Battle of the Java Sea: Desperate Delaying Action

By David Lippman 

The ships left just before sunset on February 26, 1942, passing out of a harbor jammed with wreckage, battered docks, fires, the stench of burning oil, and Dutch women, children, and old men—most of them relatives of the crews heading out—waving their men goodbye and good luck. Read more

WWII Pioneers of Skip Bombing

By Gene Eric Salecker

By September 1942, after numerous aerial strikes against the advancing Imperial Japanese Navy, the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, and numerous attacks against enemy convoys along the New Guinea coast in the summer of that year, Maj. Read more

Captured at the Bulge

By Kevin M. Hymel

Private Leon Goldberg pulled the trigger on his heavy, water-cooled M-1917 Browning machine gun and fired bursts of .30-caliber rounds into the attacking German infantry. Read more

Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa

By Michael D. Hull

 Coming after a series of bitter defeats from France to Norway to Crete, news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II was one of the early high points of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s leadership years. Read more

A D-Day Theme Park?

In the midst of numerous observations around the globe to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the most cataclysmic collective event in human history, comes a puzzling—if not downright troubling—business venture that calls into question just how future generations may perceive the events of the great conflict. Read more

D-Day Capture of Les Moulins Draw

By Kevin M. Hymel

 Twelve Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVPs) carrying Captain William Callahan’s F Company and Captain Eccles Scott’s G Company—some 400 men—slapped the English Channel’s rough waves as they approached Omaha Beach’s Les Moulins Draw. Read more

Armed with buckets, civilians in Nuremberg go searching for food and water after Germany’s surrender. Adolf Hitler oversaw the total destruction of Germany.

A Time to Celebrate—And Remember

Seventy-five years ago, the European phase of the global cataclysm known as World War II came to an end. The First World War—the “Great War,” the “War to End All Wars”—had ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Read more

Easy Company Mortarman

By Kevin M. Hymel

The green light lit up the inside of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain’s fuselage, and 20 paratroopers from Easy Company’s Stick 70, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division charged out the door. Read more

Ordnance: The Piper L-4 “Eyes in the Sky”

By Arnold Blumberg

Despite being caught up in the tide of isolationism prevalent duringthe interval between the world wars, the United States Army was lucky enough to have Congressional funding for the further development and expansion of its fledgling air arm, known initially in 1926 as the Army Air Corps and in 1941 renamed the Army Air Forces. Read more