Curated playlist
Battles of World War II involving France
- Battle of GazalaRommel used a decoy attack at Gazala, then swung his tanks south around the British line by night.
- Operation CompassOperation Compass was planned as a five-day raid in the Egyptian desert. It ended with about 133,000 Italian prisoners.
- Second Battle of El AlameinA thousand guns opened fire at once at El Alamein on October 23, 1942. A 13-day battle had begun.
- Omaha BeachAllied planners expected up to 1,000 defenders at Omaha Beach, but a full German division was waiting.
- Normandy landingsThe D-Day invasion hinged on a weather forecast from Ireland's west coast.
- Italian invasion of EgyptItaly's 1940 invasion of Egypt began with a marshal who thought it could not succeed.
- Battle of FranceIn 1940, France fell within six weeks despite having more tanks than Germany.
- German invasion of Belgium (1940)German gliders landed on top of Belgium's Fort Eben-Emael on the 10th of May 1940. Explosives disabled its defenses.
- Battle of the BulgeIn the Battle of the Bulge, an American general answered a surrender demand with one word: Nuts.
- Falaise pocketPilots flying over the Falaise pocket smelled the carnage from hundreds of feet up.
- German invasion of the NetherlandsOn the day Germany invaded in 1940, the Netherlands had zero modern tanks.
- Operation DragoonOn August 15, 1944, 1,300 Allied bombers hit Provence to open the invasion of southern France.
- Operation Northwind (1944)Operation Northwind, known in German as Unternehmen Nordwind, was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. It opened on the 31st of December 1944, across Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine, and it ran…