Sabers, Scimitars, and Swords

On the coat of arms of Finland, a crowned lion tramples upon a curved sword with his hind paws while brandishing a straight sword in his right forepaw. Read more

From Doughboy to GI Helmet

When the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more

Roads to Bastogne

The Ardennes Forest in eastern Belgium seemed almost surreal in the last days of autumn 1944, a quiet backwater in a raging storm. Read more

Kansas Brigadier James Henry Lane

At dawn on August 21, 1863, 450 Confederate Irregulars under William C. Quantrill descended on the town of Lawrence, Kansas. Read more

Locating the Altmark: An RAF Rescue Mission Beyond Compare

On the morning of February 16, 1940, two Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson aircraft lifted off from Thornaby Airfield in northern England. Read more

A Bloody Sport Indeed

One of the most enduring images of the Middle Ages is the tournament, with its knights in shining armor, heraldic devices on shields, fair damsels watching from the stands, and brightly colored banners flying in the breeze. Read more

Australia’s Venerable Albert Jacka

He had the distinction of being the first Commonwealth soldier to receive the Victoria Cross for valor in World War I, and many observers felt that Australian-born Albert Jacka should have earned at least three of Great Britain’s highest award. Read more

Creating the OSS: FDR’s Network of Personal Spies

One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more

An Army Combat Engineer’s Story of the D-Day Invasion

Nineteen-year-old army combat engineer Jay Rencher blinked the salt spray from his eyes, filled his lungs, and again plunged beneath the cold, roiling waves. Read more

Sergeant Amos Humiston at Gettysburg

Two brigades of Confederate soldiers crested a slight hill above a wheat field and looked down on the blue clad soldiers waiting for them in the brickyard below. Read more

Battle of the Philippine Sea & The ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’

Lieutenant Tom Bronn glanced anxiously at the fuel gauge on his Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. He had been aloft for almost four hours, engaged in a hectic combination of trying to locate Japanese ships he knew to be in the Philippine Sea, diving down to unleash his four bombs at a carrier as dusk enveloped his aircraft, and then embarking on a desperate search for his own carrier, the USS Lexington, in the darkness. Read more

Grand Alliance Triumph At Ramillies

Late in the day on May 23, 1706, the troops of the Colonel William Borthwick’s regiment of Argyll’s Scots Brigade formed up for an unenviable assignment. Read more

WWII Vehicles: The Czech Panzer 38(t)

Poland, the Netherlands, France, the Balkans, and Russia were subjected to Germany’s blitzkrieg between 1939 and 1941. At the forefront of those assaults were tanks of Czechoslovakian design. Read more

Tough Stand of the Golden Lions

When the men of the newly arrived 106th Infantry “Golden Lions” Division arrived on the front lines near St. Read more

“A Terrible Cyclone”

On Saturday, September 26, 1863, six days after the Battle of Chickamauga, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet wrote Confederate Secretary of War James A. Read more

Desperate Stand at Beecher Island

“Indians! Indians!” The staple warning from countless cliché-ridden dime novels was all too real at dawn of a Colorado morning in 1868. Read more

Japan in World War II: Dealing With Known Unknowns

Planning a war requires assumptions. However, there should be as few assumptions as possible, otherwise one can assume away all one’s problems. Read more

The First Edged Weapon: The Knife

While the sword usually comes to mind first when one thinks of edged weapons, it was not actually the first such weapon—the knife was. Read more

Navy Captain E. Royce Williams Now Eligible for Medal of Honor

By Kevin Seabrooke

Buried deep inside the 3,000 pages of the $901-billion National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump on December 18 is a change in the law for the Congressional Medal of Honor that would allow it to be awarded to retired Navy Capt. Read more

A “Bright Opportunity” At Remagen

It was March 7, 1945––a gray, overcast day with a nasty chill in the air, the kind of day in which a soldier at the front wished he could relax in front of a toasty fire with a canteen cup full of hot coffee and think about home. Read more