Articles Archive

In this classic photograph, Brigadier General Orde Wingate is next to Brigadier Derek Tulloch at the far right. Majors Philip Cochran (back facing camera) and John Allison are on the left. Major Alison is holding a map with Brigadier Scott, who wrote an account of this informal gathering. Air Marshal Baldwin and Brigadier Michael Calvert stand between Scott and Wingate. (Imperial War Museum)

British General Orde Wingate’s Blurred Legacy

By Jon Diamond

British General Orde Wingate is one of the more enigmatic World War II commanders encountered in a number of biographical and military historical accounts. Read more

An American-made MLRS at work during the first Gulf War, on Janaury 1, 1991. The “steel rain” terrified Iraqi opponents.

The Multiple Launch Rocket System

By Christopher Miskimon

On February 24, 1991, the ground phase of Operation Desert Storm began. Over the next four days, the soldiers of an international coalition, formed to eject the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein from the neighboring nation of Kuwait, carried out a whirlwind offensive that quickly overwhelmed their foe. Read more

Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, directs royalist troops at the Battle of the Dunes.

Decision at the Battle of the Dunes

By Roy Morris Jr.

The cold North Sea surf washed over the boots of the advancing English infantry of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army as they tromped through the drifting sand dunes across the beach at Dunkirk on the morning of June 14, 1658. Read more

Hitler speaks at the Burgerbraukeller three months before the nearly successful attempt on his life.

Johann Georg Elser’s Treasonous Plot to Prevent World War II

By Blaine Taylor

At exactly 8 PM on November 8, 1939, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler strode briskly into Munich’s Burgerbraukeller beer hall at the head of his glowering entourage, brushing past a forest of hands raised in the Nazi salute. Read more

While the National Army Museum lacks the space for extensive display of vehicles or field guns, the outside is usually “protected” by an armored vehicle or two.

London’s National Army Museum

By Peter Suciu

The city of London practically overflows with military history. Predating the Romans, London has been the seat of government ever since it was fortified by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Read more

Elements of the 71st Bomb Squadron, 38th Bomb Group, Fifth Air Force attack Japanese shipping in Simpson Harbor, Rabaul, November 2, 1943. The painting, entitled Bloody Tuesday, is by Jack Fellows.

The Air War for Rabaul

By Allyn Vannoy

On February 23, 1942, one month after Rabaul had fallen to the Japanese, six B-17s of the U.S. Read more

Delaying Action at Kapyong

By Marc D. Bernstein

The Chinese always attacked at night. It was April 22, 1951, and the Communists had just launched the largest offensive of the Korean War. Read more

A Spitfire patrols the southern coast of England in April 1941.

The Supermarine Spitfire

By William F. Floyd Jr.

On April 21, 1942, in action over Malta, Flight Lieutenant Denis Barnham of No. 601 Squadron was given credit for downing a German Junkers Ju-88 bomber and a Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter. Read more

Fehrbellin: The Battle that Made Prussia

By Louis Ciotola

For nearly two and a half centuries, Prussia celebrated June 28 as a birthday of sorts. On that date in 1675, the Prussians achieved the start of their proud military tradition. Read more

Patton: from Gafsa to El Guettar

By Kevin M. Hymel

Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., looked forward to fighting German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, his North African nemesis. Read more

Pakistani defenders at Dangarpara, East Pakistan, man a mortar position 2,000 yards from Indian troops on December 4, 1971.

Indian Victory in Bangladesh

By William Stroock

After the British left India in 1947, abandoning the jewel in their centuries-long empire, the subcontinent was partitioned into two states, India and Pakistan. Read more

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps consolidate their positions along the shoreline during the Second Battle of Guam, July 21 to August 10, 1944. Whenever there was an enemy-held island in the Pacific that needed to be taken it was usually the U.S. Marine Corps that was called upon to take it.

U.S. Marine’s Legacy of Valor

By Dick Camp (Colonel, USMC, Retired)

The war in the Pacific was a bloody, protracted struggle between the Empire of Japan and the United States and her allies. Read more

Emelian Pugachev: Master Imposter of a Russian Czar

By Blaine Taylor

On August 12, 1772, a wandering Don Cossack named Emelian Pugachev crossed the Polish frontier into Imperial Russia on an official passport that entitled him, after spending six weeks in quarantine, to resettle as a free citizen on the Irgiz River in southeast Russia. Read more

Lying in the rubble of Weisweiler, a German town between Aachen and Jülich, an American rifleman from the 84th Infantry Division takes aim at an enemy position. A massive American-British-Canadian offensive in early 1945 was designed to quickly break through enemy lines and cross the Rhine, but a combination of winter weather, flooded fields, and determined German resistance made progress slower than the Allies had hoped for.

Operation Grenade: Race to the Roer

By Allyn Vannoy

In early 1945, while the American First Army was focusing on the dams of the Roer River near the German-Belgium border and Patton’s Third Army was probing the Eifel and clearing the Saar-Moselle triangle, the First Canadian Army was about to open their offensive as part of Operation Veritable in a drive southeast up the left bank of the Rhine from the vicinity of Nijmegen. Read more

Canadians in Spain: The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

By Jerome Baldwin

After years of social upheaval, political unrest, and violence, Spain erupted into all-out civil war on July 18, 1936, when General Francisco Franco led a junta of right-wing army officers in a revolt against the democratically elected government of the Spanish Republic. Read more