Jon Diamond

Early in 1944 the Allied advance was halted by the German defence of the Gustav Line. Even with the deployment of Eighth Army reinforcements from the Adriatic, every effort to capture Monte Cassino failed. Fifth Armys VI Corps amphibious landing at Anzio in January, while initially successful stalled in the face of formidable German counter-attacks and the beach-head was effectively besieged. The stalemate at Anzio and along the Gustav Line was...

In just 10 weeks from 8 December 1941 to mid February 1942, British and Imperial forces were utterly defeated by the numerically inferior Japanese under General Yamashita. British units fought hard on the Malayan mainland but the Japanese showed greater mobility, cunning and tactical superiority. Morale was badly affected by the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse to Japanese aircraft on 19 December as they sought out enemy shipping. Panic set...

General Douglas A MacArthur, Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, saw the liberation of the Philippines Archipelago as the launching board for the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. By late 1944, with the capture of New Guinea and surrounding islands, the US Sixth and Eighth Armies were poised for the challenge. American forces landed on Leyte on 20 October 1944 with the Leyte Gulf naval battle quickly following. By 25 December the island...

Visual history of the Allied battles for New Guinea during 1942-44.

After the Normandy breakout, the Allies' headlong dash east came to a halt in the autumn with the ill-fated Market Garden operation and overextended supply lines short of the Rhineland. After repulsing the Nazis' daring Ardennes offensive, Montgomery's and Bradley's Army Groups cleared the Reichwald and Rhineland and closed on the Rhine. With both sides aware of the strategic significance of this physical barrier, the stakes could not have been higher....

In September 1943, shortly after the conquest of Sicily, the Allied armies made amphibious assaults on the Italian Mainland at Calabria, Taranto and along the Gulf of Salerno beaches. The Italian Government quickly capitulated but the Germans fought on. Although the British XIII Corps and 1st Airborne’s attacks were largely uncontested in Calabria and Taranto, the Allied Fifth Army’s beachheads at Salerno underwent savage Nazi counterattacks. After...

On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal, northeast of Australia, launching the first major Allied offensive against Japan. In one of the best-known campaigns of World War II's Pacific Theater, the Marines and then the U.S. Army endured a bitter six-month struggle for the island.