(April 9, 2021) This week, 80 years ago, five Axis armies, from three countries, attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
On Oct. 28, 1940, the German dictator arrived in Florence, Italy on his personal train, the Amerika. As he alighted from the Amerika, the Italian Duce bounded forward and gleefully exclaimed, in German, âFührer, we are on the march! Victorious Italian troops crossed the Greco-Albania frontier at dawn today!â
Twice the Italians had been specifically warned by their German allies not to undertake such an adventure. Hitler knew that this adventure would probably end badly.
He could not allow his Italian ally to go down to defeat to the Greeks, because, 1) it made for poor publicity and 2) it put the Romanian oil fields of PloieÅti within range of British bombers based in Greece. Now, that bill was coming due. But the Germans needed a land route to Greece.
Battle for Hill 112: The Allied Key To Victory in Normandy
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel declared that whoever held Hill 112 would hold the key to all of Normandy. It would become the scene of one of the fiercest battles of the campaign.
Here s What You Need to Know: Although the British failed to secure the summit of Hill 112, they succeeded in denying it to the Germans.
The Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, produced a bitter struggle for control of the invasion beachhead. Slowly, the Allies expanded and reinforced, fighting all the time in dense bocage country dominated by hills and hedgerows against an enemy whose skill and determination extracted a high price in men and equipment.