The Trains That Fueled the Normandy Breakout

By Kerry Skidmore

Historian Christian Wolmar concludes that the two world wars could not have been fought to such devastation without military railways, in his book Engines of War. Read more

The Los Baños Raid

By Gene Eric Salecker

On January 9, 1945, after almost three years, General Douglas MacArthur and the United States Army returned to the Philippine island of Luzon, landing at Lingayen Gulf on the northwest coast. Read more

Pegasus Bridge: Operation Deadstick’s Glider Assault

By Christopher Miskimon

On a darkened airfield at 2230 hours on June 5, 1944, a reinforced company of British gliderborne infantry, D Company of the Second Battalion, Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox & Bucks), boarded gliders, prepared to start the invasion of France. Read more

The Art of Victory: Koniggratz 1866

By William E. Welsh

The Prussian soldiers had been awake long before sunup on the morning of July 3, 1866, and were marching downhill to the Bystrice River in the rolling countryside of Bohemia, 65 miles east of Prague. Read more

Slugfest at Eutaw Springs

By John Pezzola

In the early morning hours of September 8, 1781, drums rolled and fifes played in Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene’s camp in the High Hills of southeastern South Carolina. Read more

Hussite Hand Cannons: A Revolution in Gunpowder Warfare

By Chuck Lyons

The Hussites, all but forgotten today, were a 15th-century sect of religious reformers, forerunners of the Protestant Reformation that was to come a century later. Read more

Medal of Honor Recipient: Henry “Red” Erwin

By Robert F. Dorr

In the closing months of World War II, Staff Sergeant Henry E. “Red” Erwin, Sr., picked up a burning phosphorus flare inside the cramped fuselage of his Boeing  B-29 Superfortress bomber high over Japan. Read more

Panzer Group 4: The March to Leningrad

By Pat McTaggart

Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Leningrad. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Read more

Bitter Fight at Gela

By Christopher Miskimon

The smoke had barely cleared from the battlefields of North Africa when the victorious Allies turned their attention northward to Europe. Read more

Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel

By Michael W. Williams

Buried in the October 24, 1944, edition of the New York times was the headline: “German Ex-Officer Held as Nazi Spy: Captain in Kaiser’s Army, 62 and Foster Daughter Accused of Sending Ship Data Before U.S. Read more

Hedy Lamarr: Allied Inventor and Actress

By Eric Niderost

Hedy Lamarr was the most beautiful actress of her generation, a celluloid diva who was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, sensuality, and sophistication. Read more

The Battle for Henderson Field: the Harrowing Fight on Guadalcanal

By David A. Johnson

“Colonel, there’s about 3,000 Japs between you and me.” Sergeant Ralph Briggs telephoned the command post of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment at about 9:30 on the night of October 24, 1942, to report what he had just seen. Read more

Battle of the Scheldt Estuary

By Allyn Vannoy

As the Allied armies advanced across Western Europe in the summer of 1944, the First Canadian Army undertook the task of clearing the coastal areas and opening the Channel ports. Read more

John Graves Simcoe: a Queen’s Ranger in the American Revolution

By Mike Phifer

British Army officer John Graves Simcoe wanted to command a corps of irregular troops. He believed that there were opportunities in “the service of a partisan” that taught a man habits of self-dependence and prompt decision making rarely found in the duties of a subordinate officer. Read more

Blood on the Border: Patton and Pershing’s Punitive Expedition

By Eric Niderost

Lieutenant John P. Lucas of the 13th U.S. Cavalry was sound asleep in a small adobe shack in Columbus, New Mexico, on the night of March 9, 1916, when he was abruptly awakened by the unmistakable sounds of men and horses passing outside his window. Read more

WWI Author: The Writings of Wilfred Owen

By Philip Burton Morris

When news began to circulate through the city of Bordeaux, France, in August 1914 that war had broken out with Germany, 21-year-old Englishman Wilfred Owen was as surprised as most. Read more

Battle at Crossroads X: Glidermen of Bastogne

By Leo G. Barron

For the cold and hungry GIs of Company B, 1/401st Glider Infantry Regiment, holding the western approach to Bastogne would push the men to the limits of their endurance. Read more

Sir Claude Auchinleck: The Overshadowed Equal to Erwin Rommel

By Joseph M. Horodyski

British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery has gone down in history as the victor of El Alamein and the relentless nemesis of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s famed “Desert Fox.” Read more

Fire By Volley: European Musketry at War

By Gustav Person

On the snowy field of Mollwitz, Poland, on April 10, 1741, newly installed King Frederick II of Prussia faced a formidable army of Austria. Read more

Surprise Attack at Tippecanoe

By Joshua Shepherd

For William Henry Harrison, the letter he received on October 12, 1811, constituted not only official orders, but something of a personal vindication as well. Read more