for deportation to death camps, spring, 1943. Source: Wikimedia Commons.    A map of the Warsaw Ghetto, the area nazi oppressors forced Jewish people to remain in.    SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop (center), commanded of the SS brigade that destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.    In April and May, the SS systematic ..read more

After their stunning, bloody defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans withdrew west to the Donets River in Ukraine, and the Red Army swept ahead as much as 800 km. But the Germans were still a potent force, and in March 1943, were ready to retake Kharkiv.  Map 1: The counter-attack in the Donbas Map 2: The advances on Kharkiv  Map 3: Withdrawal from the Rzhev salient Maps 4 and 5: The front in March 1943 ..read more

After the 6th Army's surrender at Stalingrad, rapid, far-ranging mobility returns to the war on the Eastern Front, as German and Soviet forces advance and retreat hundreds of kilometres. Map 1: The Kuban Bridgehead   Map 2: Operation Star    Map 3: Von Manstein's counter-offensive    A Tiger tank near Kharkiv, 1943   Source: Pinterest ..read more

The Red Army finally scores two major victories in January 1943 — in the two cities where it mattered most.  The surrender of the Sixth Army:  https://stalingrad.net/german-hq/surrender/surrender.htm  Map 1: End of the battle of Stalingrad   Map 2: Operation Iskra    Source: Wikipedia Photos: The surrender at Stalingrad    Left to right: Field Marshal F. Paulus, C-in-C, 6th Army; Gen. W. Schmidt, Chief of Staff; Col. Adam, Paulus' adjutant.    General Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander of the Don Front that captured the 6th Army in Stalingr ..read more

The Germans in the Stalingrad cauldron reject the Soviets' final offer of surrender. The Red Army responds by crushing the cauldron.  Map 1: The end of the Kessel Source: Military History Now  The ultimatum to Stalingrad:  https://www.stalingrad.net/russian-hq/the-russian-ultimatum/rusultimatum.html  Images:   3-engine German transport plane lands at Pitomnik airfield.   Red Army soldiers attack in the ruins of Stalingrad. Sources: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998. Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little ..read more

For the Germans of the 6th Army, Christmas 1942 was a hungry Yule in the  freezing Cauldron. Map 1: Operation Uranus, November and December 1942    Map 2: Operation Winter Storm: The German relief attempt    Map 3: Operation Winter Storm stalled    Failure: Luftwaffe supplies the trapped 6th Army in the Kessel   Failure: Operation Winter Storm    German soldiers in the Kessel/Cauldron   Red Army soldier writes home, December 1942    By December, the Red Army soldiers' morale was very different from the Germans ..read more

Warfare usually slows down in winter. Not so in Russia in 1942. The Germans launch another huge attack to relieve the 6th Army in Stalingrad. But the Red Army has its own ideas.  Map 1: The long, long German lines to Stalingrad   Map 2: Operation Uranus Source: Awesome stories Map 3a: Operation Winter Storm Source: https://alchetron.com/cdn/operation-winter-storm-ee2a434c-cf0a-4ef4-a3c3-e87d2e84c08-resize-750.jpeg  Map 3b: Operation Winter Storm fails Source: WWIIincolor.com  Historical pictures   A Panzer III on the steppe in southern Russia, December 1942  Sourc ..read more

As three Red Army Fronts move on the German flanks west and south of Stalingrad, two more attack the Rzhev-Vyazma salient west of Moscow. Is it a diversion, or is Mars the twin of Uranus? Map 1: The Rzhev-Vyazma salient Map 2: Operation Mars   Historical images Workers from Moscow suburbs handing over new tanks to Soviet servicemen. Source: Commons:RIA Novosti Sources Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998. Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012. Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov. London ..read more