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
The midday sun sat almost directly overhead as Subaltern T. Hepple led his tank out of the French village of Petit Vimy. Read more
When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Most people think that World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, when the Wehrmacht crossed the German-Polish border. Read more
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
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
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
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
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
After refueling in the mid-Atlantic and suffering bow damage from being rammed by a tanker, a 769-ton German submarine reached its destination, the American East Coast, early on Monday, May 4, 1942. Read more
The great city of Leningrad was being strangled, its people dying by the thousands.
Death came in many ways. Read more
The young men of Companies H and I of 3rd Battalion, 517th Parachute Regiment (PIR) were about to move out for their assault on the crossroad town of Manhay, Belgium. Read more
