Nicholas Horthy: Hitler’s Vassal?

By Blaine Taylor

The career of Admiral Nicholas Horthy spanned not only two world wars, but also stretched across the decades from the age of sail to atomic-powered submarines. Read more

Silver Screen Surprise: Norvald Flaaten Recalls His Wartime Careers

By Jason Antonio

Norvald Flaaten never expected he would appear in a movie when he signed up with the Canadian Army during World War II, but the subject of the movie and what he had to do was too good to pass up. Read more

The FCC’s RID and Japan’s Surrender

By Susan L. Brinson

George Sterling received a teletype message from the War Department just after 5:15 am on August 15, 1945. Read more

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

By Cleve C. Barkley

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

Armored Strike at Arras: Counterattack Against the Blitz

By Christopher Miskimon

The midday sun sat almost directly overhead as Subaltern T. Hepple led his tank out of the French village of Petit Vimy. Read more

Chasing Jefferson Davis

By Don Hollway

When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more

The National Museum of the Marine Corps

By Al Hemingway

Twenty miles outside Washington, D.C., at Quantico, Virginia, motorists traveling on Interstate 95 will come upon an unusual building that is clearly visible, day or night. Read more

Colonel Bernt Balchen’s Secret Air Force

By Patrick J. Chaisson

The Bug was in deep trouble. On a top-secret flight over occupied Norway, this ancient, war-weary C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft became the helpless target of German antiaircraft guns, all firing desperately to bring down the transport and its precious cargo. Read more

The Second Great War (and the Weather that Defined it)

By Eric Niderost

Weather has long played a vital role in human history. Kublai Khan’s attempted conquest of Japan was foiled when his invasion fleet was destroyed by a typhoon. Read more

Guns for Victory: The Watervliet Arsenal in World War II

By Patrick J. Chaisson

President Franklin D. Roosevelt electrified the world when on December 29, 1940, he called on America to become “the great arsenal of democracy.” Read more

Sinking the Wilhelm Gustloff

By Chuck Lyons

Snow flurries swirled out of the darkness over the Baltic Sea. Chunks of ice floated on the water, and lookouts shivered at their posts. Read more

Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

By Phil Zimmer

Lieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo.  Read more

How Politics, Blunders, and Betrayal in the European Theater Shaped the Postwar Order

By William Weidner

British historian Alan Clark wrote in his book Barbarossa, “Roosevelt’s betrayal of Eastern Europe, whether out of calculation or gullibility, is so notorious as to need no further recapitulation.” Read more

“Flak Was Our Worst Enemy”: Wilbur Bowers’ Air War Over Europe

By Richard A. Beranty

For 33 months beginning in 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force and its precision daylight bombing strikes against German targets in Europe tried to pound the Third Reich into submission. Read more

The Fall of Beijing, 1937

By Jiaxin Du

Most people think that World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, when the Wehrmacht crossed the German-Polish border. Read more

Armored Strike at Nomonhan

By Phil Zimmer

General Georgi Zhukov had arrived at the Mongolia-Manchuria border in the early morning hours of June 5, 1939, after a grueling three-day trip from Moscow. Read more

The Polish II Corps in Italy

By James I. Marino

Despite the Nazi conquest of European nations during World War II, individual soldiers from the occupied countries rose again to fight the German Army, and the largest army in exile to fight the Germans was Polish. Read more

The Battle of Kiev: How it Brought About an End to Nazi Terror

By Pat McTaggart

It was less than a month since the great blood letting in the Orel salient in July 1943 had taken place, and just some months to go before the infamous Second Battle of Kiev. Read more

Battle of Arras: Rommel’s View

By William E. Welsh

South of the crossroads of Arras in the Pas de Calais region of France, British and German troops are buried alongside each other. Read more

Sir John Dill and Winston Churchill: A Clash in Strategy

By Jon Diamond

In describing the relationship between British General Sir John Dill and his political superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Dill’s biographer, Alex Danchev, noted, “It was … an association strikingly lacking in empathy or understanding, etched in fundamental disagreement, and scarred by a mutual disaffection welling up at times into personal distaste.” Read more