The Death of General Robert McCook

When the Civil War erupted, so many of Lisbon, Ohio-born Robert McCook’s large extended family joined the Union Army that the clan became known as the “Fighting McCooks.” Read more

From Pilot to POW

By Allyn Vannoy

Six B-17G’s of the 416th Bombardment Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, led by Captain B.E. Read more

Grand Assault On Gibraltar

Great Britain’s war with her rebellious American colonies was about to conclude as diplomats crafted a peace treaty. Read more

Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?

With all it had going for it, how did Germany manage to lose World War II? There are many answers to this deceptively simple question, including the obvious one that the Allies had the technical and industrial advantage. Read more

The Fourth Fitna: A Family Feud that Crippled a Caliphate

To his contemporaries, Harun al-Rashid, fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, seemed the most fortunate of men. Read more

The Battle of Kursk: Showdown at Prokhorovka and Oboian

With the German Sixth Army destroyed at Stalingrad, the Soviet juggernaut lunged west and southwest across the River Donets. Read more

Battle of the Hemp Bales

Brigadier General James S. Rains’s Confederate cavalry rode confidently toward the prosperous little town of Lexington, Missouri. Dressed in Missouri homespun, Rains’s men hardly looked the part of a flying military column, but most of the hard-riding horsemen had known only victory during their short service. Read more

The Fight of USS California

The first rays of sunlight on December 7, 1941, marked a typical Sunday morning for the sailors aboard the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. Read more

Massacre In Morocco

In his father’s time, leopards had freely padded across the reception areas of the royal palace at Fez, inspiring awe and trepidation among visitors. Read more

Czech Tanks Gave Nazis Early Edge

In March 1939, Adolf Hitler dissolved the Republic of Czechoslovak, incorporating its lands into the Third Reich. As a consequence, much military equipment fell into the hands of the Wehrmacht, including 469 armored fighting vehicles. Read more

Collecting Military Tobacco Cards

Smoking may not be the same in-vogue habit it was during bygone days, when politicians, starlets, athletes, and even the average Joe could be seen lighting up on a regular basis. Read more

J.E.B. Stuart and Kilpatrick Butt Heads at Buckland Mills

For the Federal government at Washington, D.C., the news from Tennessee was grim in late September 1863. The Union Army of the Cumberland, under Maj. 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

The Battle of Al Mansourah and the Seventh Crusade, 1251

After a century and a half of efforts—with mixed success—by Western Europe to seize control of the Holy Land, the Seventh Crusade of 1250 led by Louis IX of France was the last best chance to change the political and military situation in the Eastern world before the Reformation. Read more

The Ijmuiden Raids: None Came Back

Even as they were being integrated into the European Allied air campaign, the use and operation of American B-26 Marauders, and other medium bombers, was still being worked out—with sometimes, as at IJmuiden, Holland, disastrous results. Read more

Soldiers: General Peter Bagration

Russian General Peter Ivanovich Bagration was one of those rare commanders who received near-universal praise from his contemporaries outside of Russia. Read more

The Wayward Helmet Liner

First Lieutenant William Parks of the 101st Airborne Division left a snow-camouflaged helmet liner behind when the storied Screaming Eagles moved out following the American victory in the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945. Read more

Siegfried Line: Breaking the Dragon’s Teeth

As the battalion officers surveyed the terrain before them, they must have been worried about the men who would have to cross it—the 300 yards of open ground to the banks of the Saar River lined with barbed-wire, concrete pillboxes, anti-vehicle “dragon’s teeth,” and reinforced with minefields in depth known as the Westwall or, more commonly, the “Siegfried Line.” Read more

Bloody Assault on Knoxville

At midnight on November 13, 1863, two companies of the Palmetto (South Carolina) Sharpshooters Regiment led by Captain Alfred Foster slipped down to the south bank of the Tennessee River at Huff’s Ferry. Read more

The Shinano Carrier: How Allied Forces Sunk Such a Secret

The first torpedo struck the Shinano carrier farthest aft. Over the next 30 seconds three more warheads detonated against the massive aircraft carrier’s hull, working their way forward. Read more