Articles Archive

This post-World War II cinematic recreation of the Italian manned torpedoes in action was said to be referencing the attack on British shipping in the port of Gibraltar in 1943.

Italy’s Daredevil Torpedo Riders

By Chuck Lyons

On a dark night in September 1941, moving at periscope depth, an Italian submarine edged into Gibraltar Bay near the British harbor. Read more

Fight in the Fog: The Battle of Vercellae on the Raudine Plain

By Lindsay Powell

In 102 bc, a disturbing report circulated through Rome that the people they called Cimbri and Teutones had crossed the Alps. Read more

Under heavy fire from Japanese defenders, Marines move quickly through the rubble of Garapan, principal city on the island of Saipan. The battle for Garapan in July 1944 was the first experience of street fighting for American Marines in the Pacific.

To Die in the Marianas

By Robert A. Rosenthal

The tranquility of early dawn on June 15, 1944, was interrupted by the sounds of powerful naval guns and the roar of amtraks churning the water. Read more

By the Summer of 1864, it was no longer likely the Army of Northern Virginia would invade the North a third time, would launch another major offensive, or even drive Union forces away from Richmond and Petersburg. Read more

Two Type XXI U-boats lie under construction at the shipyards in Bremen, Germany in this photo taken after the submarines were captured by Allied troops in 1945.

The Wonder of the Walter Boat

By Phil Zimmer

German engineer Hellmuth Walter stretched his shoulders, rubbed his face, and eased his hat back on his head as he walked down the wooden dock toward a covered deck. Read more

A second torpedo from German submarine U-20 strikes Lusitania on May 7, 1915, off the Head of Kinsale, Ireland. She sank 18 minutes later.

Passenger Liners in the Great War

By John Protasio

World War I was a total war; Nearly every person and resource was caught up in the conflict. Read more

Seize the Day by Jim Dietz shows men from the 505th Regiment, 82nd Airborne in Sainte-Mère-Église, the parachute of trooper John Steele still hanging from the church tower in the background.

Target: Sainte-Mere-Eglise

By Flint Whitlock

The night of June 5/6, 1944, was pretty much like every other night since the Germans had occupied Normandy and the Cotentin Peninsula in the summer of 1940: dark, quiet, chilly, and mostly boring. Read more

Disaster at Fort Donelson

By Mike Phifer

A signal rocket set off by Confederate pickets streaked skyward in the damp early morning of February 4, 1862. Read more

Sergeant W.W. Bigoray, radio operator aboard the harrowing flight to learn the properties of the Germans’ airborne Lichtenstein radar, though wounded, continued to perform valiantly.

Reading Nazi Radar

By Neil Taylor

To the crews of the Royal Air Force Bomber Stream Droning Toward Germany in the early morning hours of December 3, 1942, this mission seemed indistinguishable from the countless others that had preceded it. Read more

French men-at-arms assault a formidable English position at Auray in September 1364. An English counterattack shattered the French.

Bertrand du Guesclin

By William E. Welsh

One month after the disastrous French defeat at Poitiers in September 1356, a large English army besieged Rennes in eastern Brittany. Read more

The 93rd Infantry Division: The African-American Soldiers in the Pacific

By Stephen D. Lutz

On August 2, 1945, two weeks prior to Japan’s surrender, the highest ranking Japanese officer captured during the war in the Pacific was taken on the island of Morotai, Dutch New Guinea. Read more

Costly Confederate Victory at Gaines’ Mill

By John Walker

With just an hour of daylight remaining on the smoke-shrouded battlefield near Gaines’ Mill six miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Read more

Lieutenant Commander Eddie C. Outlaw and his wingman, Lieutenant (j.g.) Donald ‘Dagwood’ Reeves, wing over Truk Lagoon during their destructive April 1944 fighter sweep. A Japanese fighter, shot down in flames, has just hit the water and exploded on impact. The pilots took their Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters into action without dropping their auxiliary fuel tanks, which are prominently visible in this painting by artist Jack Fellows.

Ten Minutes Over Truk

By Chris Marks

Lieutenant Hollis Hills had every reason to be puzzled. His guns had just raked the Japanese fighter ahead of him, the rounds striking home along the enemy’s fuselage and wing roots. Read more

Furious Charge Against Malakoff

By Charles Hilbert

The Ottoman Empire of Sultan Abd al-Majid I was in decline. Less than 200 years before, it had reached its high water mark in 1683 when Ottoman armies surrounded the walls of Vienna, only to be beaten back by the forces of Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, and Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, who were bankrolled by Pope Innocent XI and the Holy League. Read more

Tracings Of Barbarossa

By Kevin M. Hymel

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, showed the world the extent of Nazi brutality. Read more

Backed by Union warships, a mixed force of soldiers and sailors assaults the Confederate bastion of Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, North Carolina, December 1864.

Thomas O. Selfridge: A Naval Hero of the Civil War

By James M. Powles

March 8, 1862, dawned sunny and mild at Hampton Roads, Virginia. To the men of the Union blockading squadron, the day seemed like any other. Read more

Hauptmann Gordon Gollob poses with his Messerschmitt Bf110 fighter. He made recommendations for technical improvements to the heavy fighter and traveled to a Luftwaffe test facility to consult with aircraft engineers on his ideas.

German Fighter Ace Gordon Gollob

By William E. Welsh

German Luftwaffe pilot First Lieutenant Gordon Gollob moved in for the kill at midafternoon on December 18, 1939, with his Messerschmitt Bf 110 against a formation of seven British Vickers Wellington medium bombers heading home from their bomb run against German battle cruisers in Wilhelmshaven harbor. Read more