Intelligence: Confederate Spies Used Newspapers to Communicate

The Herald, like other major New York newspapers, was packed with classified ads on November 1, 1863. Read more

Heroic Stand in Afghanistan

The 68 men of the Corps of Guides at the British Residency in Kabul all perished on September 3, 1879, but they died a magnificent death. Read more

French Aces on the Eastern Front: The Normandie-Niemen Squadron

The world was understandably shocked when France capitulated to Nazi Germany in June 1940, but not all Frenchmen accepted their country’s humiliation. Read more

D-Day+1: Canadians at the Battle of Buron and Authie

On June 7, 1944, D+1, two volunteer Canadian 3rd Division, 9th Infantry Brigade regiments, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders (the North Novas) and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment (the Sherbrooke Fusiliers)—together with volunteer units from the Camerons of Ottawa and Forward Observers from the 14th Field Regiment—fought an important but now generally forgotten battle in Normandy. Read more

Albert Speer: Chief Architect of the Third Reich

On October 6, 1943, Dr. Albert Speer, Reich minister of armaments and war production for the Third Reich, gave a 50-minute address to the assembled top officials of Nazi Germany at Posen Castle in occupied Poland’s Reich Gau (Region) of Wartheland on the critical state of World War II at that point. Read more

The Arisaka Rifle: Weapons for the Imperial Japanese Army Way of War

As militarism grew in Japan in the early 1930s, conscription began at the age of 19, and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) cadet entered military service. Read more

WWII Aircraft: Nakajima Ki-43

At the start of World War II, Japanese airpower ruled the skies over China and the Pacific. Read more

A Fierce Glory: The Battle of Antietam

By Christopher Miskimon

In the late afternoon of September 17, 1862 the 7th Maine Regiment received new orders. The Battle of Antietam had raged throughout the day. Read more

The Battle of Arracourt: Patton’s Third Army vs Manteuffel’s Panzers

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., the commander of the newly constituted U.S. Third Army, had one simple order that late summer of 1944: “Go east and go like Hell.” Read more

Geronimo: Ruthless Apache Chief

On March 5, 1851, a group of Mexican soldiers from Sonora plundered a lightly guarded Apache camp outside the village of Janos in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua 75 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican Read more

Hitler’s Medium Bombers

 An armada of German Heinkel He-111 bombers droned through the Ukrainian night sky on September 21, 1944, en route to Poltava Airfield in the Ukraine for a mission against American bombers parked at the base. Read more

Coming of Age at Tarawa

It was with great anticipation that I sprang up the snowy steps of a Milwaukee building in January 1942 and entered the Marine Corps Recruitment Center. Read more

NA-16 Wirraway: From Trainer to Fighter

By the mid-1930s many people in Australia were concerned that if war came to Europe that Great Britain would not be able to come to their defense against a growing and aggressive Japanese Empire. Read more

WWII Aircraft: The Lancaster Heavy Bomber

Wing Commander Guy P. Gibson of Royal Air Force Bomber Command was handed the most challenging assignment of his six-year career in the spring of 1943. Read more

Raid on Darwin: Australia’s Pearl Harbor

The sun was just rising and the day promised clear skies overhead. Since 5 am maintenance crews had been running the engines, making last minute adjustments, and arming the scores of aircraft sitting on the steel flight deck of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi. Read more

The Fate of Nazi Germany’s Cossacks

Between 1944 and 1947, over two million Russians who had been living in the occupied countries of Europe, some voluntarily, some not, were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Read more

Bernard Fergusson: Black Watch in the Chindit Campaign

Bernard Edward Fergusson was born on May 6, 1911, and completed his public school education at Eton. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, he received his commission into the Black Watch Regiment. Read more

Belgium Besieged: From Blitzkrieg to Occupation

On May 9, 1940, a black Mercedes automobile drove inconspicuously away from the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and merged with the weekend traffic. Read more

Rock Force Assault: MacArthur’s Invasion of Corregidor

Among the many objectives facing General Douglas MacArthur on his return to the main Philippine island of Luzon in 1945 was the recapture of the tiny island of Corregidor. Read more

An American Sergeant at Brest: Caught in the Crosshairs

The German sniper scanned the battlefield outside his bunker on the outskirts of the port city of Brest, on France’s Brittany peninsula. Read more