Largest land battle on the Western Front during World War II and the largest engagement ever fought by the U.S. Army. In early December 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower planned major offensives in the northern and southern sectors of the Western Front. To ensure sufficient power for . . .

Military campaign in the Central Pacific. After securing the Marshall Islands in early 1944, American military planners decided that the next step would be to bypass the Japanese-held Caroline Islands (including the stronghold of Truk) in order to seize the Mariana Islands. Located equidistant from the Marshalls and the Japanese . . .

Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944, was the Western Allies' greatest operation of World War II and the finest hour of Anglo-American cooperation. Only the United States and the British Empire could have successfully undertaken the largest and most dangerous amphibious assault in history. The . . .

Dresden, Air Attack on (13-15 February 1945) Allied strategic bombing raid against the German city of Dresden. This operation, conducted 13-15 February 1945, has become the most commonly evoked image to illustrate the excesses and horror of conventional bombing of cities. The firestorm caused by Royal . . .

Bitter contest between the Japanese and the Americans that marked a turning point in the Pacific war. The struggle on Guadalcanal was protracted, and the period from August 1942 to February 1943 saw some of the most bitter fighting of the war. In all, there were some 50 actions involving . . .

Although it is little remembered today, the battle for the Hürtgen Forest was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the U.S. Army. In three months of combat operations, the Americans sustained almost 33,000 casualties but accomplished almost nothing tactically or operationally in the process. . .

Allied amphibious operation in Italy from January to May 1944. The idea for an invasion of mainland Italy emerged from the British, most notably Prime Minister Winston L. S. Churchill. The Americans opposed the operation for fear that it might weaken preparations for Operation OVERLORD, the cross-Channel invasion of France. . .

A series of engagements between the Allies and Germans for control of Monte Cassino, a massif strategically located at the entrance of the Liri Valley in Italy. The site of a Benedictine abbey established in A.D.529, Monte Cassino formed an important part of the German Gustav Line, a set of . . .

The penultimate test of U.S. Marine Corps amphibious doctrine and practice. By the end of 1944, American forces had secured from Japan control of the Mariana Islands to provide air bases for B-29 strategic bombers that could strike Japan. En route to Japan, these bombers flew over Iwo Jima (Sulphur . . .

After gaining a foothold on what German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel called the "longest day," the Allied march inland commenced following D-Day. Unfortunately for the Allies, during 19-20 June a force 6-7 storm blew out of the northwest and severely damaged Mulberry A in the American sector. . .

The campaign in North Africa was fought over control of the Suez Canal. Great Britain depended on the canal for access to Middle Eastern oil and raw materials from Asia. The Suez Canal and the Mediterranean also formed the primary lifeline to Britain's overseas dominions. The ground campaign in North . . .

The fall of Rome just before D-Day had boosted morale but it had not ended the fighting in Italy. The Allies had failed to destroy the German army, and as it fell back, Hitler sent in reinforcements, resolved to make the Allies pay for every inch of territory they gained. . .

Last major battle of World War II in the Pacific and the largest and most complicated amphibious operation in the theater. Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands and only 350 miles from the Japanese home island of Kyushu, had long been regarded as the last stepping-stone before a direct . . .

Anglo-American offensive that included history's largest airborne operation. The brainchild of British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, Operation MARKET-GARDEN was designed to catapult the 21st Army Group across the Rhine River into the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, and win the war in 1944. The plan called for three airborne divisions . . .

Japanese military action against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian Islands, that caused America to enter the war. By early 1941, tensions between Japan and the United States had reached the breaking point. Japan's invasion of China beginning in 1937 and its occupation of French Indochina in . . .

Pacific island battle, one of the bloodiest of the war. Peleliu had been taken by Japan from Germany during World War I. Located about 2,400 miles south of Tokyo and having a land area of only about 7 square miles, Peleliu island was largely blanketed by a tropical forest. Before . . .

Important battle in the Pacific Theater. Saipan, part of the Mariana Islands chain that includes Guam and Tinian, had become Japanese territory in 1920 as a consequence of World War I and was considered a part of Japan itself. Following the successful U.S. invasions in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, . . .

Allied invasion of Sicily, to that point the largest amphibious landing in history. At the January 1943 Casablanca Conference, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston L. S. Churchill and their staffs discussed the next military objective to follow the final defeat of Axis forces in North . . .

One of the bloodiest amphibious assaults in military history. In December 1941, a Japanese task force seized Tarawa - part of the Gilbert Islands, which stretch some 500 miles along the equator. Tarawa is a hook-shaped atoll with a lagoon formed by a coral reef just beneath the ocean surface. . .

Strategic bombing may generally be defined as air attacks directed at targets or systems capable of having a major impact on the will or ability of an enemy nation to wage war. Airpower proponents have touted strategic bombing as a unique war-winning capability and have used it to justify independent . . .