Curated playlist
Battles of World War II involving France
- Battle of GazalaThe Battle of Gazala lasted less than four weeks, from the 26th of May to the 21st of June 1942, yet it handed Erwin Rommel the greatest victory of his career. A port city fell in a single day. An entire garrison of 33,000 men was…
- Operation CompassOperation Compass began on the night of the 9th of December 1940 with a force of about 31,000 soldiers, 120 guns, 275 tanks, and sixty armoured cars advancing through the Egyptian desert toward an Italian army more than twice its size.…
- Second Battle of El AlameinAt 21:40 on the 23rd of October 1942, a thousand guns opened fire simultaneously along a 40-mile front in the Egyptian desert near the railway halt of El Alamein. The Second Battle of El Alamein had begun. Over the next 13 days,…
- Omaha BeachCaptain Logan Scott-Bowden stood before General Omar Bradley with a warning about Omaha Beach. He and Sergeant Bruce Ogden-Smith had swum ashore from midget submarines more than thirty times. Each trip was to collect sand samples from the…
- 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…
- Italian invasion of EgyptThe Italian invasion of Egypt began on the 13th of September 1940, when an army of tens of thousands crossed from Libya into British-held territory with one prize in mind: the Suez Canal. The operation had a name, Operazione E, and a…
- 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…
- German invasion of Belgium (1940)On the 10th of May 1940, Germany invaded three countries simultaneously: Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Within 18 days, the Belgian Army would surrender, the Allied forces that had rushed to defend Belgium would be trapped with…
- Battle of the BulgeThe Battle of the Bulge began at 05:30 on the 16th of December 1944, when 1,600 German artillery pieces opened fire along an 80-mile front in the forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. For 90 minutes the…
- 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…
- German invasion of the NetherlandsThe German invasion of the Netherlands began in the pre-dawn hours of the 10th of May 1940. Within five days, the main Dutch forces had surrendered. The entire country was under German occupation seven days after that. What makes that…
- Operation DragoonOperation Dragoon began in the predawn hours of the 15th of August 1944, when 1,300 Allied bombers from Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica roared toward the sun-bleached coastline of Provence. By 06:00 that morning, the bombs were falling. By…
- Operation Northwind (1944)Adolf Hitler spoke to division commanders at his Adlerhorst command complex on the 28th of December 1944. He declared that this attack had a very clear objective, namely the destruction of enemy forces. There was no matter of prestige…