Insight
Planning a war requires assumptions. However, there should be as few assumptions as possible, otherwise one can assume away all one’s problems. Read more
Insight
The German V-1 flying rocket, packed with 1,870 pounds of explosives, buzzed over Birmingham, England, until its pulsing engine cut out. Read more
Insight
On September 8, 1940, a new German movie, Jud Suss, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It opened to rave reviews and received the Golden Lion award. Read more
Insight
On July 28, 2018, at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel near Dulles Airport, outside Washington, D.C., Mariusz Winiecki, a 42-year-old Polish professor, told an audience of Americans about his experiences growing up in the small town of Szubin, 150 miles southeast of Warsaw. Read more
Insight
On December 1, 1942, a 431st Bomb Squadron Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress named Omar Khayyam – The Plastered Bastard took off from a base codenamed Cactus on a photo-reconnaissance mission toward enemy-held Bougainville Island in the Pacific. Read more
Insight
Most historical accounts of World War II aviation relate the experiences of commissioned officers, men who obtained their wings through completion of a military pilot training program. Read more
Insight
An old English adage states that “It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.”
Such was the case when a gale pounded England on the night of September 17, 1940. Read more
Insight
The initial command structure in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of World War II produced a sharp contrast and clash of wills between two of the principal Allied leaders: British Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, and his American counterpart, Lieutenant General Joseph W. Read more
Insight
World War II, the deadliest military conflict in history, claimed the lives of nearly four percent of the Earth’s 1940 census. Read more
Insight
By Duane Schultz
The men who were prisoners of war during World War II paid a terrible price in the form of PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder. Read more
Insight
For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more
Insight
Saipan’s shallow, tropical lagoons are a veritable waterpark for World War II enthusiasts who do not mind getting wet. Read more
Insight
In the summer of 1940, the world watched with rapt attention as the citizens, airmen, sailors, and soldiers of Great Britain steeled themselves for imminent invasion by the victorious German Army. Read more
Insight
On December 1, 1942, Lance Corporal Kiyoshi Koto wrote his last letter home. By that time, his unit’s command structure was decimated and the battle strength of his army and its supporting navy was ravaged. Read more
Insight
Former German President Horst Koehler once said that Auschwitz, the largest Nazi extermination camp, was home to the “worst crime in human history.” Read more
Insight
Joseph A. Gainard, captain of the American freighter City of Flint, hated to threaten his crew with piracy; the men were only reacting as any sailors would to the seizure of their ship by a foreign power. Read more
Insight
On August 23, 1939, Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.P. Potemkin, waited at the Moscow Airport for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Read more
Insight
Snow flurries swirled out of the darkness over the Baltic Sea. Chunks of ice floated on the water, and lookouts shivered at their posts. Read more
Insight
Fresh off a tense telephone conversation with Maj. Gen. Lucian Truscott, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., climbed into a jeep and rumbled over to Truscott’s 3rd Infantry Division headquarters east of Terranova, on Sicily’s northeastern coast. Read more
Insight
Animals of several kinds were used during WW2 by the military forces of belligerents both large and small. Read more
