Articles Archive

Major Burton and officers of the 5th Dragoon Guards.

Roger Fenton, Crimean War Photographer

By Peter Harrington

In the annals of war photography, Roger Fenton stands with Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardener, and James Robertson as one of the pioneering spirits. Read more

British soldiers put their backs into moving pieces of a Bailey Bridge built on pontoons over the Weser River in Germany, 1945.

The British Bailey Bridge

By Mike McLaughlin

I was always fascinated by the mastery of water,” Sir Donald Coleman Bailey reflected, long after the end of World War II. Read more

Marines land on “Orange One” beach at Peleliu. Minutes later, the relative calm would be broken and the Marines would meet fanatical Japanese resistance.

The Battle of Peleliu: Shocked Beyond Imagination

By Al Hemingway

As he watched the preliminary bombardment from the railing of his ship, Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller had deep reservations. Read more

A Soviet admiral—medals at his left breast—kneels in tribute to a fallen heroic Soviet sailor of World War II. Many Soviet medals were adaptations of Czarist medals.

Soviet Memorabilia

By Peter Suciu

In 1917, after almost three years of hard fighting in World War I, the Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Czar Nicolas II of Russia. Read more

Turks storm Constantinople from the water side in this encompassing, if fanciful, 16th-century rendering by Tintoretto. The besieged were greatly outnumbered and fought with determination.

Death of an Empire: The Fall of Constantinople

By Jonathan North

Early in the morning of Tuesday, May 29, 1453, they came swarming like hungry wolves over the plain between the Turkish palisades and the battered walls of Byzantium. Read more

Smoke billows from the German freighter Drachenfels after sustaining damage during a raid by the British.

The Daring Calcutta Light Horse Raid

By Robert Barr Smith

Freighter Ehrenfels’ siren shrieked through the muggy night across the harbor. As the captain pulled down hard on the alarm cord, the alarm howled out over the steaming darkness, screaming that British raiders were in the harbor, alerting Ehrenfels’ crew and calling for help from ashore. Read more

Cauldron of Death: the Demyansk Salient and the Eastern Front

by Pat McTaggart

On the vast Eastern Front, the Demyansk salient represented little more than a smudge on the battle map. Read more

Romans end their march of the day by building a fortified camp surrounded by a ditch. No camp was ever overwhelmed in the Gallic or Civil Wars.

Roman Marching Camps: An Essential Element in Rome’s Empire-Building

By Arnold Blumberg

From the late 3rd century bc to the 3rd century ad, Roman troops on campaign built a defended camp at their resting place each night. Read more

Fallen Timbers

By Eric Niderost

On a December day in 1793, Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne led a column of soldiers to a spot deep in the Ohio wilderness not far from the Wabash River. Read more

Louis XIV: the Sun King of France

By Brooke C. Stoddard

Louis XIV of France is remembered as the Sun King, the most resplendent figure of his age, the man who snatched dominance of Europe from the Spanish and built France into the preeminent power of the second half of the 17th century. Read more

Julius Caesar was a politician who believed his posting to Gaul could raise his reputation and power. Germanic tribes invading Gaul played into his hands.

Germanic Tribe Run Amok: Caesar vs. Ariovistus

by Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

East of the Rhine the horizon melted away in an unbroken emerald sea upon which, or so the legends told, giants piled up ranges of rugged hills. Read more

A WWII Marine corporal relaxes on Guam in 1944. His dog tags are visible around his neck.

Collecting Identification Tags

By Paul F. Braddock

For the second time in 13 years American troops are fighting in Iraq. Two hundred and thirty-five soldiers lost their lives during Desert Storm in 1991, and by the first anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom 570 soldiers had been killed. Read more

The Rumble and Roar of Tanks

By Eric Hammel

The Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF’s, or Zahal’s) strategic invasion of the West Bank region of Jordan began at 5 pm on June 5, 1967. Read more

Oda Nobunaga: The Rise of One of Japan’s Earliest Unifiers

By Vince Hawkins

By the time of his death in 1582, he controlled 30 of Japan’s 68 provinces, was the commander of the greatest samurai army in his country’s history, and had earned the distinction of being the first of the three great unifiers of Japan. Read more

A colorful illustration depicting the naval Battle of Sluys attempts to demonstrate the common tactic of maneuvering the ships to touching and then letting onboard combatants fight it out like infantry. The battle was an early struggle of the Hundred Years’ War. OPPOSITE: Edward III warred with France to win its crown. He was 38 at the time of Sluys.

“Please God and St. George”: The Battle of Sluys

by Douglas Sterling

English King Edward III’s ship drew out from the fog, and before him he saw such a long, deep concentration of masts that it looked like a forest rising to meet him. Read more

Japanese warships steam into Port Arthur, Manchuria, bombarding Russian defenses and ships. Sidney Reilly purportedly sold Japanese information about the port when he lived there just before the war.

The Mysterious Sidney Reilly

by Vince Hawkins

On the evening of November 5, 1925, Prisoner #73 was taken from his cell in the infamous Lubyanka Prison and driven to a woods in the Sokolniki district outside Moscow. Read more

A pall of black smoke hangs over the shore installations at Rabaul as a B-25 medium bomber streaks above a Japanese merchant ship riding at anchor.

The Bombing of Rabaul in November 1943

By Sam McGowan

In some historical circles, a mistaken impression has developed that the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 38 launched the aerial offensive on the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul, New Britain, that ultimately rendered the base useless. Read more

A List of American Commanders in WWII Who Lost Their Lives

By Thomas R. Cagley

General George S. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” Read more

Reich Marshal Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials

by Richard Rule

Stripped of the regalia and high position of Reich Marshal in the Nazi regime and tried as a war criminal, the former Luftwaffe chief was by far the most colorful and outspoken defendant during the postwar proceedings. Read more

The USCGC Taney: Pearl Harbor and Beyond

by Paul B. Cora

Built in the mid-1930s as one of the famed Treasury class of large U.S. Coast Guard cutters, USCGC Taney had a distinguished career spanning five decades of continuous service. Read more

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‘Tis To Glory We Steer

Joseph Stalin’s ‘Leningrad Affair’

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