World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Thunder in the East

For many months the Soviets had waited for their western allies to open a western front. Now that the Normandy beachhead was booming, the western allies waited for Russia to reopen the main eastern front. They did not have to wait long.

Last week, on D-day plus 17 on the invasion calendar, it was reopened with a bang. In Moscow 60 salutes from 224 of Moscow's victory guns thundered the news—20 salutes for each of Joseph Stalin's three orders of the day. Never before had the taciturn man from Georgia issued so many...

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