Y1806

The telephone line crackled with barely suppressed fury as General Omar Bradley gripped the receiver in Luxembourg City on December 20, 1944. Across the wire came Dwight Eisenhower's measured voice, delivering an order that would test their friendship to its breaking point. Two American armies, the First and the Ninth, were being placed under British … Read more

On January 7, 1945, at Montgomery's headquarters in Zonhoven, Belgium, the British field marshal walked to a podium before 39 correspondents from every major wire service. The briefing room had been prepared with the care Montgomery applied to everything he controlled. He was there to describe the Battle of the Bulge. He spoke for 45 … Read more

On April 29, 1945, American soldiers walked through the gates of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. What they found stopped them cold. Piles of bodies. Thousands of skeletal prisoners barely alive. Gas chambers still warm from use. Rail cars filled with corpses, 39 of them stacked like cargo and left to rot. The smell … Read more

In August 1944, inside the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, the mood in Hitler's situation room was suffocating. On the Western map table, red arrows marked the advance of General George S. Patton's Third Army tearing through France. German generals argued loudly about how to contain him. They asked for fuel and panzers, and they … Read more

In April 1945, in Bavaria, Germany, General George S. Patton was at his command post reviewing afternoon reports when his aide entered. The aide told him a German general was outside, alone, with no guards and no escort. He had walked up to an American checkpoint and asked to speak with Patton personally. Patton asked … Read more

In the frozen forests of the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge was finally collapsing. But inside Allied headquarters in Luxembourg City on January 7, 1945, the war between allies was far from over. General Omar Bradley, known to the world as the GI's general, sat at his desk. He was a man famous for … Read more