Curated playlist
Battles and operations of World War II involving Poland
- Operation CrusaderOperation Crusader began on the 18th of November 1941, and its target did not even know it was happening. Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, commanding the Axis forces in North Africa, was away from the front when the British Eighth Army…
- Normandy landingsOn the 6th of June 1944, roughly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel in a single day. They came ashore along a 50-mile stretch of French coastline divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. By the end of that…
- Spring 1945 offensive in ItalyOperation Grapeshot opened on the 6th of April 1945, when the 15th Allied Army Group unleashed a rolling artillery barrage against German positions along the Senio river in northern Italy. Within 26 days, every Axis soldier in Italy would…
- Operation Market GardenOperation Market Garden launched on the 17th of September 1944, and for two days it looked like it might actually work. Around 35,000 to 40,000 airborne soldiers dropped from the sky over German-occupied Netherlands while a column of…
- Battle of FranceThe Battle of France began on the 10th of May 1940, and within six weeks an empire that had survived the carnage of the First World War had collapsed. France, the largest army on the continent, with more tanks than Germany and a defensive…
- North African campaignThe North African campaign of World War II began on the 11th of June 1940 and did not end until the 13th of May 1943 - nearly three years of brutal fighting across some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. Desert, heat, and vast…
- Falaise pocketAt the Falaise pocket, forty-eight hours after the guns fell silent, General Dwight D. Eisenhower walked the ground on foot. He later recorded encountering scenes that could only be described by Dante. Pilots flying overhead reported…
- Western Allied invasion of GermanyThe Western Allied invasion of Germany reached its decisive turning point on the 22nd of March 1945, when American troops crossed the Rhine under a bright moon with almost no resistance at Nierstein. Seven startled German soldiers…
- Operation BagrationOperation Bagration began on the 22nd of June 1944, exactly three years to the day after Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union. That symmetry was no accident. What followed across the forests and marshes of Soviet Byelorussia…
- Dieppe RaidThe Dieppe Raid took place on the 19th of August 1942, and within ten hours it was over. More than 6,000 men had crossed the English Channel in the night. By the time they were counted, 3,623 of the 6,086 who had landed were dead, wounded,…