Articles Archive

Germans became interested in rocketry because rockets were not denied them by the Versailles Treaty. Through the 1930s they got a huge head start over the democracies in the use of rockets as weapons of war.

Germany’s Deadly V-2 Rockets

By David Alan Johnson

Sixty-four-year-old Robert Stubbs slowly walked across the playing field of the Staveley Road School in the West London suburb of Chiswick. Read more

The Dade Battle: Ambush in Florida

By Donald J. Roberts II

The road that stretched through the pine and palmetto woodlands of central Florida was void of the usual animal chitter-chatter on the cool morning of December 28, 1835. Read more

Benedict Arnold tells British Major André to hide military papers in his boot. Washington’s spy ring helped foil the pair’s plot to capture West Point.

The Culper Spy Ring: The American Revolution’s Great Secret

By Peter Kross

The American Revolution was a proving ground for American spy operations. General George Washington’s use of deception, covert activities, secret inks, and informers was a model for future spymasters. Read more

In a painting by Richard Eurich, British commandos drop from the night sky and scramble onto the beach during the daring raid on the Bruneval radio location station in coastal France, February 27-28, 1942.

Operation Biting: the Bruneval Raid to Capture German Radar

By Robert Barr Smith

Through the long, lovely days of the summer of 1940, almost two years before Operation Biting or the “Bruneval Raid,” Royal Air Force Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes turned back the might of the Luftwaffe over southern and southeastern Britain. Read more

The General George Patton Museum of Calvary and Armor

By Blaine Taylor

Fifty years have gone by since the inception of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., Read more

U.S. troops hit the beach in North Africa on November 8, 1942. Operation Torch was the first major offensive action by American troops during the war against Nazi Germany.

Operation Torch and The Assassination of Admiral Jean Darlan

By Peter Kross

Less than a year after the sudden and devastating Japanese attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the American military was about to embark on a large-scale offensive operation against German and Italian forces in North Africa. Read more

A panther tank and panzer grenadiers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking help to break the encirclement of the Russian town of Kowel in the strategically important area of the Pripet Marshes.

Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

Hermann Göring and His Final Judgment at Nuremberg

By Blaine Taylor

The Allied indictment against Hermann Wilhelm Göring (1893-1946) at Nuremberg as issued by the International Military Tribunal in 1945 reads as follows:

“The defendant Göring between 1932-45 was: member of the Nazi Party, Supreme Leader of the SA (Brownshirts), General in the SS, a member and President of the Reichstag, Minister of the Interior of Prussia, Chief of the Prussian Police and Prussian Secret Police, Chief of the Prussian State Council, Trustee of the Four Year Plan; “Reich Minister for Air, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, President of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, member of the Secret Cabinet Council, head of the Hermann Göring Industrial Combine, and Successor Designate to Hitler. Read more

The B-17 bomber flown by Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr., is shadowed by a Zero piloted by famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai, who shot Kelly down on December 10, 1941.

The Mitsubishi Zero Gave ‘Made in Japan’ New Respect

By Joseph M. Horodyski

The psychological and military shock that the Allies experienced when they first encountered Mitsubishi’s legendary A6M2 Zero fighter plane at the beginning of the Pacific War may be difficult to understand today. Read more

Portuguese soldiers board the passenger ship Mouzinho in Lisbon harbor, April 1941. Their destination was the Azores, where they would reinforce the garrison against the threat of German invasion.

Portugal’s Political Tightrope

By B. Paul Hatcher

“With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Read more

Pu Yi, wearing glasses and a plumed hat, salutes the crowd at the ceremony proclaiming him emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

Kenji Doihara: Japanese General and Convicted War Criminal

By Wil Deac

At 11:30 pm on December 22, 1948, four handcuffed men were led by guards into the chapel of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. Read more

The Air Transport Command: From Lend Lease To The Hump

By Sam McGowan

World War II was responsible for numerous technological advances, not the least of which was the establishment of the largest airline in history. Read more

USS Franklin and Father O’Callahan

By Michael D. Hull

On March 3, 1945, the 27,100-ton aircraft carrier USS Franklin churned out of Pearl Harbor and headed westward for the war zone. Read more

Cavalry Clash at the Hook

By Joshua Shepherd

Early on the morning of October 3, 1781, a detachment of French hussars trotted down a sandy road in Gloucester County, Virginia. Read more

Retained English Longbowman, 1350-1425

The English longbow, originally adopted from the Welsh, was made from a single piece of Yew wood, and required skill to make and use. Read more

Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel in his staff car in North Africa in 1941. Arriving in Tripoli in February 1941, he was quickly on the advance, forcing British troops to retreat back into Eqypt.

Rommel in the Desert

By David H. Lippman

Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, a rising star in Germany’s equally rising war effort, was tasked with saving Italy, Germany’s key ally, from a grave disaster in North Africa. Read more

Confederate Major John Pelham’s flying battery made him a hero when he was only 23.

By Nat R. Louis

During the Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia, in May 1862, General Joseph Hooker’s Union forces were in pursuit of the withdrawing Confederates. Read more

First Lieutenant Israel Greene leads his Marines into the engine house, as depicted in this diorama at the National Museum of the Marine Corps Heritage Center in Virginia.

John Brown’s Bloody Abolitionist Crusade

By Eric Niderost

Agroup of insurgents, probably abolitionists fiercely dedicated to ending slavery, had seized the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry—that was the news Charles W. Read more

A panoramic painting of the Battle of Stalingrad depicts Soviet soldiers and T-34 tanks advancing against the invading Germans. The five-month siege ended in February, 1943, with a German defeat and two million deaths. Mariya Oktyabrskaya would see her first combat that October in Smolensk.

Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya and the T-34 medium tank ‘Fighting Girlfriend.’

By Kevin Seabrooke

Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a Soviet Ukrainian tank driver and mechanic who fought on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany during World War II. Read more

“The Catapult,” by Edward John Poynter (British, 1836-1919) depicts a siege engine manned by Roman soldiers at the walls of Carthage during the Third Punic War. “Carthage must be destroyed” (Delenda est Carthago), the words of Cato the Elder as quoted in Pultarch's “Life of Cato,” are carved on one of its massive beams.

The Siege of Carthage: Death of an Empire

By David A. Norris

According to legend, Carthage was founded by Dido, daughter of the king of the Phoenician city of Tyre. Read more

From Around the Network

Edwin T. Layton

Forrest’s Finest Hour

Bernice Lerner’s ‘To Meet in Hell: Bergen-Belsen’

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Unlikely Comeback at Lutzen