ABSTRACT
During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis carried out amphibious assaults and landings. The Italians took Ethiopia and Albania (qq.v.) with amphibious landings. Denmark and Norway (qq.v.) were captured by German amphibious op erations. The taking of the Greek islands was by amphibious attack. No special landing craft were used in these early operations. Although the Ger man Wasser-Pionieren (Water Engineers) studied and developed small-scale landing craft before the war, Germany’s senior leadership did not see the need for specialized landing craft for assaulting and holding a beachhead until they began to plan Operation SEA LION (q.v.), the aborted invasion of Great Britain.
