Articles Archive

Layton intercepted Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s itinerary. Army P-38s rose to shoot down the admiral’s plane on a inspection tour of Bougainville in 1943.

Edwin T. Layton

By Mike Mclaughlin

On the morning of December 31, 1941, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz assumed command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Read more

Alfred the Great’s Anglo-Saxons watch Viking ships approach the shores of England in the painting “How the Danes Came up the Channel a Thousand Years Ago: Off Peveril Ridge, Swanage, AD 877,” by Herbert Arthur Bone (1853–1931).

Alfred the Great: Scholar, Strategist, Swordsman

By David A. Norris

In January 871 Alfred, prince of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex, waited for his brother in the tense moments before battle. Read more

11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment, 1916

Headgear: The steel Brodie helmet became standard by July 1916.

Uniform: Khaki woolen 1902 Pattern Service Dress Tunic and Trousers.

Gas Mask: His gas mask, called a gas helmet, is in a canvas bag slung under his left arm. Read more

The USS West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arizona smolder and smoke in the aftermath of the surprise aerial attack by a fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers.

When Lt. Cmdr. Matsuo Fuchida, commander of the Japanese strike force at Pearl Harbor, arrived over the naval base on the morning of December 7, 1941, the sight that greeted him—enemy battleships resting placidly at anchor—put him in mind of an earlier war. Read more

A Luftwaffe decal attached to its helmet.

Collecting German Helmets of World War II

By Peter Suciu

In the annals of 20th-century warfare the modern combat helmet has easily become one of the most recognizable pieces of battlefield equipment. Read more

Russian Tsar Peter I leads his troops against the Swedish forces of King Charles XII in this oil painting of the 1709 Battle of Poltava by Ivan Alexeyevich Vladimirov (1869-1947).

The Battle of Poltava and the Birth of Modern Russia

By Kelly Bell

More than 300 years ago Russia was a supine giant convulsing internally from factionalism, making it difficult to resist hostile incursions, until 23-year-old Crown Prince Peter I ascended to the tsarist throne in 1696. Read more

16 Military History Book Reviews for Summer 2024

By Christopher Miskimon Full Reviews

The Showman: Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky (Simon Schuster, William Morrow, New York NY, 2024, 363 pp., Read more

Destroyer Matchup at Kula Gulf

By Eric Hammel

The Allied invasion of New Georgia began on June 30, 1943, when a large part of the U.S. Read more

The Japanese Swords of World War II

By Peter Suciu

Aprevalent image of the Japanese NCO or Officer in World War II is that of rushing the Allied lines with his “samurai” sword drawn, swinging in the air. Read more

From Raw Recruit to Seasoned Trooper

By Eric Niderost

Robert Morris Peck was strolling the streets of Cincinnati one brisk November day when a yellow poster outside a boarding house caught his eye. Read more

Heliborne Enhanced Edition

By Joseph Luster

Developer and publisher Klabater’s Heliborne first took to the skies back in 2017, eventually paving the way for an enhanced edition. Read more

Besiege: The Splintered Sea

By Joseph Luster

Spiderling Studios first launched physics building war game Besiege on Steam in February 2020, bringing with it plenty of ways to challenge both the computer and likeminded players in simulation combat. Read more

Advancing past a knocked-out Mk IV panzer, an American infantry patrol picks its way through the rubble of a Normandy village, wrecked during the Operation Cobra bombings. Cobra was launched to break through the second line of German defenses and regain the momentum lost after the initial Operation Overlord landings.

Normandy Breakout

By Brian Todd Carey

Concentrated against the beaches of Normandy on June 6, Operation Overlord landed 9 army divisions plus support troops on five beaches in anticipation of a breakout across France and toward Berlin. Read more

The Venerable General Matthew B. Ridgway

by R. Manning Ancell

Siren wailing, the jeep propelling Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker headed north from Walker’s tactical command post in Seoul. Read more

Better Or Best: The B-17 Vs. The B-24

By Sam McGowan

One of the most frequently discussed arguments to come out of World War II is which was the “better” bomber, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Read more

British prisoners march off under German guard after the capture of Tobruk. Rommel was aided in this astonishing coup of June 1942 by knowledge of British plans intercepted from messages by the U.S. Military Attaché in Cairo.

Colonel Bonner Fellers

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, renowned as “the Desert Fox,” was a master of mobility and maneuver warfare during the see-saw North African campaign of World War II. Read more

Mark Stille’s ‘Midway: The Pacific War’s Most Famous Battle’

By Christopher Miskimon

Japan’s striking force sailed for Midway on May 27, 1942, a day later than planned, after some late preparations were complete. Read more

After consolidating their positions on Utah Beach and catching their breaths behind the cover of a stone wall, U.S. troops begin the long trek inland on the morning of D-day.

Flint Whitlock’s ‘To the Last Cartridge, Book II’

By Christopher Miskimon

There are no large cities and few sizable towns in Normandy between Cherbourg and Caen. One of those towns is Sainte-Mère Église, a crossroads valuable for the invading Allied forces in June 1944. Read more

This early in the war, British soldiers still carried sword bayonets of the pre-WWI pattern. The older weapons proved invaluable for hand-to-hand fighting in Crete.

Robert Kershaw’s ‘The Hill’

By Christopher Miskimon

Captain Stanton Johnson’s company of New Zealand infantry slowly recovered from a bombing raid by the German Luftwaffe. Read more

Hitler and several of his generals pore over a military map in this photo taken in 1940. Four years later, Hitler had become dissatisfied with many of his top commanders. When his subordinates expressed concerns for the success of the desperate gamble in the West, the Fuhrer was undeterred and ordered the Ardennes Offensive to proceed.

Harry Yeide’s ‘Betting Against America’

By Christopher Miskimon

The United States played an important role at the end of World War I. Even during the 1930s, gripped by economic depression, America had enormous actual and potential industrial capacity. Read more

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