The Battle of Tannenburg: Massacre in the Marshes

On August 2, 1914, Russian Czar Nicholas II appeared on the balcony of the Winter Palace in St. Read more

“This is the Army”: Irving Berlin’s War

The most successful and popular patriotic show of World War II and one of the most unique productions in the history of entertainment was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, which originally began as a Broadway musical. Read more

Escape From Bataan

Most Americans were surprised by the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, but the military had known that war with Japan was inevitable. Read more

The Battle of Narvik: Crippling the Kriegsmarine

The Germans could not believe it. Without suffering the loss of a single soldier or sailor, the German Army and Navy had sailed 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Royal Navy and captured Narvik without firing a shot, bagged nearly 500 Norwegian soldiers, seized one of Norway’s major military depots, and even taken five armed British merchant ships and their crews. Read more

Montgomery’s Manpower Crisis at Caen

In an August 14, 1944, General Bernard L. Montgomery was facing a manpower crisis, unable to drive the Germans out of Caen. Read more

MacArthur’s Occupation of Japan: Lessons on Counterinsurgency

As the months of 1945 passed at an agonizingly slow pace, Allied forces in the Pacific struggled unwaveringly toward Japan. Read more

Operation Drumbeat: U-Boat Marauders on the American Coast

On December 9, 1941, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the commander of the Kriegsmarine, lifted all restrictions on German naval attacks against American vessels by his surface and submarine fleets. Read more

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: Japan’s Naval War Leader

Brave, urbane, and complex, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was Japan’s greatest naval strategist and the architect of one of the most stunning achievements in the history of modern warfare. Read more

The Indian Ocean Raid: Disaster for the Royal Navy

“So this is the Eastern Fleet,” ran Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville’s signal. “Never mind. Many a good tune is played on an old fiddle.” Read more

Arnhem Bridge: Why it was “Britain’s Alamo” in WWII

It was getting dark when they reached Arnhem bridge, but there it was, still intact.

Lieutenant Jack Grayburn’s No. Read more

Raid on Bruneval: Stealing the Enemy’s Eyes

The parachute of aptly named Major J.D. Frost cracked open in the freezing air high above the French Channel coast at 12:45 am, and he commenced drifting down through the moonlit gloom. Read more

Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Steel’s Hammer

The arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more

Marshall Builds the U.S. Army

On July 17, 1941, United States Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall sat before the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Read more

George Beurling: Canadian Fighter Ace Known as “The Falcon of Malta”

In September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more

Clear Skies Over Bastogne: Patton’s Prayers Answered

“This is the shortest day,” General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe, wrote in his diary for December 21, 1944. Read more

Liberating Cherbourg, Normandy’s Great Port

It was the storm that forced the battle. On June 19, 1944, a massive gale hit the English Channel, sweeping in from the west, hitting the gigantic artificial harbors the Allies had built on their D-Day invasion beaches. Read more

Commando Kidnapping: Capturing General Kreipe on Crete

Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more

The First Day of World War II

Just after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more

Easter Victory at Tobruk

In April 1941, things were going quite well for the German armed forces. In a series of earlier campaigns, they had conquered Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France. Read more

Tula: Hero City of the Soviet Union

In 1976, the Soviet city of Tula joined an elite group of nine other Soviet communities designated as “Hero Cities.”  Read more