At the start of the American Civil War in April 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that he planned to blockade the Confederacy by stationing warships in waters off its shores. Read more
By Elmer Wisherd with Nan Wisherd
Elmer Wisherd was born on December 1, 1920, in North Dakota. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to a farm in Bruce, Wisconsin. Read more
By Kevin M. Hymel
It was December 19, 1944, one day before the Siege of Bastogne. Shortly after 10:30 am, 26-year-old Major William Desobry picked up his field telephone, called his combat commander, Colonel William Roberts, and asked if he could withdraw from the Belgian village of Noville. Read more
“Awe c’mon, Mom,” Cecil Petty told his emotional mother before leaving Homer, Illinois, in February 1941. “Who knows, I might be a hero.” Read more
By William F. Floyd, Jr.
Late in the day on October 24, 1944, all of the available 39 patrol torpedo (PT) boats of the U.S. Read more
While American troops slugged it out with the Japanese on the Philippine island of Leyte, one of the greatest battles in the history of naval warfare raged far and wide in the surrounding waters. Read more
The troops of Germany’s Army Group Center were more than a week into a fresh offensive to capture Moscow on July 14 when they approached the historic battlefield of Borodino where the Russians delayed Napoleon’s advance on Moscow in 1812. Read more
Along with three comrades, one of the Marine Corps heroes is still remembered in the small town of Centron in southeastern France. Read more
Unlike bomber crews that went home if they survived a designated number of missions, World War II fighter pilots like Lieutenant Jim Carl, 354th Fighter Group, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), flew until the war ended, they got shot down over enemy territory and were captured, or they died. Read more
During the spring 1291 an enormous Muslim host moved against Acre along the Mediterranean coast. At the time it was Christendom’s last foothold in the Holy Land, a region fought over for centuries during
the religious wars known as the Crusades. Read more
The mass of heavily armored crusader knights swept across the frozen surface of Lake Peipus toward the Novgorodian troops that waited anxiously on the eastern shore. Read more
In April 1963 the U.S. Special Forces established a triangular-shaped fortified outpost at the southern end of the remote A Shau Valley in what was then the northern part of South Vietnam. Read more
January 1945—with World War II in its sixth year—found the Allied armies going on the offensive after the Battle of the Bulge, but they were still west of the Rhine and six weeks behind schedule in their advance toward Germany. Read more
In the rolling fields on the south side of the Warrenton Turnpike, the men of the 5th New York of Colonel Gouverneur K. Read more
By Eric Niderost
On the evening of July 4, 1809, Emperor Napoleon’s Grande Armee prepared to cross a narrow waterway from Lobau Island to Marchfelt, a large, flat plain that bordered the eastern banks of the sinuous Danube River. Read more
General Douglas MacArthur gripped the rail of the light cruiser USS Phoenix as the warship bombarded shore positions on the Japanese-held island of Los Negros. Read more
Deep in a brick-lined tunnel, grenadiers of the army of Louis XIV hacked at a sturdy wooden door. Read more
He led the American drive up the New Guinea coast, took his troops ashore on Leyte and Luzon in the Philippines, and was designated by the Allied supreme commander in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, to lead the planned invasion of Japan itself. Read more
By mid-afternoon on September 20, 1944, the deceptively placid waters of Holland’s Waal River were wreathed in dense clouds of smoke. Read more
Spread out and turn the horses north to the river,” Quanah Parker shouted to his fellow warriors. It was the late 1860s and Parker was part of a war party that had swooped down on isolated ranches and farms near Gainesville, Texas. Read more
