Months after the Red Army stormed across the Polish frontier from the east and occupied approximately half of Poland in the autumn of 1939, the Soviet secret police (NKVD) rounded up thousands of Polish Army officers and summarily executed them at various locations around the war-torn country. Read more
When the Arado Ar-234 Blitz jet bomber first appeared in the skies of Europe, most Allied airmen did not know what it was. Read more
At 1:30 am on August 21, 1968, Czech authorities at Ruzyne Airport in the capital city of Prague waited to greet a special flight that was flying in directly from Moscow. Read more
On the evening of September 13, 1759, Major Robert Rogers and 220 hand-picked rangers climbed into 17 whaleboats and rowed across the placid waters of Lake Champlain. Read more
General Joseph W. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and his Sino-American Myitkyina Task Force (MTF), in a coup de main attack, seized the vital Japanese-controlled airfield just west of the town of Myitkyina on the great Irrawaddy River in northern Burma on May 17, 1944. Read more
The developers at Firaxis are currently hard at work on the next entry in the Civilization series, which should be nearing its worldwide October 21 launch date by the time this is in the hands of readers. Read more
The cold and ruthless silence of sniping mixes even further with high-tech solutions and ghost-like infiltration in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, which is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on January 27, 2017. Read more
The late morning sky above the besieged Irish town of Kinsale was full of storm and rage on December 24, 1601. Read more
The Germans had flooded the plain surrounding the key crossroads of Carentan before the Americans came ashore at Omaha and Utah Beaches on June 6, 1944. Read more
“Peiper must be stopped!”
Lieutenant General Courtney M. Hodges, commanding the U.S. First Army, looked up from his maps and saw chaos everywhere. Read more
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disturbed in the autumn of 1938 by the Munich agreement, at which the rights of Czechoslovakia were signed away, and by reports of mounting air strength in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Read more
Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?” Read more
As a combat veteran of some of World War II’s toughest fighting, Lieutenant Jim McDonald was not easily flustered, but he had a bad feeling about this. Read more
Sent into north-central Virginia to threaten Richmond on a second front, McDowell had managed to get lost in the woods near Gainesville and lost touch with his command for 12 full hours. Read more
While making business calls in Tampa, Florida, during the summer of 1980, I spotted a strange looking tracked contraption atop an overgrown pedestal in front of the U.S. Read more
In the summer of 1943, Malgorzata Twardecki, a single mother living in Nazi-occupied Poland, received an ominous order to bring her five-year-old son to the local town council office by 6 the following morning. Read more
Following their impressive string of victories in Malaya, Hong Kong, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, it appeared that the Japanese were invincible in the early days of World War II. Read more
When the Boeing B-29 Superfortress crews poured out of the briefing at North Field, Tinian, on the afternoon of March 9, 1945, they were disgruntled. Read more
British Brig. Gen. Hugh Elles walked past the Mark IV tanks of H Company, a solitary figure amid metal monsters that looked, according to one jaundiced observer, like giant toads. Read more
“I am busy getting ready for the next battle,” Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery wrote his son David in early March 1945. Read more
