Word: foothold
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Land of the Free. It was the shifting fortunes of war in Europe that swung the U.S. alternately into optimism and pessimism, and always the pendulum swung too far. When the Allies won and held their first foothold in Normandy, the war seemed all but over. When the first attempts to break out of the peninsula failed, gloom settled down. When the breakout came and the Germans were routed, it was in the bag. When the Allies pulled up in September, back came the gloom. When Generals Bradley and Devers resumed the offensive in November, there were Congressmen in Washington...
...paratroopers depended on the Second Army's speed. And the Second Army's speed depended in part on the paratroopers seizing bridges so that its tanks and big guns could roll ahead without interruption. The whole was a fine calculation of military risks to gain a foothold across the Rhine. In the first surprise the Second Army pushed to Eindhoven. Thereafter, as often happens in war, the stroke did not go according to plan...
That night the U.S. airbornes inflated their few boats again, crossed the Lek to relieve the men in the "patch of hell." Gradually the Allied foothold across the Lek was strengthened. But still there was no letup of the German pressure. For this was also a battle of desperation for the Germans. U.S. columns advancing eastward from the rescue corridor drove into German territory a few miles from Cleve, the anchor of the Siegfried Line. This was not merely a battle to rescue the British airborne. It was a battle to turn the whole right flank of the German army...
...MacArthur's coastal campaign had been one of the most economical of World War II. The first stages had been slow and costly: a heartrending series of marches through jungles and over mountains to battle at Buna, Gona, Sanananda, Salamaua, Lae. But while the campaign to secure a foothold on one tip of the great island was being fought the hard way, a better, smarter war was being planned...
...date: 3,283 Americans dead, 12,600 wounded. Not mentioned by General Bradley were the missing and prisoners, who must have been many-especially in view of the big airborne operations. But he had set out the first installment of the blood-price the Allies must pay for their foothold on the continent of Europe...