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

Goldap Operation: Soviets in the Prussian Heartland

Soviet General Ivan Danilovich Cherniakhovskii was in a good mood as he waited for his generals to arrive. Read more

Last of the Gilbert Islands Coastwatchers

The coastwatching system that operated throughout the South Pacific islands during World War II was introduced to gather and report early information about the movement of enemy ships and aircraft. Read more

Battle of Makin: Amphibious Assault on the Gilbert Islands

Makin should have been a pushover. On November 20, 1943, a force of 3,500 highly trained American soldiers invaded this Central Pacific atoll located 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii in the Gilbert Islands. Read more

The Battle of Heartbreak Crossroads: Pyrrhic Victory at Wahlerscheid

Technical Sergeant Clyde Dugan flattened as another string of mortar shells ravaged the barren field. Pristine snow vomited fire and steel as chunks of frozen earth rocketed skyward then plunged to pelt his shoulders or clatter loudly on his helmet. Read more

Leslie ‘Dick’ Groves: The Manhattan Project General

By the spring of 1945, the outcome of World War II was not in serious doubt. What was in serious doubt was the number of casualties that would eventually be required to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Read more

Warsaw Uprising: The Story of Bogdan Mieczkowski

“This mission is suicidal,” thought Bogdan Mieczkowski. In the autumn of 1944, the 19-year-old Polish resistance fighter battled in the Warsaw Uprising. Read more

Deal of the Devils: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

On August 23, 1939, Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.P. Potemkin, waited at the Moscow Airport for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Read more

Sub Hunters Over the Bay of Biscay

“Am over enemy submarine in position …”

Cut off in mid-transmission, this contact report came from a U.S. Read more

Costly Victory in Hürtgen Forest

On Sunday, September 10, 1944, all bridges over the German-Belgian border rivers, the Our and the Saur, were dynamited. Read more

Joseph Bale: Naval Ensign at Iwo Jima

“There’s no greater feeling in the world than seeing Old Glory in a winning position.” Twenty-one-year-old U.S. Navy Ensign Joseph Bale watched the American flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi from aboard the attack transport USS Dickens County Texas. Read more