Articles Archive

The Japanese Navy commenced the Russo-Japanese War with a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on February 8, 1904. The attack, like Pearl Harbor, preceded any formal declaration of war by Japan.

Robert Forczyk’s ‘Port Arthur 1904-05’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Russo-Japanese War began with a surprise naval attack by the Japanese Navy on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur. Read more

The Battle of Leuctra and the Rise of Thebes

By Joshua Shepherd

Across a broad valley near the Greek village of Leuctra, the summer sun beat down on 16,000 anxious Greek warriors. Read more

Roles of Women in World War 1: The Russian Battalion of Death

By Don Duffy

By spring 1917, Russia had borne the heaviest burden of World War I. Russian reports counted more than six million men killed, wounded, or interned as prisoners of war. Read more

The Yong-do-Dondae, or Dragon’s Head Fort, rose from a promontory at a turn in the river. Cannon were hidden behind the portals.

Fighting the Tiger

By Eric Niderost

On August 16, 1866 a mysterious ship appeared off the western Korean coast and began to steam up the Taedong River. Read more

German fighters take on American P-47 Thunderbolts from the 56th Fighter Group, 61st Fighter Squadron near the Dutch border in March 1944. The center plane, “Our Gal Sal,” was piloted by Lieutenant Robert Shoens.

Victory Delayed: The Battle for Air Supremacy in World War II

By Eric Hammel

The popular conception of the struggle in the air over northern Europe during World War II is of squadrons of sleek fighters racing over the German heartland to protect contrailed streams of lumbering bombers stretching beyond sight. Read more

Operation Overlord’s Colonel Alexis von Roenne

By David Alan Johnson

During the early part of 1944, an event took place that would change the outcome of World War II. Read more

The West Point Museum contains the most valuable collection of military-related artifacts in the nation.

The West Point Museum contains a cornucopia of martial treasures.

By Blaine Taylor

The boots and riding crop of the Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Corps, General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, are there, as well as the cap and jacket of his successor in a second world war, General Dwight D. Read more

During the opening hours of Operation Goodwood, a Sherman tank carrying infantrymen, a Sherman flail tank nicknamed a “Crab,” and a halftrack serving as an ambulance await orders to advance on July 18, 1944. Caen was a D-Day objective, but the Allies were required to fight for weeks to capture the town.

Capturing Caen

By Alan Davidge

One of the most important tasks for Allied troops after the D-Day landing was to seize the city of Caen, nine miles behind Sword Beach. Read more

Remembering a great leader on the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe, was unleashed on the Nazis on D-Day—June 6, 1944—on the orders of one man. Read more

This high-relief sculpture carved on a sarcophagus of the 2nd century ably depicts the confusion and havoc of battle between Romans and Celtic warriors.

The Gallic Wars: To Northern Gaul

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

The gray skies of winter still shrouded the town of Vesontio on the Dubis River. To the south, when not obscured by mist and rain, rose the Jura Mountains, and beyond that the lofty peaks of the Alps and the nearest Roman Province, Gallia Cisalpina. Read more

Hamilton Fish III and the “Harlem Hell Fighters”

By Blaine Taylor

In July 1918, 30-year-old U.S. Army Captain Hamilton Fish, Jr., was in war-torn France with the 15th New York National Guard Regiment—also known as the (U.S.) Read more

Medics, who have lost most of their supplies, still treat the wounded on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, in this mural by Keith Rocco. Center, left, bandaging a soldier’s leg is medic Charles Norman Shay, of the Penobscot Indian Nation, who received a Silver Star. Further to the left is wounded African American medic Waverly Woodson, Jr., who is helping a fellow soldier crawl forward. Woodson, who treated more than 200 men before collapsing after 30 hours, received a Bronze Star.

The Big Red One on D-Day

By Kevin Seabrooke

In celebration and commemoration of the courageous actions of the “The Big Red One” during the Allied Invasion of Normandy, the First Division Museum at Cantigny has unveiled two interpretive murals and a companion book outlining both the story of First Division on D-Day and the making of the murals by artist Keith Rocco. Read more

Cassin Young

By Glenn Barnett

In Hawaii, on Saturday, December 6, 1941, Commander Cassin Young eased his repair ship, Vestal, outboard of the battleship USS Arizona. Read more

Chariot Tactics in the Near Eastern Bronze Age

By Steven Weingartner

Chariot warfare in the Near Eastern Bronze Age was generally a grim business, but it did have its lighter moments. Read more

Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division perform a mass jump during the 2006 Joint Service Open House at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County, Maryland. The 82nd was the U.S. Army's first airborne division, converted from an infantry division prior to World War II.

Evolution of the Army Airborne

By Arnold Blumberg

The United States Army came late to the idea of employing airborne troops in time of war. The first U.S Read more

The Rise and Fall of the Japanese ‘Zero’

By Mark Carlson

For thousands of Allied airmen the most terrifying sight they ever beheld was a Mitsubishi A6M Zero bearing down on them—burnished black cowling over a snarling Sakae engine, staccato bursts flashing from two machine guns and two cannon—often the last thing they ever saw. Read more