Battleship Cove and the USS Massachusetts

Many associate Massachusetts with the Kennedy family, and its influence is evident at Battleship Cove. The World War II record of the Kennedys is a distinguished one. Read more

The Airborne Defenders of Midway

Prologue: At the start of World War II, Midway Atoll was a key U.S. base in the central Pacific. Read more

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force Invades Italy

The term “United Nations” was in large part derived from the large number of nations that joined in common cause between 1939 and 1945 to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy during World War II. Read more

Voices of the Bulge, Part II

In the first installment, a large German force made a surprise counteroffensive against American positons along the Belgian-German border—an operation that became known in the West as “the Battle of the Bulge.” Read more

Voices of the Bulge, Part I

BACKSTORY: Unternehmen Wacht-am-Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine), better known in the West as the Battle of the Bulge, had its beginnings following the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life by Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and a group of other high-level plotters who felt that their Führer was not only leading Germany to defeat but also its doom, and thus had to be eliminated. Read more

West Point Museum and Hyde Park: New York’s Greatest Military History Museums

The West Point Museum, located in Olmsted Hall and adjacent to the Visitor Center at the United States Military Academy, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, contains what is considered to be the oldest and largest diversified public collection of military artifacts in the Western Hemisphere. Read more

The Volkssturm: Last-Ditch Militia of the Third Reich

On October 18, 1944—the 131st anniversary of the Battle of the Nations’ victory over Napoleon in 1813—Reichsführer-SS (National Leader) Heinrich Himmler stepped up to a microphone to make a national radio address announcing the formation of the Nazi Party-controlled Volkssturm, or People’s Militia. Read more

The Silent Service: A Submariner Aboard the USS Seal

BACKSTORY: In World War II, the American submarine force was inordinately small—just 252 total boats, compared to the more than 1,100 deployed by Germany and over 600 built by Japan. Read more

Book Review: The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir

Private First Class Hector Cafferata was dead tired. It was 1:30 am and he was with three other Marines in a forward listening post in front of the rest of their platoon. Read more

The Path of Heroism

On the morning of April 18, 1945, amid street fighting in rubble-strewn Nuremberg, Germany, 20-year-old U.S. Read more

The Legendary Conflicts of Ancient China Make Their Total War Debut

By Joseph Luster

Creative Assembly’s Total War series has been running since the debut of Shogun: Total War back in 2000, spiraling through plenty of historical eras in the intervening years. Read more

The National Pigeon Service: Our Fine Feathered Friends

Not long ago, I came across an article about the remains of a carrier pigeon that had been discovered lodged in the chimney of a 17th-century home in the village of Bletchingley, Surrey, some 18 miles due south of London. Read more

Flying For the Luftwaffe

It was November 1, 1944. I, Feldwebel (Technical Sergeant) Gustav Jack Lothar Carl Herbert Julius Hans Jergen Hildebrandt von Lengerke (aka “Jack” Hildebrandt), had just completed a successful strafing run against British General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery’s advancing army along the southern end of the Dutch-Belgian border. Read more

The Demyansk Pocket: Disaster For Germany’s Scandinavian Volunteers

On the surface it may seem odd that men of conquered nations would eagerly sign up to fight for their masters, but that is exactly what happened in Scandinavia in the 1940s. Read more

Operation Fustian: Airborne Assault on the Bridges to Catania

‘‘As I floated down, the whole dropping zone seemed to be on fire; tracer bullets had set the tinder-dry stubble alight. Read more

Japanese American National Museum

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Japanese Americans, especially those living on the West Coast, were suspected of being possible spies, saboteurs, and disloyal Americans. Read more

Battle of Midway: Story of a Yorktown Survivor

BACKSTORY: After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. Read more

Last Stand at Völkerschlachtdenkmal: The Battle of Leipzig, 1945

In October 1813, the combined allied armies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Saxony, and Württemberg met and defeated the French Grand Armee under Napoleon Bonaparte at the German city of Leipzig, forcing him to retreat and hastening his eventual abdication and exile to the island of Elba. Read more

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver: An Unpopular and Flawed Allied War Machine

It sent Japanese warships to the bottom of the ocean. It pulverized fortifications on Japan’s home islands. Read more

CSS Alabama vs USS Kearsarge: The Greatest High Seas Duel of the Civil War

On August 24, 1862, newly promoted Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate States Navy called his largely English crew to the quarterdeck of his new command, the 220-foot battle cruiser Alabama, lying off the coast of Terceira in the Azores. Read more