Articles Archive

Military History Book Reviews for Winter 2023

By Christopher Miskimon

A Handful of Heroes: Rorke’s Drift Facts, Myths and Legends (Katie Stossel, Pen and Sword Books, South Yorkshire UK, 2022, 201 pp., Read more

A Marine shares his water with a badly wounded fellow Marine during the fight for Peleliu. Although less well known than Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, the battle was no less brutal.

Perilous Fight For Peleliu

By Christopher Miskimon

The cacophony of naval gunfire proved so thunderous it left some marines in a stupor. Dark smoke roiled thousands of feet in the air from the bombardment of Peleliu, a small island in the Palau Islands. Read more

The Japanese battleship Fuso and heavy cruiser Mogami endure air attack by U.S. Navy planes just prior to the Battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944. The Surigao Strait action was a component of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Steven E. Maffeo’s ‘Captain Chaos’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of World War II, and by most measures the largest in history. Read more

The World War II Diary of Lieutenant General James. M. Gavin

By Christopher Miskimon

James Gavin began his wartime service as the commander of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment during the Sicily operation, before assuming command of the entire 82nd Airborne Division for the remainder of the war. Read more

German infantrymen follow their armored vehicles on the advance into Stalingrad. Few if any of the Nazi soldiers would survive the meat-grinder battle.

Prit Buttar’s ‘Meat Grinder’

By Christopher Miskimon

Few in the West know about the Rzhev Salient. The fighting around Moscow and Stalingrad come quickly to mind, but this little-known salient near the town of Rzhev, roughly 100 miles west of Moscow, was so terrible it was nicknamed the “Meat Grinder.” Read more

In this photo take on August 31, 1943, B-17s of the 91st Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, approach their target—the Dornier aircraft assembly plant at Meulan, France. After experiencing heavy losses in raids on targets inside Germany earlier in the year, General Ira Eaker ordered later attacks to be made in France, within the limited range of escorting fighters.

Lt. Col. Wayne K. Blickenstaff’s ‘Ace in a Day’

By Christopher Miskimon

Lieutenant Wayne Blickenstaff saw a group of German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters disperse after making a run at some American bombers. Read more

Mark Stille’s ‘Leyte Gulf 1944 (2): Surigao Strait and Cape Engano’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, while the largest naval battle in history, was composed of four major actions occurring over two days. Read more

Ian Baxter’s ‘The Soviet Baltic Offensive, 1944-45’

By Christopher Miskimon

The overwhelming Soviet offensives in the summer of 1944 threw the German army back. Much of the German Army Group North drew back into the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Read more

Ian Buruma’s ‘The Collaborators’

By Christopher Miskimon

Felix Kersten acted as Heinrich Himmler’s personal masseur and did the job so well Himmler nicknamed the outgoing, heavy set Kersten the “Magic Buddha.” Read more

A single German soldier stands guard over several American prisoners, captured in the confusion on D-Day. At least some of these prisoners were airborne, and Charlie Lefchik shared a similar journey to a prisoner of war camp.

Jonathan Trigg’s ‘D-Day Through German Eyes’

By Christopher Miskimon

The German Army had extensive combat experience, some of the best weapons and equipment, and in June 1944 was holding its own in Italy and on the Eastern Front. Read more

Robert F. Ashby’s ‘D-Day, Arnhem and the Rhine’

By Christopher Miskimon

Glider Pilots occupied a perilous position in British airborne divisions. It took skill and determination to pilot a glider. Read more

Thick black smoke seen in the distance beyond a burned-out Iraqi tank streams skyward after Iraqi forces withdrawing from Kuwait set fire to the Arab emirate’s oil fields.

Lightning Victory In The Persian Gulf

By Victor Kamenir

IN November 1990 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Read more

Nisei soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team take on German tanks during their successful effort to rescue the Lost Battalion in France in October 1944.

Hero of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

By Michael D. Hull

Early on the morning of Sunday, October 15, 1944, a platoon of the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) waited on a hill for its first action in the rugged Vosges Mountains of eastern France. Read more

Sailors of the boarding party from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury work to rig a towline to the bow of the captured German submarine U-505 in the Atlantic. Rough seas required the sailors to hold tightly to the guide wire running from the conning tower to the bow of the submarine.

Captured on the High Seas

By Michael D. Hull

Itching for sea duty but forced to cool his heels with shore assignments, 40-year-old U.S. Navy Captain Daniel V. Read more

Night Fighting Corsairs

By Robert F. Dorr and Fred L. Borch

Just before it was drawn into World War II, the United States began developing a night fighter version of one of its most famous warplanes. Read more

Learning from David and Goliath: The True Origin of the Sling Weapon

By Erich B. Anderson

More than 3,000 years ago, an army of Israelites led by King Saul confronted a force of Philistine invaders in the valley of Elah. Read more

The French Imperial Guard advances on Magenta. Stiff Austrian resistance and the confined nature of the terrain combined to slow the French advance toward Austrian-held Milan.

Triumph of Spirit

By Eric Niderost

On April 20, 1859, Emperor Franz Josef paid a respectful visit to Prince Klemens Wensel von Metternich’s place at Rennweg in Vienna. Read more

The Fairey Swordfish Torpedo Bomber

By Phil Zimmer

Radar, atomic bombs, jet engines and early cruise missiles were among the numerous technological advances of World War II. Read more

German officers and enlisted personnel stand in front of Oflag 64, a former reform school for boys that was converted into a somewhat unique prison camp for American officers during World War II.

Life In a Unique Nazi POW Camp

By Duane Schultz

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

English Man-at-Arms in the Wars of the Roses

By William E. Welsh, Artwork by Graham Turner

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) encompassed three civil wars that were fought between two rival branches, York and Lancaster, of the House of Plantagenet, for control of the English throne. Read more

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