Curated category
Naval battles and operations of the European theatre of World War II
- Allied invasion of SicilyThe Casablanca Conference in January 1943 brought together political leaders and military Chiefs of Staff from the United States and Britain to discuss…
- Normandy landingsThe decision to invade Normandy in 1943 began a complex web of military deception known as Operation Bodyguard. Allied planners needed to convince Adolf…
- Dunkirk evacuationGermany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering a declaration of war from France and the British Empire. The British Expeditionary Force landed at…
- Allied invasion of ItalyBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Italy the soft underbelly of the axis in November 1942. He argued that invading would remove Italy from the…
- Operation DragoonGeneral George Marshall proposed the invasion of Southern France in 1942. Joseph Stalin supported this plan at the Tehran Conference in late 1943.
- Operation PedestalBy late July 1942, the island of Malta faced a desperate shortage of fuel. Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park warned that only a few weeks of aviation fuel remained…
- Last battle of BismarckThe German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen attempted to break out into the Atlantic Ocean on the 19th of May 1941.
- Battle of AnzioWinston Churchill lay recovering from pneumonia in Marrakesh when he conceived Operation Shingle in December 1943. The British Prime Minister wanted to land…
- Operation WeserübungBy the spring of 1939, the British Admiralty began to view Scandinavia as a potential theatre of war in a future conflict with Nazi Germany.
- Battle of Cape MatapanMavis Batey sat at a desk in the Government Code and Cypher School building at Bletchley Park during late March 1941. She read an Italian naval Enigma…
- Battle of TarantoThe Mediterranean Sea became a deadly choke point in 1940. British convoys traveling from Gibraltar to Egypt faced constant threats from Italian naval forces.