Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein,, nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and the Second World War.
Free France was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by General Charles de Gaulle, Free France was established as a government-in-exile in London in June 1940 after the Fall of France during World War II and fought the Axis as an Allied nation with its Free French Forces. Free France also supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied France, known as the French Forces of the Interior, as well as gained strategic footholds in several French colonies in Africa.
The Italian campaign of World War II, also called the Liberation of Italy following the German occupation in September 1943, consisted of Allied and Axis operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to 1945. The joint Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre and it planned and led the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, followed in September by the invasion of the Italian mainland and the campaign in Italy until the surrender of the German Armed Forces in Italy in May 1945.
The Recreation and Amusement Association or RAA, was the largest of the organizations established by Japanese authorities to provide organized prostitution to prevent rapes and sexual violence by Allied occupation troops on the general population, and to create other leisure facilities for occupying Allied troops immediately following World War II. The RAA "recruited" 55,000 women and was short-lived.
During World War II, the Allies committed legally proven war crimes and violations of the laws of war against either civilians or military personnel of the Axis powers. At the end of World War II, many trials of Axis war criminals took place, most famously the Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Trials. In Europe, these tribunals were set up under the authority of the London Charter, which only considered allegations of war crimes committed by people who acted in the interests of the Axis powers. Some war crimes involving Allied personnel were investigated by the Allied powers and led in some instances to courts-martial. Some incidents alleged by historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time were, for a variety of reasons, not investigated by the Allied powers during the war, or were investigated but not prosecuted.
Operation Roundup was the codename for a plan to invade Northern France in the spring of 1943 prepared by Allied forces during World War II.
During World War II, the German Wehrmacht committed systematic war crimes, including massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labour, the murder of three million Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in the extermination of Jews. While the Nazi Party's own SS forces was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of the Holocaust, the regular armed forces of the Wehrmacht committed many war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front.
The Battle for Brest was fought in August and September 1944 on the Western Front during World War II. Part of the overall Battle for Brittany and the Allied plan for the invasion of mainland Europe called for the capture of port facilities, in order to ensure the timely delivery of the enormous amount of war materiel required to supply the invading Allied forces. It was estimated that the 37 Allied divisions to be on the continent by September 1944 would need 26,000 tons of supplies each day. The main port the Allied forces hoped to seize and put into their service was Brest, in northwestern France.
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings. A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.
Two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), rose in the aftermath of World War II. The war's aftermath was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and east Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
The French Expeditionary Corps, also known as the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy, was an expeditionary force of the French Liberation Army. Created in 1943, the corps fought in the Italian Campaign of World War II, under the command of General Alphonse Juin. Consisting of 112,000 men divided into four divisions, all but one of the divisions were colonial units, mostly Moroccans and Algerians drawn from the Army of Africa and led by French officers. Overall the Expeditionary Corps was composed of approximately 60 % of colonial troops.
Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual harassment, sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service.
United States war crimes are violations of the law of war which were committed by members of the United States Armed Forces after the signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the signing of the Geneva Conventions. The United States prosecutes offenders through the War Crimes Act of 1996 as well as through articles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The United States signed the 1999 Rome Statute but it never ratified the treaty, taking the position that the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacks fundamental checks and balances. The American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002 further limited US involvement with the ICC. The ICC reserves the right of states to prosecute war crimes, and the ICC can only proceed with prosecution of crimes when states do not have willingness or effective and reliable processes to investigate for themselves. The United States says that it has investigated many of the accusations alleged by the ICC prosecutors as having occurred in Afghanistan, and thus does not accept ICC jurisdiction over its nationals.
Rapes during the occupation of Japan were war rapes or rapes committed under the Allied military occupation of Japan. Allied troops committed a number of rapes during the Battle of Okinawa during the last months of the Pacific War and the subsequent occupation of Japan. The Allies occupied Japan until 1952 following the end of World War II and Okinawa Prefecture remained under US governance for two decades after. Estimates of the incidence of sexual violence by Allied occupation personnel differ considerably.
As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany by soldiers from all advancing Allied armies, although a majority of scholars agree that the records show that a majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops. The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.
Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe in World War II is a 2007 book by Northern Kentucky University sociology and criminology professor J. Robert Lilly that examines the issue of rape by U.S. servicemen in European theatre of World War II.
The Park Street riot occurred in Park Street and George Street Bristol, England, on 15 July 1944 when many black US servicemen (GIs) refused to return to their camps after US military policemen (MPs) arrived to end a minor fracas. More MPs were sent, up to 120 in total, and Park Street was closed with buses. In subsequent confrontations an MP was stabbed, a black GI was shot dead, and several others were wounded.
The history of prostitution in France has similarities with the history of prostitution in other countries in Europe, namely a succession of periods of tolerance and repression, but with certain distinct features such as a relatively long period of tolerance of brothels.
The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French Resistance.
The Battle of Saint-Malo was fought between Allied and German forces to control the French coastal town of Saint-Malo during World War II. The battle formed part of the Allied breakout across France and took place between 4 August and 2 September 1944. United States Army units, with the support of Free French and British forces, successfully assaulted the town and defeated its German defenders. The German garrison on a nearby island continued to resist until 2 September.
