Third Reich Police Helmets

A challenging but rewarding pursuit for collectors of World War II headgear is the acquisition of authentic helmets worn by military and civilian organizations of the Third Reich. Read more

Lennart Torstensson used gunpowder artillery in revolutionary ways to win victories for the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War.

Thousands of Protestant Swedish and German soldiers struggled up the rain-slickened slopes of a high ridge in southern Germany on September 3, 1632. Read more

Hold at All Costs

After D-Day, the Allied armies slowly advanced across Europe and pushed the German army back. Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944, the Belgian capital of Brussels fell on September 3, and the important port of Antwerp was taken two days later. Read more

Senseless Slaughter at Gallipoli

The crash of the heavy guns from a dozen British and French capital ships, one of which was the super-dreadnought the HMS Queen Elizabeth, reverberated against the shoreline of the Dardanelles on February 19, 1915. Read more

Athens In Agony

“No other two races have left such a mark on the world” as the Jews and the Greeks, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once wrote. Read more

The Girandoni Air Rifle: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Secret Weapon

When one thinks of the guns that won the West, one naturally envisions such familiar weapons as the Winchester, Henry, and Spencer repeating rifles, the trapdoor Springfield, the Smith & Wesson revolver, and the Colt Peacemaker. Read more

Bloody D-Day Clash for Carentan

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, at nearly three in the morning, Chicago-native Lieutenant John E. Peters safely landed Snooty, his Douglas C-47 Skytrain, on the massive 5,800-foot runway at Greenham Common airfield in southern England. Read more

Morgan’s Northern Strike

Stepping off of two captured river steamboats, the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry and the 9th Tennessee Cavalry set foot in Indiana on July 8, 1863. Read more

John Glubb: The Other Lawrence of Arabia

With his short, dumpy appearance and high-pitched voice, John Glubb seemed more like a real-life Colonel Blimp than another Lawrence of Arabia. Read more

Fatal Blow at the Battle of Megiddo

The six-day Battle of Megiddo fought in September 1918 was a decisive climax to the struggle in Palestine between the Ottoman Empire, backed by the Germans, and Great Britain and her allies. Read more

Across the Wide River

Major Julian A. Cook stood on the ninth floor of a power plant west of the Dutch city of Nijmegen and stared north across the 400 yards of the fast-moving Waal River at German defensive positions on the other side—the square turn-of-the-century Dutch Fort Hof van Holland, its machine-gun emplacements, 20mm guns, and dug-in troopers of the 10th SS Panzer Division. Read more

Disaster in the Wilderness

Captain Daniel Lienard de Beaujeu rushed to save the remote French outpost of Fort Duquesne in early July 1755. Read more

“Manila’s Mata Hari”

It is a usual evening at Club Tsubaki, wartime Manila’s most exclusive nightspot. On stage, a statuesque brunette in a clinging white dress, olive skin, and raven hair illuminated by a spotlight, is singing a “torch” song in a low, seductive voice, dark eyes flashing. Read more

Uniform: Private in the 4th New York Regiment

Headgear: Since leather caps were unavailable, the regiment was outfitted with felt hats trimmed with hair crests. Read more

Still Fighting After Dunkirk

By Alan Davidge

Background: When the German army burst through Belgium’s Ardennes Forest in May 1940, it cut the Allies’ front line in half, then turned northwards through France towards the Channel coast. Read more

Napoleon’s Last Victory

At 2:30 am on June 15, 1815, tens of thousands of French soldiers around the town of Beaumont, France, were roused from their bivouacs. Read more

World War II Book Reviews for Spring 2023

Bitter Peleliu: The Forgotten Struggle on the Pacific War’s Worst Battlefield (Joseph Wheelan, Osprey Books, Oxford, UK, 2022, 336 pp., Read more

Killing Ground at Colenso

On the morning of December 15, 1899, the serene, windswept wilderness of northern Natal was punctuated by the sound of 18,000 British soldiers trudging north to relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith. Read more

Operation Biting: ‘The Bruneval Raid’

By January 1942, Britain was still in the fight of her life. Germany had occupied all western Europe, controlled the Mediterranean, and was threatening British colonies in North Africa. Read more

Heroic Stand at Verdun

The morning of June 23, 1916, dawned over the broad crenellated valley of the Meuse River in northeastern France. Read more