Articles Archive

Reenactors heft medieval bills in anticipation of an attack by men on horse. Bills were favored by the English but were more effective on mail than on plate armor.

Polearms

By Michael Kluever

The medieval polearm was the Colt Pistol equalizer of the Middle Ages. it placed the common infantry soldier on par with the heavily armored horseman. Read more

With armor support, Red Army soldiers advance toward a burning farmhouse in the rugged Carpathian Mountain region. Hitler thought that the Soviet counteroffensive had run out of steam—but he was wrong.

The Battle of Targul Frumos: A Defensive Stand on the Eastern Front

By Pat McTaggart

May 1, 1944. Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev had a right to be pleased with himself and his men as he gazed at the maps spread before him. Read more

Medal of Honor Recipient George Mabry

By Gerald Astor

As a captain during World War II, George Mabry, with the 4th Infantry Division, slogged ashore on Utah Beach on D-Day and led troops through the Normandy Campaign. Read more

Angus McBride

By David W. Rickman

Unmistakable—that is what Angus McBride’s illustrations are. They reconstruct a past that is filled with drama and danger, as well as wonder and humor. Read more

Native Americans demostrated extraordinary service, honor, and heroism during World War I. Anglo officers revered them for their abilities, but no one early on thought their language would help confound the Germans.

Choctaw Code Talkers in World War I

By Richard L. Hayes

The affection that Europeans have for the Great American West is well known, so it shouldn’t be surprising that several traveling Wild West Shows happened to be in enemy territory when World War I broke out. Read more

The Battle of Milvian Bridge: Battle for the Western Empire

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

In ad 305, there occurred an event unprecedented in the history of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian voluntarily abdicated to live the simple life of a farmer on his country estate. Read more

Russian model builder Alex Shlakhter poses with his 1/16 scale Panther tank.

Mobile Models

By Peter Suciu

Almost as long as there have been history buffs there have been scale models. Toy soldiers have been popular among children for hundreds of years, but it was the introduction of specialized military vehicles that really gave birth to scale models after World War I. Read more

U.S. Marines put up a tenacious defense against a large Japanese force invading Wake Island in December 1941.

WWII’s Battle of Wake Island: An Unsteady Victory

By John Wukovits

In mid-December 1941, during the thick of the Battle of Wake Island, the 400 U.S. Marines who called the island outpost home stood a lonely sentinel in the watery Central Pacific wilderness, like a cavalry fort in an oceanic version of the Western frontier. Read more

U.S. warships fire salvos during the Battle of Savo Island, a night action near Guadalcanal in which four Allied cruisers were lost.

The Five Sullivan Brothers & The USS Juneau

By Michael D. Hull

As in thousands of other homes across America, there was an air of tension in the living room of the modest frame house at 98 Adams Street, Waterloo, Iowa, on the afternoon of Sunday, December 7, 1941. Read more

Federals shoot at Rebel cavalrymen attempting to overwhelm a supply train. The deeper Union armies penetrated into the Southern heartland, the longer and more vulnerable their supply lines. Confederates went after them with gusto and not just to hurt Northern armies; they could luxuriate for a time on the food, clothing, and ammunition they captured.

Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s 1863 Sequatchie Valley Raid

By Arnold Blumberg

During the evening of September 20,1863, the following message reached Washington and was given to the president of the United States: “We have met with a serious disaster; extent not yet ascertained. Read more

Orlando Norie captured a grisly moment following the Indian rebellion of 1857-1858. Some mutineers were executed by being tied to cannon and then blown in half.

POW: Art and the Image of The Prisoner

By Peter Harrington

War produces casualties … and captives. Much “war art” concerns itself with the heroics and clash of battle, the sway of forces, and the turns of history. Read more

Their rifles held high out of the surf, Marines wade ashore at Cape Gloucester on December 26, 1943.

Unforgiving Jungle Combat

By Al Hemingway

The Allies eyed New Britain as a key prize in General Douglas MacArthur’s island-hopping strategy, but the ferocious combat—and the terrible weather and terrain—would take its toll. Read more

In a rubble-strewn Norman street near St. Martin des Basaces, a British soldier is on alert at his PIAT gun, ready to engage enemy tanks.

Ordnance: The British PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) Gun

By Robert Barr Smith

It was surely as ungainly a weapon as was ever made, and one of the clumsiest. It was a 3-foot, 32-pound steel tube with a monopod to support it, a huge trigger on the underside, and a padded shoulder piece at one end. Read more

Having heard that the Russians claimed a victory, Napoleon commissioned a painting showing that he was the victor. The results depict the Emperor visiting the frozen field of the struggle, surrounded by the defeated begging for mercy.

The Battle of Eylau: A Massacre Without Results

By Vince Hawkins

Following the French Army’s brilliant victories at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt on October 14, 1806, the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte subsequently launched his Grande Armée in a devastating pursuit of the remnants of the Prussian Army. Read more

Lt. Benjamin Foulois and Orville Wright fly over Virginia countryside in 1909, testing a Wright flier for the U.S. Army. The test was successful and Foulois began a lifetime of promoting U.S. airpower.

Benny Delahauf Foulois

By Michael D. Hull

Resembling a “collection of bamboo poles more or less indefinitely attached to a gasoline engine,” the U.S. Read more

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

From Around the Network

Napoleon’s Costly Victory at Eylau

West Point Museum and Hyde Park: New York’s Greatest Military History Museums

WWII Ordnance: The Boys Anti-tank Rifle

The Angolan Civil War