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Want to know more about Kansas history? View various articles from the past.
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In Spring 1945 the outcome of the war was ritually certain but the mighty River Rhine still stood in the way of the Allies. Eisenhowers strategy was to guarantee a crossing in the Ruhr area by allocating the main effort to Montgomerys 21st Army Group. Montys task was to envelope and take out the last German war production and open the way onto the North German Plain.
On the morning of 24 March 1945 the Normandy veterans of 6th British Airborne Division...
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Having fought their way up fifty miles of Hell's Highway and through Nijmegen, XXX Corps was just ten miles from Arnhem and the 1st British Airborne Division. Here it found itself on an island of flat land between the Waal at Nijmegen and the Rhine at Arnhem. The situation was increasingly bad with the remainder of II SS Panzer Corps in the area and German counter attacks on Hell's Highway preventing the Allies applying their material superiority....
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By the middle of 1811, Brigadier General Robert Craufurd's Light Division was emerging as the elite of the Peninsular Army and Wellington was seeking opportunities to go over to the offensive, following the expulsion of Marshal Masséna from Portugal.
After a period of outpost duty for the Light Division on the familiar ground of the Spanish borders, Wellington seized 'the keys to Spain' in the epic sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. Still reeling...
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By June 1944, Juno Beach was a key part of Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall, with no less than four major strong points along its length. German pillboxes were sited to sweep the beaches with machine gun fire and were surrounded by belts of barbed wire and mines. Leading the attack were the 3rd Canadian Division, supported by the specialist assault tanks of the 79th Armoured Division (Hobart's 'Funnies'). Despite careful planning, poor D-Day weather...
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By late March 1945, Second British Army and Ninth US Army were poised to carry out an assault crossing of the Rhine. In the British part of the operations, Montgomerys best assault divisions were assembled to carry out the British and Canadian part of the attack between Emmerich and Wesel.
A commando brigade and two Scottish divisions carried out the initial assault under cover of darkness and a tremendous bombardment on the evening of 23rd March....
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In 1942, with the outcome of the war very much in the balance, there was a pressing need for military success on mainland Europe. Churchill ordered Admiral Lord Mountbatten's Combined Operations HQ to take the war to the Germans. The Canadians were selected for the Dieppe raid, which, while a morale raiser, was a disaster. Over 3,000 men were lost. This authoritative account looks at the planning, execution and analyses the reasons for failure.
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In the dark days of 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill showed his belief in ultimate victory by ordering the raising of the elite Commandos to break the intolerable shackles of defeat. Having proved their worth in numerous raids and operations in the Mediterranean they and their American counterparts, the Rangers, were automatic choices for the most demanding and vital missions of the D-Day Landings in June 1944. These included the capture of...
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Over a month after the D-Day landings the Allies were still confined to the Normandy peninsula. The German line was anchored by the medieval town of Caen, which the British were supposed to have occupied on D-Day. The key to capturing Caen was Hill 112, known to the Germans as "Kalverienberg" (or "Mount Calvary").Under pressure from Churchill, Montgomery launched a major offensive. Unfortunately, German reinforcements delayed by Allied bombing...
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On 21 May 1940 during the ill-fated Dunkirk Campaign the British launched an operation spearheaded by two tank regiments to help secure the city of Arras. This was the only significant armored operation mounted by the British during the campaign.
Poorly coordinated and starting badly, the Matilda tanks ran into the flanks of Rommels over-extended 7th Panzer Division. With the German antitank guns, unable to penetrate the armor of the British tanks,...
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By early August 1944 the Germans fighting in Normandy had been, worn down by the battles around Caen, while to the west, the American breakout was finally gaining momentum. Now was the time to launch II Canadian Corps south towards Falaise. With much of the German armor having been stripped away for the Mortain Counter-Attack, hopes ran high that the Corps, reinforced with British tanks, the 51st Highland and the Polish Armored Divisions, would repeat...
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'He who holds Hill 112 holds Normandy' seemed an unlikely maxim when the hill is viewed from a distance, but on reaching its plateau, the vistas unfold in every direction across a huge swath of Normandy. For the Germans it was their vital defensive ground, but for the British it was an essential steppingstone en route to the River Orne and access to the open country south to Falaise. The Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division lost Hill 112 to 4th armored...
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Written with the advantage of new materials from archives in the former Eastern Bloc, this book is no whitewash of a Waffen SS division and it does not shy away from confronting unpalatable facts or controversies.
Raised in 1943 with seventeen-year-olds from the Hitler Youth movement, and following the twin disasters of Stalingrad and 'Tunisgrad', the Hitlerjugend Panzer Division emerged as the most effective German division fighting in the West....
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The area astride the Spanish/Portuguese border between the respective fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida was the focus of the Peninsular War for much of the period from the autumn of 1809 through until 1812. The fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo that dominated the country between the Rivers Agueda and Ca, was one of the Keys to Spain for any army attacking either east or west across the frontier.
With the defeat of the Fifth Coalition at Wagram in...
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The 82nd Airborne Division fought some of its most desperate battles in support of the British landings at Arnhem, yet these actions are little known today.. All of the units, personalities and actions of this hopeless struggle are covered in the acclaimed Battleground Europe style. This heavily illustrated work also contains a guide to the battle sites, monuments and local facilities as they are today.
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The seizure of the Belgian fortress stronghold at Eban Emael by German Airborne and Special Forces was the dramatic opening shot in the Nazis devastating May 1940 offensive. Codenamed Operation GRANITE, it involved glider forces in a daring coup de main operation achieving total surprise and success. The simultaneous assaults on key bridges on the Albert Canal are also described in graphic detail.
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Hell's Highway is the dramatic name given to the vital stretch of road that the British 3rd Guards Armoured Division had to advance down rapidly on their route to relieve the American Paras (82d Airborne) at Nijmegen and the British I st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Adopting the clear and successful style of Battleground works this book relies on personal accounts to embellish this dramatic story.
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The invasion was launched to round off Hitler’s Balkan Campaign against Crete in May 1941. The Island was important to Britain’s control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Churchill was determined that the Island would be held.
The British garrison was largely made up of New Zealand and Australian troops who had been evacuated from Greece, with little more than what they stood up in. On the other hand the German Commander, Kurt Student, had overwhelming...
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The 1810 French invasion of Portugal, commanded by the veteran marshal André Masséna, who was known to Napoleon as the 'Spoilt Child of Victory' has been well covered by historians. Conversely, the shock revelation of the presence of the Lines of Torres Vedras baring the French Army of Portugal's way to their objective of Lisbon, and numerous combats through to the Battle of Funtes de Oñoro, has been frequently and unjustifiably glossed over. This...
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Previous works have concentrated on the 'Pal' in Britain's northern towns and cities. This book seeks to explore the little appreciated part in the Battle of the Somme played by the Regular and Volunteer Service battalions of two small West Country regiments; the Devonshire Regiment and the Dorset Regiment. These two regiments had five battalions in action on the first day of the battle and were represented in most of the significant attacks during...
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This WWII military study examines the combat experiences of three Allied divisions charged with spearheading the invasion of Normandy.
To lead the charge into France after the Normandy landings, General Montgomery brought three veteran desert formations back from the Mediterranean. They were the 50th Infantry and 7th Armored divisions, plus 4th Armored Brigade. Their task beyond the beaches was to push south to Villers Bocage with armor on the evening...
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