Storming the Point at Peleliu

 By Dick Camp

By the summer of 1944, the United States was advancing on Japan’s Home Islands in a two-pronged attack through the Central and Southwest Pacific theaters. Read more

Japan’s Road to War

By Eric Hammel

Japan’s road to World War II was a long one. Throughout the late 19th century, the island nation broke out of its feudal past on a path to modernity with a ruthlessness and singlemindedness that would have scared Western nations had they been paying attention. Read more

Savagery at Salerno

By Michael E. Haskew

As the 450 ships of the Operation Avalanche invasion force approached Salerno on the evening of September 8, 1943, the Allied troops, packed tightly aboard transport vessels, broke into wild celebration. Read more

101st in Operation Market-Garden: Taking the Bridge at Best

By Richard A. Beranty

On the veranda of his temporary headquarters in a Dutch country house outside Veghel, Holland, renowned Luftwaffe General Kurt Student played lunch host to an old comrade, the chief of staff of the German Seventh Army. Read more

Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines: An 82nd Airborne Stick’s Survival at Market-Garden

By Jan Bos

It was a beautiful September day over Holland. Gradually, a faint rumble began to grow, and the sunny sky was darkened. Read more

The USO Turns 75: American soldiers’ “Home Away From Home”

By John Provan

Almost every American veteran has fond memories of a Track-Side Free Canteen, or a USO center at some train station or airport situated at locations around the world, or a “USO Camp Show” that provided entertainment close to the front lines, during every conflict since World War II. Read more

Concentration Camp Liberators Reveal Their Silent Trauma

By Leila Levinson

Down in the basement of my father’s medical office a Nazi helmet stood guard. It sat on top of the pea-green Army trunk, CAPT R LEVINSON stenciled in white letters under a beaten-up leather handle. Read more

Wretched Misconduct of the Red Army

By Martin K.A. Morgan

The vast Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park commemorates 5,000 Red Army soldiers who fell in battle in the city in April and May 1945. Read more

Target: America’s West Coast

By Steven D. Lutz

It seemed like just another ordinary day at sea. Early on December 7, 1941, a U.S. Army-chartered cargo vessel, the 250-foot SS Cynthia Olson, under the command of a civilian skipper, Berthel Carlsen, was plying the Pacific waters about 1,200 miles northeast of Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii, and over 1,000 miles west of the Tacoma, Washington, port from which she had sailed on December 1. Read more

Finland on the Eastern Front: Defense of the VKT Line

By Henrik O. Lunde

In 1941, Finland joined Nazi Germany in its attack on the Soviet Union, resulting in the third war with its giant eastern neighbor in 23 years. Read more

The Falaise Gap: Ike vs. Monty and a Failure of Command

By William Weidner

With the exceptions of the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge, few other World War II battles in the European Theater have received more historical scrutiny than the Battle of the Falaise Gap. Read more

The Disastrous Red River Campaign

By Michael E. Haskew

Nathaniel Banks was a political creature, and with his country in the throes of civil war, he now held the politically obtained rank of major general in the Union Army. Read more

An Ace in a Day: Ted Crosby’s Air War in the Pacific

By Eric Niderost

Lieutenant (j.g.) John “Ted” Crosby banked his Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat around, observing the life-and-death drama that was unfolding below him. Read more

Building the Atlantic Wall

By Allyn Vannoy

The popular image of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall (Atlantikwall) is one of massive bunkers and huge artillery pieces recessed in concrete casemates stretching the length of the Reich’s coastline. Read more

Melee on St. Patrick’s Day: The Battle of Kelly’s Ford

By Arnold Blumberg

“Fighting Joe” Hooker was fighting mad when he summoned his chief of cavalry, Brig. Gen. George Stoneman, to his headquarters at Falmouth, Virginia, on February 26, 1863. Read more

Alex Vraciu: U.S. Navy Ace, Philippines Guerrilla

By David Sears

On June 23, 1944, Lieutenant (j.g.) Alex Vraciu posed for a photo with Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, commander of Task Force 58, aboard the aircraft carrier Lexington. Read more

Fort Fisher: Last Bastion of the Confederacy

By Pedro Garcia

The prospect of running the Federal blockade at Wilmington was easy in the beginning. North Carolina’s principal seaport was blockaded by a single warship, USS Daylight, and no one took the threat seriously. Read more

A P-38 Pilot Describes the Attack on Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

By Robert F. Dorr

When American air ace Major John Mitchell led 16 Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters on the longest combat mission yet flown (420 miles) on April 18, 1943, Mitchell’s target was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral considered the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Read more

Healing War’s Legacy on the Solomon Islands

By Eileen Natuzzi, M.D.

The downwind approach of my Boeing 737 into Honiara International Airport goes over Iron Bottom Sound, with Savo Island off in the distance. Read more

The Japanese Army’s “Rape of Nanking”

By Walter Zapotoczny Jr.

On August 15, 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army bombed Nanking, the capital of China. These raids were unrelenting until December 13, when Japanese troops entered the conquered city. Read more