May 16, 1943, had been a sweltering spring day in England. At 9:39 pm, as the sun was dipping below the western horizon, leaving a rim of light and still good visibility, the first three of 19 Avro Lancaster bombers of No. Read more
After the carrier attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, Japanese forces conducted offensive operations across an incredibly broad front of 7,000 miles from Singapore to Midway Island. Read more
After the Battle of the Bulge delayed their advance by six critical weeks, the British, U.S., and Canadian armies went on the offensive in mid-January 1945 and pushed toward the German frontier. Read more
On the last day of May 1862, heavy gunfire rumbled and thundered in the distance beyond the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Read more
For those who have yet to get sucked in, Gaijin Entertainment’s War Thunder is one of a small handful of successful free-to-play, massively-multiplayer military games available. Read more
On September 17, 1944, a massive but hastily planned airborne invasion of the Netherlands was launched. Codenamed Market-Garden, the operation called for three Allied airborne divisions (British 1st and American 82nd and 101st) to land along a narrow corridor reaching from advanced positions along the Dutch-Belgian border to a bridgehead on the northern bank of the Rhine River at Arnhem. Read more
The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote, “Go forth to the enemy’s positions to which he must race. Read more
“All I knew about Biak was that it was an island a degree south of the equator, one of the Schouten group lying north of Geelvink Bay toward the western end of New Guinea.” Read more
By mid-August 1944, roughly one month before the now-famous Operation Market Garden, the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division had been fighting off and on for over a year. Read more
He was widely regarded as America’s best pilot, he was already a recipient of the Medal of Honor, he was commander of the Eighth Air Force caught up in 1,000-plane bombing missions deep into the Third Reich, and he was mad as hell. Read more
Special Sea Attack Force (SSAF) was an ordinary-sounding name for the pitifully tiny remnant of what was once the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Read more
In April 1942, a group of young Marines, having recently graduated from Officers Candidate School, arrived at New River, North Carolina, a sprawling tent city that stretched over a vast area and would eventually become known as Camp Lejeune. Read more
The title of the 128-book, 138,579-page work was a suitably large mouthful: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Read more
World War II affected nearly every area of the world. It was the deadliest conflict in all of human history. Read more
By the beginning of February 1945, the British 14th Army was on the banks of the Irrawaddy River and poised to strike into central Burma. Read more
On a cold March evening in the Goldenrod Café in West Point, Nebraska, Mary Timmermann, a waitress there, picked up the telephone receiver when her boss told her it was Omaha calling long distance for her. Read more
“She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic, and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. Read more
Following the spectacular success of the Allied air campaign against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and against the Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999, the value and efficiency of utilizing air power to shape or forgo the need for a ground battle has been taken for granted by military planners. Read more
The first days of January 1943 found American forces winning the prolonged struggle for control of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Read more
The Nazi regime in Germany has become synonymous with inhuman cruelty. Hitler incarcerated millions in his concentration camps and inflicted on his victims the harshest forms of torture and deprivation imaginable. Read more
