It was the high summer of 1943 in Eastern Europe, and World War II was going decidedly against the Third Reich, which had just suffered massive twin defeats on the Russian Front at the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, which many historians now believe turned the tide of war irrevocably against Nazi Germany. Read more
The Italian sailors sang “Tripoli Will Be Italian” at the rumble of the cannon as ships of the Italian naval squadron left port and sailed south to the shores of North Africa in late September 1911. Read more
As the last days of 1943 slipped away, World War II in Italy ground to a miserable stalemate. Read more
The battles of Kohima, Imphal, and the Admin Box saw the comprehensive defeat of the Japanese armies seeking to invade India during 1944 and sent them reeling back into Burma in early 1945, pursued by the revitalized British 14th Army under Lt. Read more
The concept of Soviet partisans participating in Russia’s wars was nothing new in 1941. During Napoleon’s invasion of the country in 1812, small bands of civilians harassed the French and their allies both before and after the retreat from Moscow. Read more
The waters of the South China Sea shimmered in the sunlight on the morning of April 15, 1847. Read more
Stan Bowen spent the entire war in the U.S. Navy as a pharmacist’s mate, first in the operation at Tarawa, then Saipan and Tinian. Read more
On Sunday December 7, 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a luncheon for 31 people at the White House. Read more
Over the past few months, several stories with a World War II connection have slipped into the news. One of the most compelling was about a German TV documentary called A German Life. Read more
Major Graf Von Kielmansegg, an officer in Germany’s 1st Armored Division based near Orleans, France, was dragged from a cinema on the night of August 28, 1940, and told to report to his chief of staff. Read more
An old cliché admonishes, “Bad things always come in threes.” Whether it was thought of as a law of nature or merely coincidence, a rapid succession of events in North Africa during the summer of 1942 seemed to confirm this widely held notion among the officers and men of the British Eighth Army. Read more
As soon as one caveman threw a rock in anger at another, the human race took a giant step forward in warfare. Read more
It had been eight years since Jane Logan Allen’s husband, Colonel John Allen, had departed with his regiment. Read more
Back in 2014, developer Game-Labs released a nice little strategy game called Ultimate General: Gettysburg, which was met with generally high praise. Read more
When Raymond Haerry passed away last September the quite exclusive club to which he belonged dwindled to five remaining members. Haerry was one of the few men who had served aboard the battleship USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and survived the Japanese attack and subsequent explosion that devastated the warship and killed 1,177 U.S. Read more
Behind the strategy that governed the American air war in Europe during World War II lay events and ideas that dated back to World War I and the 1920s. Read more
The captured German pilot was cocky and boastful. He had just parachuted into the American airfield, now lit up by the fires of burning Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a sprinkling of bright torches amid the gray January gloom and the dirty white snow. Read more
In the wan North African light on February 14, 1943, Lt. Col. John Waters watched columns of dust rise from the east. Read more
The year 1943 began badly for the German Army on the Eastern Front. After a great struggle at Stalingrad, German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered himself and his Sixth Army on January 31. Read more
Andrei Andreievich Vlasov, one of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s favorite generals, played a key role in saving Moscow from Adolf Hitler’s armies during the winter of 1941-1942. Read more
