The Soviet Secret Police & the Katyn Forest Massacre

On September 17, 1939, in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the Soviet Red Army crossed the Polish frontier from the east. Read more

The USS Vestal: The Pearl Harbor Attack & Beyond

On Saturday, December 6, 1941, the repair ship USS Vestal eased alongside the USS Arizona at her berth at Pearl Harbor. Read more

Napoleon Bonaparte & the Patriotic War of 1812

For many, the fascination of military history lies in the “What if …” What if Hitler had not ordered the Luftwaffe to shift from bombing RAF airfields to bombing London in 1940? Read more

Battle of Cape Ecnomus & the First Punic War

“But so long as the Carthaginians held unchallenged control of the sea, the issue of the war still hung in the balance. Read more

Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen

By 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more

Hit & Run: British Commandos Striking the Atlantic Wall in Norway

Following the forced evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk in June 1940, British leaders viewed a dim future. Read more

The Composite Bow: The Medieval Precursor to the Rifle

Orderly rows of Sumerian soldiers stretched across the grassy plain, their conical bronze helmets hard and bright under the sizzling sun. Read more

Prit Buttar’s ‘To Besiege a City’

The terrain around Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in the Soviet Union proved difficult for the attacking German armies in August and September 1941. Read more

Joseph P. Olexa’s ‘Death and Life in the Big Red One’

Joe Olexa figured that if a war was coming, he wanted to be ready for it, so he joined the army in December 1940. Read more

Minge, Ward and Brun’s ‘The Viking Battalion’

With Norway occupied by the Third Reich, thousands of Norwegians abroad were without a home and many more who had immigrated to the United States wanted to see their homeland liberated. Read more

Ben Wheatley’s ‘The Panzers of Prokhorovka’

Part of the summer 1943 Battle of Kursk in the Soviet Union, Prokhorovka stands out as a fearsome clash of opposing tanks and a turning point on the Eastern Front. Read more

Mark E. Stille’s ‘Leyte Gulf’

In addition to being history’s biggest naval battle, Leyte Gulf was also the last battle to take place between fleets. Read more

Claringbould and Ingman’s ‘Solomons Air War Volume 1’

At 1 p.m. on August 7, 1942, Lieutenant (jg) Gordon Firebaugh took off from the carrier USS Enterprise leading six Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters. Read more

Tom Hutton’s ‘Hitler’s Maladies’

By April 1945, Hitler suffered from several mental and physical ailments. These included an advanced case of Parkinson’s Disease, heart disease, and gastrointestinal disorders along with other minor illnesses. Read more

The Battle of Chosin Reservoir: The Korean War’s Hills of Hell

The 1st Marine Division was on the move toward the Yalu River. With any luck, if the weather cooperated, the Korean War, or rather, the United Nations police action in Korea, would be over in weeks. Read more

Rolling the Dice: Robert E. Lee at Petersburg

By the early spring of 1865, the Southern Confederacy was on the cusp of extinction. In every theater of the four-year-old Civil War, the gray-clad Rebels were getting the worst of things. Read more

Destroying the Pearl: Liberation of Manila

The “Pearl of the Orient” had lost all of its luster by January 1945.

Three years of brutal Japanese occupation had left many of Manila’s 800,000 native residents humiliated, tortured, or dead. Read more

From the Publisher

Welcome to WWII History’s new format and publishing frequency—you’ll now find more pages, and more stories, in each issue. Read more

World War I’s Second Battle of Ypres: Salient of Death

Despite the incessant German shelling that had been hammering away at the French lines to their immediate left near the rubble-strewn city of Ypres in northwestern Belgium, the largely untested soldiers of the Canadian 1st Division found the early spring day of April 22, 1915, surprisingly warm and pleasant. Read more

Weapons of the Middle Ages: the Medieval Catapult

It was the spring of 1097 and the Turks guarding the walls of Nicaea were in a confident mood. Read more