By dawn on June 9, 1944, the men of the Company C, 1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, of the 82nd Airborne Division found themselves engaged in a fierce firefight with German troops at the village of Cauquigny just west of the Merderet River in Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula. Read more
It was late November, 1812, and the fate of Napoleon’s Grande Armee hung in the balance. Several Russian armies were closing in, but if the French crossed the 300-foot-wide Berezina River, the bedraggled survivors of a once great army might still manage to escape the trap. Read more
During World War II, Switzerland was one of the few neutral countries to survive unscathed amid the death and destruction that was being heaped upon the rest of Europe. Read more
Q: Could you give us a little personal background before we talk about your war experiences?
SIMS: I was born on April 29, 1925, at Sheffield in Yorkshire. Read more
When the Civil War erupted, so many of Lisbon, Ohio-born Robert McCook’s large extended family joined the Union Army that the clan became known as the “Fighting McCooks.” Read more
By Allyn Vannoy
Six B-17G’s of the 416th Bombardment Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, led by Captain B.E. Read more
Great Britain’s war with her rebellious American colonies was about to conclude as diplomats crafted a peace treaty. Read more
With all it had going for it, how did Germany manage to lose World War II? There are many answers to this deceptively simple question, including the obvious one that the Allies had the technical and industrial advantage. Read more
To his contemporaries, Harun al-Rashid, fifth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, seemed the most fortunate of men. Read more
With the German Sixth Army destroyed at Stalingrad, the Soviet juggernaut lunged west and southwest across the River Donets. Read more
Brigadier General James S. Rains’s Confederate cavalry rode confidently toward the prosperous little town of Lexington, Missouri. Dressed in Missouri homespun, Rains’s men hardly looked the part of a flying military column, but most of the hard-riding horsemen had known only victory during their short service. Read more
The first rays of sunlight on December 7, 1941, marked a typical Sunday morning for the sailors aboard the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. Read more
In his father’s time, leopards had freely padded across the reception areas of the royal palace at Fez, inspiring awe and trepidation among visitors. Read more
In March 1939, Adolf Hitler dissolved the Republic of Czechoslovak, incorporating its lands into the Third Reich. As a consequence, much military equipment fell into the hands of the Wehrmacht, including 469 armored fighting vehicles. Read more
Smoking may not be the same in-vogue habit it was during bygone days, when politicians, starlets, athletes, and even the average Joe could be seen lighting up on a regular basis. Read more
For the Federal government at Washington, D.C., the news from Tennessee was grim in late September 1863. The Union Army of the Cumberland, under Maj. Read more
The “Pearl of the Orient” had lost all of its luster by January 1945.
Three years of brutal Japanese occupation had left many of Manila’s 800,000 native residents humiliated, tortured, or dead. Read more
After a century and a half of efforts—with mixed success—by Western Europe to seize control of the Holy Land, the Seventh Crusade of 1250 led by Louis IX of France was the last best chance to change the political and military situation in the Eastern world before the Reformation. Read more
Even as they were being integrated into the European Allied air campaign, the use and operation of American B-26 Marauders, and other medium bombers, was still being worked out—with sometimes, as at IJmuiden, Holland, disastrous results. Read more
Russian General Peter Ivanovich Bagration was one of those rare commanders who received near-universal praise from his contemporaries outside of Russia. Read more
