WWII Aircraft: Nakajima Ki-43

At the start of World War II, Japanese airpower ruled the skies over China and the Pacific. Read more

A Fierce Glory: The Battle of Antietam

By Christopher Miskimon

In the late afternoon of September 17, 1862 the 7th Maine Regiment received new orders. The Battle of Antietam had raged throughout the day. Read more

The Battle of Arracourt: Patton’s Third Army vs Manteuffel’s Panzers

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., the commander of the newly constituted U.S. Third Army, had one simple order that late summer of 1944: “Go east and go like Hell.” Read more

The South’s Famous Orphan Brigade

On April 15, 1861, three days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteer troops. Read more

Geronimo: Ruthless Apache Chief

On March 5, 1851, a group of Mexican soldiers from Sonora plundered a lightly guarded Apache camp outside the village of Janos in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua 75 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican Read more

Hitler’s Medium Bombers

 An armada of German Heinkel He-111 bombers droned through the Ukrainian night sky on September 21, 1944, en route to Poltava Airfield in the Ukraine for a mission against American bombers parked at the base. Read more

Coming of Age at Tarawa

It was with great anticipation that I sprang up the snowy steps of a Milwaukee building in January 1942 and entered the Marine Corps Recruitment Center. Read more

NA-16 Wirraway: From Trainer to Fighter

By the mid-1930s many people in Australia were concerned that if war came to Europe that Great Britain would not be able to come to their defense against a growing and aggressive Japanese Empire. Read more

WWII Aircraft: The Lancaster Heavy Bomber

Wing Commander Guy P. Gibson of Royal Air Force Bomber Command was handed the most challenging assignment of his six-year career in the spring of 1943. Read more

Raid on Darwin: Australia’s Pearl Harbor

The sun was just rising and the day promised clear skies overhead. Since 5 am maintenance crews had been running the engines, making last minute adjustments, and arming the scores of aircraft sitting on the steel flight deck of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi. Read more

Heroic Airacobras of the Cactus Air Force

Shortly after 11 am on August 22, 1942, the roar of aircraft engines shattered the stillness over Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Read more

The Fate of Nazi Germany’s Cossacks

Between 1944 and 1947, over two million Russians who had been living in the occupied countries of Europe, some voluntarily, some not, were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Read more

Bernard Fergusson: Black Watch in the Chindit Campaign

Bernard Edward Fergusson was born on May 6, 1911, and completed his public school education at Eton. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, he received his commission into the Black Watch Regiment. Read more

Belgium Besieged: From Blitzkrieg to Occupation

On May 9, 1940, a black Mercedes automobile drove inconspicuously away from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and merged with the weekend traffic. Read more

Rock Force Assault: MacArthur’s Invasion of Corregidor

Among the many objectives facing General Douglas MacArthur on his return to the main Philippine island of Luzon in 1945 was the recapture of the tiny island of Corregidor. Read more

An American Sergeant at Brest: Caught in the Crosshairs

The German sniper scanned the battlefield outside his bunker on the outskirts of the port city of Brest, on France’s Brittany peninsula. Read more

Fritz Todt: The Mysterious Death of the Nazi Engineer

In his 1969 memoir, Albert Speer asserted that Adolf Hitler would never have appointed him Third Reich minister of armaments had not his predecessor in that post, acclaimed engineering genius Dr. Read more

KMS Scharnhorst: A Truly Cursed Warship from Nazi Germany?

Because the victorious Allies had destroyed Imperial Germany’s fleet after World War I, Adolf Hitler had no choice but to construct a new navy after he came to power. Read more

Midnight Raid in Iron Bottom Sound

Shortland Harbor was bustling with activity during the late morning hours of December 7, 1942. A group of warships were slowly getting underway, making for the open sea. Read more

Alvin Landis: Prosecutor at Nuremberg

Following the occupation of a defeated Nazi Germany, the victorious Allies initiated a prearranged plan for prosecuting captured Axis officials for war crimes. Read more