Winston Churchill
On February 15, 1942, the island fortress of Singapore surrendered with 130,000 men, thus ending the defense of Malaya as one of the largest military disasters in the history of British arms since Cornwallis’s capitulation to Franco-American forces at Yorktown in 1781 during America’s Revolutionary War. Read more
Winston Churchill
Within hours of the entry of Great Britain and France into World War II on September 3, 1939, the British liner SS Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat off the northwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 112 dead, including 28 American citizens. Read more
Winston Churchill
When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Joseph Stilwell was already a highly regarded officer. Read more
Winston Churchill
On August 7, 1945, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, President Harry S. Truman announced, “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. Read more
Winston Churchill
In May 1945—70 years ago—the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) sent out a terse, unemotional, 15-word communiqué: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945.” Read more
Winston Churchill
The tank was created to break the bloody deadlock along the Western Front. It was originally envisioned as a kind of “land battleship” that could cross trenches and barbed-wire entanglements. Read more
Winston Churchill
On the morning of February 16, 1940, two Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson aircraft lifted off from Thornaby Airfield in northern England. Read more
Winston Churchill
In 1989, this writer had occasion to interview four-star General William Childs Westmoreland, now 86, formerly U.S. military commander in South Vietnam and at the time of the interview a retired Chief of Staff of the Army. Read more
Winston Churchill
During the 1920s and 1930s Great Britain built up its Far East defenses steadily if slowly, centering around Singapore as its primary naval base in the Pacific area. Read more
Winston Churchill
By the summer of 1940, Hitler’s Nazi war machine had advanced from victory to victory, crushing Poland, overrunning France and the Low Countries, and ejecting Allied forces from the continent of Europe at Dunkirk. Read more
Winston Churchill
One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more
Winston Churchill
On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more
Winston Churchill
In early September 1940, the world was in turmoil. The battle of Britain was nearing its climax, and elsewhere global tensions ran high. Read more
Winston Churchill
Short, wiry, and with baleful blue eyes and an Old Testament beard, Maj. Gen. Orde Charles Wingate was unorthodox in thought and action. Read more
Winston Churchill
When one thinks of carrier warfare in World War II, the Japanese and U.S. navies usually come to mind. Read more
Winston Churchill
Still stunned by the sneak Japanese onslaught on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, American families tried to summon up their Christmas spirit in December 1941. Read more
Winston Churchill
The year 1939 was one of massive military parades across Europe. On April 20, the largest ever was held in Berlin to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, complete with the paratroopers, wheeled artillery, tanks, half-tracks for motorized infantry, and overhead Luftwaffe fly-bys that would mark the coming campaigns and revolutionize warfare forever. Read more
Winston Churchill
During the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill was fighting a two-front war. The first was against Adolf Hitler and his war machine, particularly his Luftwaffe. Read more
Winston Churchill
In May and June of 1940 the attacking Germans had a supreme authority, Hitler, and an army that—if skeptical, even in places traitorous—was subdued and followed orders with astonishing competence. Read more
Winston Churchill
The Allied decision to invade North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch, was reached in the summer of 1942 after lengthy—and sometimes bitter—arguments between interested parties. Read more
