The Civil War’s Cruelest Mission

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry was a melancholy man prior to his involvement in the Civil War. Read more

The death of Paul Tibbets truly signifies the end of an era.

When Colonel Paul Tibbets and his crew departed their base on the island of Tinian in the Marianas on the morning of August 6, 1945, their Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber carried with it a weapon that would change the world. Read more

Breaking New Ground

Dear Sir,

I have not subscribed to your magazine so far, and the reason is simple: heading down to the local magazine racks on a weekend to find out what is in store in the forthcoming issue, and being pleasantly surprised with my new find, is not a pleasure I want to deny myself. Read more

Player’s choice: What was versus what could have been…

This issue’s column looks at two strategic, turn-based computer games that model the European Theater in World War II. Read more

The Soviets carried the heavy end of the stick

For over 60 years, the popular misconception in the West is that the U.S. and Great Britain carried the burden of World War II, while the Soviet Union played a supporting role. Read more

Experience modern warfare on the ground and in the air in three new games.

A new entry in the Call of Duty series of games usually gets reviewed in WWII History, but this time Infinity Ward and Activison have changed the time period of their popular franchise. Read more

Manipulated intelligence, faulty equipment, and inept leadership caused one of America’s worst military defeats during the Korean War.

It was dubbed “the century’s nastiest little war” by celebrated military historian S.L.A. Marshall. The conflict to which he was referring was the Korean War, a war fought, as Secretary of State Dean Acheson observed, in the worst possible location. Read more

SMERSH takes on the Germans.

The Soviet counterintelligence agency known as SMERSH is so famous for its role in Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels, that its real, historical role is comparatively unknown. Read more

Horrific Fight on Land and Sea

Operation Iceberg, the battle of Okinawa, which lasted from April to June 1945, was the final and largest air-sea-land battle of the Pacific campaign. Read more

Red Air Force Pe-2

Dear Editor:

I read with interest George Tipton Wilson’s article “Red Air Force Heroines” in the September issue of WWII History. Read more

Sergeant Martin Troy’s remains are recovered 63 years after his death.

Thousands of military personnel killed in action during World War II rest in unmarked graves, high on mountaintops, beneath the ocean amid the wreckage of sunken ships, in remote jungles and arid deserts. Read more

Glory Days 2 is real-time strategy game for the Nintendo DS.

Nintendo’s DS has never been a platform that wargamers buy specifically for wargames. It is a system that has a lot of good games, but it doesn’t have any “killer application” wargames that would force a military hobbyist to pick one up. Read more

Africa Squadron

By Al Hemingway

In 1819, the United States Congress passed legislation prohibiting the international slave trade and mandating that anyone apprehended while participating in the sordid business would be put to death. Read more

ATC versus CNAC at the Hump

Dear Editor:

The article in your July 2007 issue, “Over the Hump” by Sam McGowan was an ambitious undertaking as the statistics by the ATC (Air Transport Command), U.S. Read more

Kurt Waldheim’s diplomatic service was tainted by his Nazi past.

When former United Nations Secretary General and President of Austria Kurt Waldheim died on June 14 of this year, he had been officially barred from entry into the United States for 20 years. Read more

Swashbucklers Of The China Skies

During the dark, early days of World War II, when the Imperial Japanese army, navy, and air force were running roughshod over Asia and the Pacific, it seemed that nothing could stop them. Read more

Three new games simulate modern-day helicopter combat.

Enemy Engaged 2, from G2 Games for the PC, is a sequel that was seven years in the coming. Read more

T.F. Wilson’s Memoir of the Indian Mutiny

Although the bloody Sepoy insurrection of 1857 was SPARK- ed by the introduction of the new Enfield rifle, the seeds of mistrust between Indian soldiers and their British colonial masters were planted long before that. Read more

The Ohio Valley Military Society’s 15th Annual Show of Shows attracted collectors from all over the world.

One of the finest collections of militaria ever housed in one room was on hand in Louisville, Kentucky, at the 15th annual Show of Shows. Read more

Leaders would do well to remember Dwight Eisenhower’s warning: “Every war will astonish you.”

With the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq still overshadowing all aspects of American life, it is too early to predict what historians will say definitively about the enterprise. Read more