Unnecessary Hell: The Battle of Peleliu

In the predawn hours of September 15, 1944, the official start of the two-month Battle of Peleliu, a powerful fleet of U.S. Read more

Ike vs. the Desert Fox at Normandy

One of the supreme ironies of World War II was that the outcome of the Allied invasion of France, and ultimately the fate of the European Theater, would be decided by two men—one a highly decorated veteran, the other untested in combat—and it would be the latter that eventually triumphed. Read more

The M-16’s Troubled Debut

Marine Private Jim McGarrah arrived at Phu Bai in South Vietnam in late 1967 and was sent to what was euphemistically called “The Rockpile,” a firebase that overlooked the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Vietnam. Read more

South Africans in the Breech: Expelling Mussolini From Ethiopia

Boarding a train at the famous station built by the French as a terminus on the line from Djibouti, the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, Ras Tafari, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia left his capital Addis Ababa on May 2, 1936. Read more

George S. Patton: A Life Shaped by Dyslexia

General George S. Patton, Jr., was one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures of World War II. Read more

Crossfire at the Crossroads

When his pickets reported Federal troops up ahead in the small crossroads of Dranesville, Virginia, Brig. Gen. J.E.B. Read more

18th Georgia Infantry Regiment, 1862

Cap: French chasseur-style gray kepi with blue band.

Coat: Military-style butternut colored greatcoat with brass buttons.

Backpack: Box hardpack knapsack, tarred canvas and leather with wood frame. Read more

Mark Stille’s ‘Pearl Harbor’

A wave of 177 Japanese aircraft approaching the U.S Naval base at Oahu’s Pearl Harbor became visible at 7:48 a.m. Read more

Peter R. Mansoor’s ‘Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines’

The 1944 Battle of Leyte and the liberation of the Philippines was the largest and costliest campaign of the War in the Pacific. Read more

Christopher C. Gorham’s ‘Matisse at War’

Through intimate letters and many other sources, this book reveals Matisse’s journey of reinvention in the face of war and fascism to create some of his greatest art. Read more

Pauline Peretz’ ‘A Black Army’

Unlike other African-American military units such as the Tuske-gee Airmen, or even the 10th Cavalry Regiment “Buffalo Soldiers” who occupied Fort Huachuca before them, the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions—the only two black units of divisional size in World War II—have received much less coverage in popular media over the past 80 years. Read more

William Swanson’s ‘The View from My Foxhole’

An ground-level view of island warfare by a U.S. Marine Corps rifleman who spent 27 months in the Pacific. Read more

Lynne Olson’s ‘The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück’

During the liberation of camps like Dachau and Buchenwald, American journalists documented the horrors for the world to see. Read more

Garrett M. Graff’s ‘ The Devil Reached Toward the Sky’

On the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Graff, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has drawn from oral history archives and hundreds of books, reports, letters, diaries, and transcripts from across the U.S., Read more

David Nasaw’s ‘The Wounded Generation’

A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, Nasaw takes an unvarnished look at the real America in the years after World War II—after the parades and celebrations—and how it affected those who fought and their families and how it changed our nation. Read more

Revolts in the Death Camps

By the spring of 1943, the Nazi deaths camps in eastern Poland—Sobibor, Belzac, and Treblinka—were running out of victims. Read more

A Suicide Mission From the President?

As he read the decrypt of the radiogram from Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, several things bothered Admiral Thomas C. Read more

Deborah Sampson: Continental Soldier

Yearning for more out of life than a woman could hope for in her place and time, Deborah Sampson took the only opportunity she could see to fully realize her patriotic ambitions and wanderlust—she cut her waist-length blonde hair, put on men’s clothes and joined the Continental Army to fight for the embryonic country’s independence during the American Revolution. Read more

B-29 Superfortress: The Plane That Bombed Japan Into Submission

As the Japanese delegation stood on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, preparing to sign the documents that ended World War II, a large formation of Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers swooped low over Tokyo Bay as a reminder of the terrible destruction that had befallen their nation and turned Japan’s cities into ruins. Read more

Holding the Line on the High Seas

Through the first half of World War II, Allied shipping losses to German U-boats climbed steadily from over 400,000 tons in the last four months of 1939 to more than two million tons each in 1940 and 1941, before reaching a staggering 6,266,215 tons in 1942 following the entry of the United States into the war. Read more