Articles Archive

The Sinister Valley

By David H. Lippman

On February 8, 1945, Lt. Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks climbed onto a platform halfway up a tree. Read more

German soldiers operate an Enigma machine, sending classified information encoded through a system of rotor settings that were believed to be virtually impossible to crack. However, Allied cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park were reading top secret German communications for some time during World War II.

Great Britain’s military intelligence leaders learned from their experience in World War I that the kinds of minds capable of breaking codes are a rare commodity and are often not likely to blossom in a military atmosphere. Read more

“Incoming,” by Ted Zuber, shows soldiers of B Company, Royal Canadian Regiment, reacting to an enemy artillery attack on “Little Gibraltar” (Hill 355). Zuber served as a sniper with the RCR in 1952 and, though not an official war artist, he brought his sketchbook with him and later painted scenes of the war.

Desperate Struggle for Survival on ‘Little Gibraltar’

By Bernd Horn

The ground heaved and trembled under the ferocious climax of the Chinese bombardment that shook the Canadian soldiers from their bunkers and weapon pits. Read more

Tyler Perry’s new film, The Six Triple Eight, is based on a WWII History magazine article

After years of obscurity, the untold story of the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion will captivate audiences worldwide with the release of the feature film The Six Triple Eight. Read more

Members of Tom Myers’s 110th Infantry cautiously move through the “green hell” of the Hürtgen Forest, November 2, 1944.

The Battle of Hürtgen Forest: Army Rangers vs Fallschirmjägers

By James Marino

Mired in combat during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest of Germany, an American soldier wrote in December 5, 1944: “The road to the front led straight and muddy brown between the billowing greenery of the broken topless firs, and in the jeeps that were coming back they were bringing the still living. Read more

Hellfire on the Hornet’s Nest: Flamethrower Tanks at Bougainville

By Steve Zaloga

U.S. portable flamethrowers were first used in combat during the Guadalcanal campaign in January 1943. It quickly became apparent that the exposed flamethrower operator was vulnerable to Japanese small arms fire. Read more

Peter Harmsen’s ‘Fury and Ice’

By Christopher Miskimon

Weather prediction was vital to nearly all the war efforts of the Axis and the Allies during World War II. Read more

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspects Polish troops at Tentsmuir, Scotland, in October 1940. To Churchill’s right is Polish leader in exile Wladyslaw Sikorski.

Peter Zablocki’s ‘The Death of General Sikorski’

By Christopher Miskimon

When the Nazis and Soviets partitioned Poland in 1939, the Polish government in exile was set up first in France, then in the United Kingdom in 1940 as France fell. Read more

M4 Sherman medium tanks of the 1st Canadian Armoured Division stir up clouds of dust as they rumble forward during the advance toward the Germans’ Gothic Line defenses in August 1944. Although the Gothic Line was breached, the German Tenth Army remained a potent fighting force.

Tim Cook’s ‘The Good Allies’

By Christopher Miskimon

The United States and Canada share a border thousands of miles long; this naturally gives rise to friction. Read more

The Red October factory was destroyed during the fighting for control of Stalingrad, the industrial city on the banks of the Volga River. Here, Red Army soldiers take cover in the rubble as they prepare to fire on the German enemy.

Prit Buttar’s ‘Hero City’

By Christopher Miskimon

During World War II, the Soviet city of Leningrad endured a siege lasting 900 days. The suffering and starvation of the populace became as legendary as their endurance. Read more

Another Robert Capa photo, taken as he departed his landing craft with the combat troops, shows men wading inland while others take shelter behind beach obstacles or three of the six DD tanks that made it to shore.

Philip Kay-Bujak’s ‘Empire Javelin, D-Day Assault Ship’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Empire Javelin carried five companies of the 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment across the English Channel over the night of June 5-6, 1944, en route to their appointment with destiny at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Read more

Ingo Bauernfeind’s ‘US Battleships 1939-45’

By Christopher Miskimon

On December 6, 1941, most people considered the battleship the queens of the world’s oceans. A day later that notion lay smashed and sinking at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Read more

Steven J. Zaloga’s ‘Beutepanzers of World War II’

By Christopher Miskimon

As Germany conquered neighboring nations in Europe, it made use of whatever military equipment and vehicles were used or manufactured in the occupied territories. Read more

Brian Bruce’s ‘MacArthur’s Bloody Butchers’

By Christopher Miskimon

The U.S. Army had hundreds of thousands of troops serving in the Pacific Theater, among them G Company, 163rd Infantry, of the 41st Division. Read more

Damaged during the savage naval battles around the island of Guadalcanal, the cruiser USS San Francisco arrives at Pearl Harbor to undergo repairs.

Mark Lardas’ ‘U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet 1941’

By Christopher Miskimon

As the age of the carrier dawned the Pacific Fleet, the most powerful in the U.S. Navy, was still dominated by battleships. Read more

A Sherman tank belonging to the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment rolls through the abandoned streets of Caen on July 10, while the Germans still controlled the southern half of the city.

Daniel M Braun’s ‘Armored Thunder’

By Christopher Miskimon

During World War II the Sherbrooke Fusiliers was an independent armored regiment attached to 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade during the Normandy campaign. Read more

Bloody Aachen

By Richard Rule

By the time of the waning of the summer of 1944 in western Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s victorious Allied armies had forged a battle line from the Dutch province of Maastricht in the north to Belfort near the Swiss border in the south. Read more