Why use an artificial port ? How they were made and assembled, risks and chances, questions and answers to determine and explain this titanesque enterprise to produce prefabricated ports.

On the night of the 31st of December 1943, two British commandos successfully collected a few samples of sand and peat under the very nose of the Germans posted at Ver-sur-Mer. Five months later, some 25,000 men followed in their footsteps and landed on the same shores, codenamed Gold Beach. Barely had they landed, before the British troops set out to build an artificial harbour, undoubtedly one of the finest technical feats of the Second World War. It was to prove a major asset for securing Allied supremacy in the months that followed the D-Day Landings.

June 6, 1944: a date forever etched in history. With the landing of allied troops on the Normandy coast, so began one of the major confrontations of the Second World War. Twelve weeks of fierce fighting would decide the fate of the war in the West and hasten the defeat of the Third Reich. It is right that everybody should still remember the sacrifice of a region and its people, and that of those men who came from across the Atlantic and across the Channel, to rest forever in this land that they liberated.

The Atlantikwall (Atlantic wall) was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by the German Third Reich in 1942 until 1944 during World War II along the western coast of Europe to defend against an anticipated British led Allied invasion of the continent.Early in 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was assigned to improve the defenses of the Wall. Rommel believed the existing coastal fortifications were entirely inadequate, and he immediately began strengthening them. By the time of the invasion, the Germans had laid almost 6 million mines in northern France. More gun emplacements and minefields extended inland, along the roads leading out from the beaches. In likely landing spots for gliders and parachutists, the Germans emplaced slanted poles with sharpened tops, which the troops called Rommelspargel ("Rommel's asparagus"), and low-lying river and estuarine areas were permanently flooded as well.Rommel firmly believed that the invasion would have to be stopped at the beach itself, or the situation would otherwise inevitably lead to the defeat of Germany.The defensive wall was never completed; consisting primarily of batteries, bunkers, and minefields, which during 1942-1944 stretched from the French-Spanish border into Norway (Festung Norwegen). The Channel Islands were heavily fortified, particularly the island of Alderney which is the closest to France. Hitler had decreed that 10% of the steel and concrete used in the Atlantic Wall go to the Channel Islands, because of the propaganda value of controlling British territory. Despite the mooting of Operation Constellation et al, the Allies bypassed the islands for this reason and did not try to liberate them when they liberated Normandy. The islands' German garrisons did not surrender until 9 May 1945 - one day after the rest of the German armed forces. The German garrison on Alderney did not surrender until 16 May.Today, many significant vestiges remain of the coastal defence system which Goebbels was to pompously baptise the Atlantic Wall. One of the aims of this guide is to introduce readers to the most interesting sites from an architectural, technical or historical point of view, and which can be observed along the Normandy coastline between the Mont Saint-Michel and Dieppe.

June 6, 1944 minutes after midnight, silent silhouettes fly through the clouds and veer over from l'Orne, north of Caen. At more than 150 km / h, they touch the ground and finish their race a few meters from the bridge of Bénouville, who will enter into posterity under the name of Pegasus Bridge. Ninety men emerge painfully from these gliders and seize in a few minutes of the work by a spectacular "helping hand". He is the vanguard of the 6th Airborne Division which will jump a few minutes later between Orne and Dives, for cover the eastern flank of the Normandy landings. The missions assigned to it will all be successfully completed despite widely dispersed drops. But it is not as the beginning of three long months of fighting for British paratroopers.

1943, on a farm in Arkansas, two brothers, Eddy and JohnnyCollins, receive their mobilization letter: one will disembark atOmaha Beach while the other will have to climb a vertiginouscliff held by the enemy. Will the two brothers end upto regain ?

Sword, commonly known as Sword Beach, was the code name given to one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the initial assault phase, Operation Neptune, of Operation Overlord; the Allied invasion of German-occupied France that commenced on 6 June 1944. Stretching 8 km from Ouistreham to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the beach was the eastern most landing site of the invasion. Sword was divided into several sectors, and each sector divided into beaches; thus the British 3rd Infantry Division, assigned to land on Sword, assaulted a two mile (3 km) stretch of Sword codenamed Queen Sector - Queen Red, White and Green beaches. Sword is around 15 km from Caen, the ultimate goal of the 3rd Infantry Division. The initial landings were achieved with low casualties but the advance from the beach was met with traffic congestion, heavily defended areas behind the beachhead and was met by the only armoured counterattack of the day, mounted by the 21st Panzer Division, that halted further progress towards Caen.At 00:16, on June, 1944, 1944, Major John Howard landed with his company just a few yards from Bénouville bridge. In the early hours of D-Day, his British paratroopers were the first Allies to set foot on French soil. They were the vanguard of the 6th Airborne Division whose mission was to secure the east flank of the landing zone, a few hours before the amphibious operation. At dawn, the British 3rd Division, backed by commando units, including Commandant Kieffer's 177 French troops, landed on Sword Beach. At 13:00 hours, Lord Lovat's men joined forces with the paratroopers at Bénouville, forging a vital link between the liberators from the skies and those from the seas.

Following the Normandy invasion of 6 June, 1944, Heersgruppe B under German Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel rushed reserves to the newly created bridgehead in order to crush it and drive the Allied forces into the sea. One of these armored reserves was the newly created 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend. Extremely well equipped and at near full strength by mid-1944 standards, it was seen as an extremely capable formation that could defeat any Allied invasion.During this period studied in this volume, 7-11 June 1944, the 12. SS-Panzer-Division attempted to capture and hold the battlefield initiative, and in conjunction with other Panzer-Divisionen, throw what would become the Second British Army into the sea. The main thesis presented will be that despite this division's best efforts, it was defeated by a firm Allied defence that repulsed their offensive operations, eventually robbing the Germans of the initiative in a grinding series of bridgehead battles.This first volume will study combat in the period 7-11 June 1944 in the eastern sector of the Normandy Bridgehead. Chapters will analyze the Anglo-Canadian D-Day assault and the deployment of the division, then analyze in detail the fighting of the Hitlerjugend in the following areas: northern Caen, Putot, Bretteville l'Orgueilleuse, Norrey-en-Bessin, Hill 103, Le-Mesnil-Patry, and finally Rots. Also studied will be contrasting German and Anglo-Canadian tactical doctrine, the influence of tactical airpower, and the war crimes committed by the Hitlerjugend immediately after the invasion.The conclusion will reinforce the thesis presented above and a detailed set of appendices will analyze German personnel, equipment, and armored losses during the battles, and losses inflicted on the Allies. This will be Volume 1 of a planned multi-volume commitment.

In early 1945, the Red Army marched into East Prussia. Having advanced across Poland, relentlessly pushing back German forces, the Red Army built up forces along the Oder River, preparing for the final push towards Berlin. But before that battle could take place, it was necessary to clear and destroy German forces in Pomerania and West Prussia. In February 1945, the 2nd Byelorussian Front was advanced west north of the Vistula River toward Pomerania and the major port city of Danzig, with the primary aim of protecting the right flank of Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front, which was pushing towards Berlin. The opening of the offensive saw a series of heavy attacks east of Neustettin against the towns of Kontiz and Koslin. The fighting was bitter, resulting in the entire left wing of the 3rd Panzer Army being cut off.Forward Soviet tank units reached the Baltic, and the German forces in Pomerania became trapped in a series of encirclements. Russian troops then pushed on to Danzig—strategic location and the last German stronghold in the region—reaching it in early March and putting it under siege. A third stage was the operation to take the Arnswalde and Kolberg areas. Kolberg was one of the key German positions in the “Pomeranian wall,” the vital link between Pomerania and Prussia. The German high command had planned to use the port facilities for the logistical supply of nearby German forces, and hoped that the presence of this stronghold would lure Soviet forces away from the main thrust toward Berlin. The ensuing battle was brutal, with Soviet troops eventually seizing Kolberg. Finally, spearheads of the 1st Byelorussian Front advanced against the German Eleventh SS Panzer Army, which was being assembled in Pomerania. What followed was a bitter and bloody battle for the town of Altdamm.The offensive successfully cleared the remnants of German forces northeast of Berlin, allowing Zhukov’s forces to finally launch the battle of Berlin from the Seelow Heights on the Oder on April 16, 1945.

Among the many objectives to be achieved by the Allied troops during the D-Day Landing of June 6, 1944, the radar station built in 1942 by the Todt Organization covers an area of more than 35 hectares. Thirty structures and surveillance and guidance installations, such as the iconic Würzburg-Riese and its 7.5 meter diameter parabola. After several assaults, the site fell on June 17, more than 11 days after Operation Overlord...

At the beginning of 1943, the German armed forces were in crisis on the southern front in Russia. The Soviets had launched a series of offensives from November 1942 that pushed the Germans back hundreds of kilometers. The Germans had no more significant reserves available, and enormous breaches had opened between defensive lines. In early January 1943, the Soviets attacked again, with the aim of reconquering the industrial city of Kharkov and destroying the remaining German and Axis troops in southern Ukraine, including the 4. Panzerarmee, 1. Panzerarmee, Armeeabteilung Hollidt and Armeeabteilung Fretter‐Pico.After the encirclement of 6. Armee at Stalingrad and the destruction of the Axis forces there, the loss of these four armies would certainly have led to German defeat on the Eastern Front. Believing victory was near, Stalin and his generals decided to launch their new offensives even before the garrison of Stalingrad surrendered. The main effort fell on Army Group Don, newly formed and with little forces available. Facing a massive offensive, Commander Erich von Manstein was ordered to hold the city at any cost, risking the destruction of two divisions of the Waffen‐SS and the “Grossdeutschland” army division. SS Panzer Corps commander Paul Hausser disobeyed Hitler’s order and ordered the retreat from Kharkov, saving the two SS divisions. This meant that Manstein had at his disposal forces needed to launch his counteroffensive.The subsequent battles for Kharkov saw the three divisions of the Waffen‐SS—Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich and Totenkopf— fighting together for the first time. In the first phase of the offensive, the SS Das Reich and Totenkopf marched 100 kilometers south of Kharkov, blocking the Soviet army from capturing the bridges over the Dnieper River, while the Leibstandarte successfully defended the corps supply base in Krasnograd. After protecting the bridges over the Dnepr, the Das Reich and Totenkopf units headed north and regained control of the vital railway network south of Kharkov. The Soviet 3rd Tank Army was forced to abandon its attack against Krasnograd to regroup south of Kharkov and protect the city from Hausser’s divisions. At that point the Leibstandarte joined the other divisions of the corps SS to eliminate Soviet forces and recapture Kharkov. With its reconquest, Southern Ukraine returned firmly under German control.This is a fully illustrated account of the decisive victory attained by the SS Panzer Corps divisions at a time of serious crisis for the Axis forces.

Illustrated with colorized wartime photographs and original battle relics, read for the first time the complete correspondence of an American officer in the 4th Infantry Division, from the battlefields of Normandy to the dark forest of Hürtgen and the liberation of Paris! These poignant letters and true story make us reflect on the terrible effects of war and the importance of peace.

Early 1944, General Eisenhower took command of Operation Overlord. He immediately decided to add a new landing beach to the south of the Cotentin peninsila: Utah Beach. From this landing zone, the American troops hoped to rapidly advance towards Cherbourg to take control of the port, a crucial facility to support the considerable logistic effort that would ensure Overlord's success. On the morning of 6th June, officers from the first wave of assault set foot on Utah, to realise that their troops had landed over a mile south of their intended landing zone. Without wasting a second, they decided to continue operations from this very beach, the choice that was to seal the success of the Utah landings.

Despite the prevailing view that the Marine Corps bore the brunt of the fighting in the Pacific War, the men of the US Army played a decisive role in the conflict. Indeed, GIs did most of the war’s heavy lifting on the ground by conducting more amphibious assaults and prosecuting more operations than the Marines. By the end of the war there were 1. 77 million U.S. Army troops in the Pacific and Asia, compared to the USMC’s 484,000. The Pacific was as much the Army’s war as the fighting in the European theater. The U.S. Army deployed twenty combat divisions to fight in the Pacific, including famous ones such as the 1st Cavalry Division and the 25th “Tropic Lightning” Division. Most were infantry, and included Regular, National Guard and draftee divisions.The divisions were deployed and maneuvered by theater, field army, and corps commanders around the Pacific’s geostrategic chessboard to battle and defeat the Japanese. The Army may have wanted its divisions to be interchangeable and uniform, but this proved impossible. Their quality and performance depended upon their resources, the geography and terrain on which they fought, experience, leadership, and organizational culture. Historians, though, have made little effort to examine their records in a systematic way before now. In addition, almost all of the Army’s divisions, some after admittedly rocky starts, became units capable of winning their engagements. Indeed, not a single Army division fighting the Japanese during the American counteroffensive across the Pacific was completely destroyed in combat. Whatever problems these divisions faced tended to grow out of the society that produced them, not fundamental flaws in Army doctrine. This is a tribute to the Army as a whole and to the twenty divisions that the Army deployed against the Japanese.This new history uses a narrative approach to describe and analyze each division's history, characteristics, and battles during the conflict, concluding with an assessment of their battlefield records, taking into account the innumerable factors affecting their combat performance.

Alone, unprepared and weak. These are generally the words used to describe Britain’s position in 1940, part of a narrative that has been built up ever since the end of World War II. However, the reality is very different. On land, sea and in the air, Britain was prepared. It had the most powerful navy in the world; the RAF was relatively strong, but more importantly, was operating as part of a plan and a joined-up group system that was in reality never in any real danger of being defeated; even the post-Dunkirk British Army was better armed than the post-war narrative tells us. Thees forces were backed up by the Home Guard, and thousands of men and women in secret roles ready to help fight the invasion of the country. Even if all of this had gone wrong and the Nazis had defeated Britain militarily then a separate, highly secret civilian group were ready to become active only after the occupation had started.One word associated more than any other during this period of the Second World War is ‘Alone’ – Churchill played upon this in his speeches but in 1940, Britain had a hugely powerful empire. Although in many cases this support was thousands of miles away, the Empire and other Allies would have played a huge role had the Germans had invaded, one that has been overlooked in many accounts.

This meticulously crafted book showcases a captivating collection of 36 vivid color profiles featuring the iconic German “Panther “tank, a legendary tank that played a pivotal role in World War II. Each profile has been meticulously created, offering an unparalleled level of detail and precision. These profiles are specially commissioned, ensuring an extraordinary visual experience for military enthusiasts and WW2 history buffs alike.