Edward T. Higgins had witnessed few spectacles to match the one that unfolded all about him in the waters surrounding Okinawa, an island 400 miles southwest of the Japanese Home Island of Kyushu. Read more
![U.S. military personnel in Puerto Rico “drink to the girl [they] left behind” during the Spanish-American War in 1898.](https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/M-Fal25-Whiskey-4-e1758296632288-760x428.jpg)
By Ian McCall
Whiskey has long been a faithful companion for many soldiers out on campaign. Be it issued by armies or snuck onto battlefields inside canteens; whiskey remains one of the most important beverages for American soldiers. Read more
All day on July 4, 1863, the Union and Confederate armies stared at each other across the battlefield of Gettysburg. Three days of massive attacks had bled the Confederates until they lacked the manpower to attack again. Read more
The geopolitical implications of the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” were unlikely to have crossed the mind of U.S. Marine Corps Private Daniel Joseph Daly as he and Capt. Read more
Landsman Robert Fleming was on watch aboard the U.S.S. Housatonic, a Union steam sloop patrolling the waters just off Charleston, South Carolina, in the winter of 1864. Read more
John Frémont’s 100 Days: Clashes and Convictions in Civil War Missouri (Gregory Wolk, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 208 pp., Read more
As the clock struck 8:00 p.m. in Arnhem, Holland, Lt. Col. John Frost’s British 2nd Parachute Battalion captured the north end of the road bridge over the Nederrijn River. Read more
Moonlight bathed the dusty narrow path leading into the village of Ganjal shortly before sunrise on September 8, 2009, as nearly 100 soldiers climbed out of more than a dozen vehicles a mile from the seemingly peaceful village. Read more
No one ever used the words “graceful” or “elegant” to describe the M3 submachine gun. Instead, those soldiers, sailors and Marines who carried it called the M3 a “plumber’s nightmare” or “the cake decorator.” Read more
The two men facing each other across the debate stage at Ottawa, Illinois, on the afternoon of August 21, 1858, were no strangers to one another. Read more
In German it was called Operation Rösselsprung, which translates to “Long Jump.” Its goal was to kill or kidnap the Allies’ “Big Three” leaders––Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston S. Read more
Their name has been synonymous with murder for almost a thousand years, but few people know the full truth about the enigmatic organization known as the Assassins. Read more
(Continued from Part 1 in the August 2020 issue)
Just after midnight on February 9, 1945, across the diamond-shaped mass of forest, hills, and flooded terrain that defined the Reichswald, rain fell in a steady downpour upon a battlefield that had already seen some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Read more
Among the historic inventory of the United States Army’s artillery weapons, few pieces have enjoyed a more predominant role or reputation than the Model 1857 12-pounder gun-howitzer, which became a mainstay of the Federal artillery during the Civil War. Read more
The haggard American sailors aboard the limping cruiser hoped that the journey upon which they had just embarked was the long-expected voyage back to the United States. Read more
The U.S. military had 409,000 soldiers and Marines in South Vietnam organized into approximately 100 infantry and mechanized battalions at the start of 1968. Read more
“With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Read more
Few weapons in world history have had such great tactical importance as the Roman gladius. To understand the importance this short sword had on the battlefields of antiquity, it is best to start with the Roman historian Livy. Read more
It was a quiet dinner on a side street in Berlin the evening of June 26, 1939, but more than food would be devoured that night. Read more
“A soldier in every phrase of the term, able and skillful, on many a bloody field he demonstrated his ability and courage,” Brig. Read more
