Articles Archive

British troops fire cannon from behind earthworks during their seige of Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1780. The Americans defending the city, including most of the Continental Army in the south, surrendered on May 12, a serious setback for the American’s cause.

Rick Atkinson’s ‘The Fate of the Day’

By Kevin Seabrooke

Pulitzer prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson’s second volume of his Revolution Trilogy, covering the middle years of the Revolution. Read more

Were P-47 Thunderbolt Aircraft Really Formidable Fighter-Bombers?

By Sam McGowan

Since the end of World War II, the aviation press has made the North American P-51 Mustang into the superstar Allied fighter of the war. Read more

Hans Scholl

By Kevin Seabrooke

For anyone in Germany who openly opposed Adolf Hitler or the policies of the Nazi party there were three likely outcomes—prison, concentration camp, or execution. Read more

This painting by Marine Corps artist Col. Charles H. Waterhouse depicts Marines and Cuban insurgent allies fighting Spanish troops during the Battle of Cuzco Well on June 14, 1898.

Marines at the Battle of Guantanamo Bay

By A.B. Feuer

The capture of Guantànamo Bay, Cuba, by U.S. Marines in 1898 was a brief but violent phase of the Spanish-American War. Read more

Medal of Honor recipient Major Bruce Crandall climbs skyward in his UH-1D helicopter after dropping off air cavalrymen at Landing Zone X-ray in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965.

For about half an hour artillery and rockets fired from UH-1B helicopters from the Aerial Rocket Artillery battalion had pounded an area in Vietnam’s Central Highlands between Chu Pong, the 1,000-foot massif straddling the border with Cambodia, and the Ia Drang River. Read more

A Navy corpsman gives a drink of water to a wounded Marine on the island of Guam in the Pacific. In addition to the thousands of casualties treated by U.S. Army medical personnel, the U.S. Navy also trained many for the war effort. (All photos: National Archives)

The U.S. Army Medical Corps: Caring for the Casualties in World War II

By Glenn Barnett

For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more

In this painting by German artist Paul Hey, fallen British soldiers in the foreground bear testament to earlier fighting as a German battery pulled by a team of horses makes its way through St Julien near Ypres, Belgium, in the Great War.

Prelude to Stalemate: The First Battle of Ypres

By Eric Niderost

News that the Germans had been halted at the Marne River, a scant 30 miles from Paris, filled France and Britain with a sense of joy and relief. Read more

Heavy Roman Cavalryman, First Century CE

Artwork: Johnny Shumate

Roman cavalry before 400 BCE was recruited from the aristocracy in limited numbers. As the cavalry expanded, recruits came from beyond the aristocracy. Read more

The OSS and the Fourth Dimension of Warfare

By Bob Bergin

Major General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more

In this bleak painting by American combat artist Mitchell Jamieson, members of a Naval Armed Guard contingent load and fire the forward deck gun aboard a merchant ship in pitching seas. (Naval Historical Center)

Hazardous Duty with the Naval Armed Guard

By Russell Corder

They have been called “the other Navy,” the “Navy’s stepchildren,” and perhaps most fittingly, “the forgotten Navy.” Officially, however, they were the Naval Armed Guard or more simply the Armed Guard (AG). Read more

Mark Stille’s ‘Leyte Gulf’

By Christopher Miskimon

History often remarks on the attack on the Japanese battleship Yamato, but her sister ship, the Musashi, suffered a similar fate at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Read more

Terror is reflected in the eyes of these Polish Jews and other civilians as they are rounded up by German soldiers and destined for a concentration camp. Henry Zguda became a political prisoner of the Nazis and spent months in captivity.

Lewkowicz with Calvin’s ‘The Survivor’

By Christopher Miskimon

The author was a starving teenage boy, enslaved by the Nazis and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Over the years of his captivity, he spent time in six different camps. Read more

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris pictured with Colonel Franz Eccard von Bentivegni, an Abwehr counterespionage expert, in Smolensk in Octo- ber 1941. Canaris alienated his superiors when visiting the Eastern Front, warning them not to expose German troops needlessly to the hard- ships of the Russian winter.

David Alan Johnson’s ‘Admiral Canaris’

By Christopher Miskimon

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris served as Hitler’s chief of military intelligence, leading the Abwehr. Many found him dull and uninteresting, not even a particularly good naval officer. Read more

Cautiously moving through the Bocage, or hedgerow country, of France, infantrymen of the U.S. 30th Division advance toward Mortain where they made a heroic stand against a German counterattack.

Stephen A. Bourque’s ‘Tubby’

By Christopher Miskimon

Raymond O. Barton earned the nickname “Tubby” at West Point due to his athletic ability in football and wrestling. Read more

Incoming artillery sends U.S. soldiers scurrying for cover along a roadside in Holland. The 101st Airborne Division jumped into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden in September 1944.

Robert M. Edsel’s ‘Remember Us’

By Christopher Miskimon

When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, it began four and a half years of brutal occupation. Read more

A squadron of B-25 bombers speeds its way toward a rail yard, the target of this mission during the Italian campaign. The B-25s regularly bombed rail yards in northern Italy to prevent the movement of German reinforcements and equipment toward the front lines to the south.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s ‘Mediterranean Sweep’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Italian Campaign had to be fought, though no one on the Allied side wished to fight it. Read more

Twisted piles of debris were all that remained of much of Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the detonations of the atomic bombs. Heat and shock waves vaporized people and incinerated wooden structures.

M.G. Sheftall’s ‘Hiroshima’

By Christopher Miskimon

At 0812 hours on August 6, 1945, the B29 bomber carrying the atomic bomb began its final bomb run. Read more

A U.S. Navy A-7E Corsair II from USS Kitty Hawk bombs Hai Duong railway and a highway bridge in North Vietnam.

Norman Fine’s ‘Blind Bombing’

By Christopher Miskimon

As France fell in May 1940, scientist Vannevar Bush delivered a note to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Read more

Ian Baxter’s ‘The Soviet Battle for Berlin, 1945’

By Christopher Miskimon

The Battle for Berlin was the climax of the War in Europe. This massive operation involved 2.3 million Soviet troops on two fronts, from the east and south. Read more

Damien Lewis’s ‘Forged in Hell’

By Christopher Miskimon

At 3:30 in the morning, the first mortar round exploded on the Capo Murro di Porco gun battery on the island of Sicily. Read more

From Around the Network

To attack targets from a steep angle, Curtiss developed the SB2C Helldiver—“The Beast.”

Union Army Defeat at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff

Ten Hammers, Battlefield 2, and Tank Command 2

The Sea Awaits With Demanding Naval Strategy, and History Mingles With Alternate Possibilities