Third Reich Victorious (50 page)

Right to left, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton (7th Army), Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley (II Corps), and Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton (45th Infantry Division) confer during the fighting in Sicily.

Author’s collection

German night fighters catch and destroy a British bomber in a raid over Berlin.

U.S. Army Art Collection

Thousands of 88mm antiaircraft guns played a vital role in the defense of the skies over the Reich.

U.S. Army Art Collection

B-17 being attacked by a Luftwaffe Fw 190 fighter. Even in the best of conditions in 1943, it required ten sorties by German pistonengined fighters such as this to defeat a single B-17.

Author’s collection

An Me 262. Turbojet technology gave Germany an opportunity to achieve a qualitative lead over the Allies’ quantitative superiority.

Author’s collection

Burning buildings in London, believed to be located 1.5 miles from the center of the atom bomb blast.

Author’s collection

German Heinkel 177 bomber of the type used for atomic attacks on London and Moscow.

Author’s collection

Marshal G. K. Zhukov at the time of his assumption as Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Author’s collection

German infantry on the defensive—one of the most formidable obstacles in the world. Rebuilt and equipped with large numbers of antitank guns under Rommel’s guidance, the German infantry divisions in their in-depth defenses bled the Red Army to death in that awful winter of 1945.

U.S. Army Art Collection

German 88mm gun in action in central Poland. The suspension of the bomber campaign against Germany by the armistice in Normandy allowed thousands of guns to be moved from the Reich to the Eastern Front.

U.S. Army Art Collection

Burnt-out Soviet T-34 tanks littered the flat farmlands of central Poland after the destruction of four tank armies in Field Marshal von Manstein’s classic replay of the Battle of Tannenberg on a vast scale in February 1945.

U.S. Army Art Collection