Word: attackable
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hitler had hoped to attack the Low Countries in the fall of 1939, as soon as possible after the conquest of Poland, but the plan was delayed first by objections from the German generals, then by bad weather, then by a bizarre twist of fortune. A Luftwaffe major who carried a set of the invasion plans in his briefcase was sitting in an officers club in Munster and bemoaning the long train trip to a planning conference in Cologne the next day; another major, who was getting too old for active duty, offered to fly him there so that...
...original German plan was to launch a frontal assault by Army Group B on the Low Countries, just as in 1914, with a secondary attack in the Ardennes by Army Group A. But General Erich von Manstein, chief of staff for Army Group A, passionately argued that this would only lead to stalemate in northern France, again just as in 1914. By contrast, a strong armored offensive right through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes could lead to a breakthrough all the way to the English Channel. The Allied armies would be encircled and cut off; all France would lie open. Manstein...
...essential German goal was to knock out the R.A.F., and though the Luftwaffe was taking heavy losses, so were the defenders and their bases. Then there occurred another one of those almost accidental twists. Two German bombers on their way to attack aircraft factories at Rochester strayed over central London and dropped their bombs on the hitherto unattacked capital. Churchill promptly ordered several retaliatory raids on Berlin. Hitler, unaware of his increasing success against the R.A.F. installations, made the mistake of ordering further retaliations against London. And so, while the R.A.F. won a vital reprieve, the citizens of London...
...Admiral Karl Donitz's submarine fleet not only acquired access to the Atlantic at the captured French naval base in Lorient but also started a lethal new tactic known as wolf packs. Instead of one lone U-boat sniping at an Allied convoy, three or more subs would attack simultaneously from different directions. On the night of Sept. 21, for example, a wolf pack attacked a convoy of 41 ships and sank twelve; the following month, in two successive nights, wolf packs torpedoed 32 out of 84 ships -- without any German losses. "The only thing that ever really frightened...
...trade agreement with the U.S.S.R. as late as January 1941, but a month earlier Hitler had told his commanders, "The German armed forces must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign." The battle plan called for some 148 divisions -- more than 3 million men -- to attack in three main drives along a 1,000-mile front. One army group would strike northward, toward Leningrad; another army group from the Warsaw area would move north of the Pripet Marshes toward Moscow, which Hitler planned to level and leave forever uninhabitable; the southernmost group, from Rumania, would storm across...