Rangers Led the Way at Zerf

By Nathan Prefer

Without a doubt, the U.S. Army’s Ranger battalions were considered among the elite formations of World War II. Read more

The Mosquito

By Phil Zimmer

Precise timing was crucial. More than 700 prisoners were being held in the Amiens prison, many of whom were being tortured by the Gestapo and were soon to be executed, according to reports that reached London. Read more

The P-39 Airacobra

By Phil Zimmer

The P-39 Airacobra was a bit like Rodney Dangerfield—it “couldn’t get no respect,” especially from those who never piloted the “Flying Cannon” built by the Buffalo, New York-based Bell Aircraft Corp. Read more

The Heroic Death of the HMS Jervis Bay

By Chuck Lyons

Able Seaman John Jeffcott, 27, of the HMS Jervis Bay was apprehensive in October 1940 as his ship sailed from Hailfax, Nova Scotia.  Read more

The Buna Front: A Ghastly Nightmare

By Jon Diamond

Ask anyone who was there and they will tell you that Papua New Guinea, especially along the northern coast, was a tropical hell. Read more

Zhukov Strikes Back

By Jeff Chrisman

Smolensk Russia, Headquarters, German Army Group Center (AGC), December 3, 1941; Army Group commander, 61-year-old Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock is a troubled man. Read more

Warriors on Water

By John W. Osborn Jr.

“We were to be terrorists. Our job was to terrorize the Germans,” one former member said dramatically. Read more

How the Second Battle of Sedan Led to the Fall of France

By Christopher Miskimon

The attack was beginning despite the widespread lack of artillery support, engineers, or armor. Normally this would be a recipe for disaster. Read more

Every man an Emperor

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Sergeant William R. Kelly crashed through the treetops, slamming to a stop when his parachute canopy caught on some branches. Read more

The Greatest Disaster

By David H. Lippman

Amid rain, lightning, and dark, the British admiral and American general picked their way through choppy seas to the transport USS McCawley, off the coast of Guadalcanal. Read more

A Hit or Miss Affair

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Lucian Truscott needed a cigarette. The 47-year-old brigadier general was having the worst night of his life. Read more

Steel Typhoon at Okinawa

By Blaine Taylor

As one island or island group in the Pacific was fought over by American and Japanese forces, it became clear that Japan’s days as a combatant in World War II were numbered. Read more

Sinking the Bismarck Myth

By Mark Carlson

In 1960 Twentieth Century Fox released the film Sink the Bismarck! Based on C.S. Forrester’s bestselling book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck, the documentary-style film tells a gripping and reasonably factual account of the most famous sea chase in history. Read more

Deadly Dash Forward

By Gene Eric Salecker

By the time the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II, Japan had been preparing for an all-out offensive in the Pacific for months. Read more

Bomber Command Pathfinder

By Bruce Petty

Alan George was born in 1918 and was fourth-generation New Zealander. His great grandparents arrived in New Plymouth in 1841 from Cornwall, England, aboard the 506-ton ship Oriental. Read more

Last Letter Home

By Phil Scearce

On December 1, 1942, Lance Corporal Kiyoshi Koto wrote his last letter home. By that time, his unit’s command structure was decimated and the battle strength of his army and its supporting navy was ravaged. Read more

Freeing Mont Saint Michel

By Kevin M. Hymel

Of all the landmarks in Europe, few are as distinctive and instantly recognizable as the medieval fortress/ monastery of Mont Saint Michel, located on the French coast seven miles southwest of the city of Avranches. Read more

Wave of Persecution

By Blaine Taylor

At 8 PM on the evening of Friday, July 13, 1934, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler stepped to the speaker’s lectern of the Reichstag in Berlin’s Kroll Opera House to explain his murderous conduct during the recent Nazi “Blood Purge” against the top leadership cadre of the brownshirted SA Stormtroopers during the weekend of June 30-July 2, 1934. Read more

Infantryman’s War atop Pork Chop Hill

By Phil Zimmer

The tennis-shoed soldiers emerged from the darkness on July 6, 1953, like a “moving carpet of yelling, howling men [with] whistles and bugles blowing, their officers screaming, driving their men” against the Americans as they swept up Pork Chop Hill (Hill 255), recalled Private Angelo Palermo. Read more

Liberating the Camps

By Christopher Miskimon

BACKSTORY: The final months of World War II in the European Theater were a harrowing and desperate time for the soldiers who fought there. Read more