The Liberation of Nordhausen Concentration Camp

After leading his U.S. 3rd Armored “Spearhead” Division on the longest, one-day, enemy-opposed mechanized advance in American history, Maj. Read more

USS Nevada’s Run to the Sea

During the dark daysof December 1941, when it seemed as if American and British bases were falling like dominoes across the Pacific, two incidents during the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor gave American morale a much needed boost. Read more

World War II Soldier’s First Combat: “You Learn Fast”

Private Armand Lorenzi and his fellow soldiers were advancing through a snowy German forest when enemy machine guns opened fire. Read more

Operation Barbarossa: How Stalin was Blindsided by Berlin

By Richard Z. Freemann, Jr.

“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”   

—Winston Churchill (1950)

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, as the sun slumbered, 3.6 million soldiers, 2,000 warplane pilots, and 3,350 tank commanders under skilled German command crouched at the border of Soviet-occupied Poland ready to invade the Communist nation Joseph Stalin had ruled with steel-fisted brutality for years.  Read more

Roman Army Pluck at the Battle of Pydna

What began as a polite truce between armies that allowed each to draw water from the same river turned into the battle that would give Greece to Rome. Read more

Armored Clash in Alsace-Lorraine

The American light tanks, bringing up much needed supplies, were in column as they began to take fire. Read more

Germany’s Bold Naval Raider

World War I was only a few days old when the German light cruiser SMS Emden, patrolling off the Korean Peninsula, spotted its first target. Read more

Spain’s Invincible Admiral

On June 27, 1570, an Ottoman fleet sailed against Venetian-held Cyprus during the reign of Sultan Selim II. Read more

Dumbos, Black Cats, and Coastwatchers during World War II

Even after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Japanese were still in a commanding position in the western Pacific. Read more

An Alternate History WWII Game Goes Behind Enemy Lines, and Strategy Spans the Ages in a Unique Spin on the Genre

Some war games are all about the conflicts themselves, honing in on the minutiae of the tactics that walk the line between victory and defeat. Read more

Pathfinders Pave the Way

Captain Frank Lillyman drifted down toward a French field in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944. Frank was a pathfinder, one of the paratroopers assigned to prepare the way for the main airborne drop on D-Day. Read more

Ordnance: Boeing B-29 Superfortress Game Changer

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a game changer. First rolling off the assembly line as a production aircraft in July 1943, the Superfortress was the answer to America’s need for a high-level long-range strategic bomber. Read more

Top Secret: Gen. Mark Clark’s Daring Operation Flagpole

The five Americans were trapped in a small, dark, empty wine cellar in an isolated French villa on the coast of Algiers. Read more

Firestorm at Hollandia

By April 1944, American and Australian troops were moving westward along the northern edge of New Guinea, reclaiming territory taken by the Japanese in early 1942. Read more

C-47 Crew Chief’s Four Flights into Hell

By Elmer Wisherd with Nan Wisherd

Elmer Wisherd was born on December 1, 1920, in North Dakota. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to a farm in Bruce, Wisconsin. Read more

Weapons: WWII PT Boats

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

Late in the day on October 24, 1944, all of the available 39 patrol torpedo (PT) boats of the U.S. Read more

A stirring chapter of naval history steeped in controversy.

While American troops slugged it out with the Japanese on the Philippine island of Leyte, one of the greatest battles in the history of naval warfare raged far and wide in the surrounding waters. Read more

Race to Moscow

The troops of Germany’s Army Group Center were more than a week into a fresh offensive to capture Moscow on July 14 when they approached the historic battlefield of Borodino where the Russians delayed Napoleon’s advance on Moscow in 1812. Read more

Peter Ortiz: OSS Operative, Undercover Hero

Along with three comrades, one of the Marine Corps heroes is still remembered in the small town of Centron in southeastern France. Read more

The Red Ass Squadron Goes to War

Unlike bomber crews that went home if they survived a designated number of missions, World War II fighter pilots like Lieutenant Jim Carl, 354th Fighter Group, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), flew until the war ended, they got shot down over enemy territory and were captured, or they died. Read more