Articles Archive

Five hundred yards inland from the invasion beaches at Iwo Jima, Marines of General Clifton B. Cates’ 4th Division await orders to advance on Motoyama Airfield No. 1, one of three airstrips on the island that would facilitate the return of damaged B-29 heavy bombers en route to bases in the Marianas after attacking Japan.

Bitter Bloodletting At Iwo Jima

By Adam Headley

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber nicknamed Dinah Might struggled to stay in the air on the afternoon of March 4, 1945. Read more

Hitler’s Winter of ‘44

By Christopher Miskimon

Few festivities occurred on Christmas Eve, 1944, in the Ardennes Forest. Thousands of soldiers struggled to attack or defend positions, or to simply survive. Read more

The British frigates HMS Orpheus and Roebuck, on April 20, 1781, escorted their prize—the Continental Navy frigate USS Confederacy—with the Union Jack flying above the Stars and Stripes, to New York harbor, thus ending Confederacy’s two-year service to the American rebels. Read more

Jacobite Victory at Prestonpans

By David A. Norris

Before dawn on September 21, 1745, the dragoons and infantry of King George II stood in line of battle in a freshly harvested wheat field. Read more

Albrecht von Wallenstein

By Don Hollway

After September 17, 1631, half of Germany feared that God was a Protestant. The other half was sure of it. Read more

An American soldier gently removes the detonator from an S-mine, which was capable of severely injuring any man unfortunate enough to step on it. The Germans defending Mount Porchia planted thousands of land mines to impede Allied progress.

“I’m Going Up That Mountain!”

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Red-hot grenade fragments sliced through First Lieutenant Bill Munson’s left arm and shoulder, causing him to fall backwards onto the lip of a German machine gun nest. Read more

Napoleon’s Stunning Debut: The Italian Campaign

By Dana Lombardy

Barthélemy Schérer, commander of the French Army, gazed at the new military orders from Paris in disbelief. The grandoise strategy, detailing an advance on three fronts with the armies uniting in Tyrol for a concentrated thrust at Vienna, were far beyond the capabilities of the starving southern army he commanded along the French Riveria against the combined forces of Austria and Sardinia. Read more

The USS Langley, the first operational aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy, was converted from the fleet collier Jupiter in 1922. The carrier served as the cradle of U.S. naval aviation and was nicknamed “Covered Wagon” due to its resemblance to the wagons that crossed the American West in the 1800s.

USS Langley: The U.S. Navy’s Covered Wagon

By Frank Johnson

Five years after Great Britain had launched HMS Argus, the world’s first aircraft carrier, in 1917, and following the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty on February 6, 1922, the U.S. Read more

A modern illustration shows Roman legionnaires on the march. The front ranks typically charged into battle, stopping to hurl their pilum before closing with the enemy using their gladius. In the melee, they used their scutum to knock their opponents off balance.

Roman Armageddon at Pharsalus

By William E. Welsh

The snow-capped peaks of the Ceraunian Mountains stared down on the sturdy barks hunting for a suitable place to land on the coast of Epirus on January 5, 48 bc. Read more

American Airborne In Operation Torch

By Michael E. Haskew

Only two years after the U.S. Army officially sanctioned the formation of an airborne arm, American paratroopers were committed to a vast offensive against Axis forces on the coast of French North Africa. Read more

RCAF Pilot Bill Ash, The Cooler King

By James Reynolds

For Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen interned in enemy prison camps during World War II, escaping was regarded as their unwritten duty. Read more

Yorkist English King Edward IV rides into London on April 11, 1471, at the head of a powerful army to reclaim his throne. Edward had sought refuge in Flanders the previous fall when his former mentor and chief ally, the Earl of Warwick, raised a large rebel army to lead against him and restored Lancastrian King Henry VI to the throne.

Battle of Barnet: Death of a Kingmaker

By William E. Welsh

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, was troubled by reports he was receiving in March 1471 that an invasion by King Edward IV was imminent. Read more

World War II Snipers: The Men, Their Guns, Their Stories

By Christopher Miskimon

Private Harlan J. Hinkle enlisted in the United States Marine Corps the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. Read more

Z Special Unit: The Elite Allied World War II Guerrilla Force

By Christopher Miskimon

Z Special Unit: The Elite Allied World War II Guerrilla Force (Gavin Mortimer, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2022, 240 pp., Read more

Marching From Defeat: Surviving the Collapse of the German Army in the Soviet Union 1944

By Christopher Miskimon

Claus Neuber served as an artillery officer in the German Army on the Eastern Front. In June 1944, the Soviets launched Operation Bagration, a massive offensive which crushed German Army Group Center. Read more

Alexander the Great’s soldiers are shown attacking Tyre in a modern illustration. Simultaneous attacks by Alexander’s fleet on both of the city’s harbors after six months of fighting put an impossible strain on the Tyrians’ resources.

The Fall of Tyre

By Alexander Zakrzewski

As Alexander the Great marched his army south along the Levantine coast in January 332 bc, he must have felt as if the fates were unquestionably on his side. Read more

B-25 Mitchell medium bombers fly over islands covered in snow and shrouded in fog to strike at Japanese forces.

Showdown In The Aleutians

By Phil Zimmer

With a sharp clatter of machine guns, the Japanese marines announced their presence by spraying bullets into the isolated U.S. Read more

A Flash of Sabers

By Alexander Zakrzewski

On the foggy morning of November 30, 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, watched impatiently as his Grande Armée lumbered up the rocky slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains of central Spain. Read more

A 19th-century print offers a fanciful depiction of the desperate fighting along the Orange Plank on the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness. Although the battle ended in a draw with both sides suffering heavy casualties, the Army of the Potomac under the watchful eye of Commander-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant chose not to retreat, but continue south.

James Longstreet’s Daring Advance

By Arnold Blumberg

The column of Confederates marched east as quietly as possible along the bed of an unfinished railroad that knifed through the Wilderness south of the Rapidan River shortly before midday on May 6, 1864. Read more

Soldiers with the pro-Western Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) on patrol during the Bush War. A communist push into southeastern Angola in 1897 triggered a major ground response from South Africa.

Bloody Clash On The Lomba

By William Stroock

With its pro-Western ally in southern Angola facing destruction by an all-out communist offensive in 1987, Apartheid South African President P.W. Read more

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