Articles Archive

The Battle of the Bulge & The Defense of St. Vith

By Charles Gutierrez

The U.S. 9th Armored Division arrived in the European Theater of Operations in late October 1944 as a reserve for Maj. Read more

Joe Dimaggio, the famed Yankee Clipper, steals home during a game against the Chicago White Sox in May 1942. Dimaggio set a record the previous season for his 56-game hitting streak.

Baseball Goes to War

By Roy Morris Jr.

In December 1941, after four decades of play in the same sixteen eastern and midwestern cities, major league baseball was finally coming to the west coast. Read more

Pete Ellis: Father of Amphibious Warfare

by Al Hemingway

He suffered from acute alcoholism and severe bouts of depression. As a result of his heavy drinking, he would wander about for days yelling incoherently. Read more

Titian’s 16th-century portrait of heavily armored Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Helmet Designs Through the Ages

By William J. McPeak

Battle helmets shaped to partially cover the face and adorned with various facial features are of ancient origin. Read more

Most writings about World War II tend to attribute the success or failure of military operations to the skill with which generals and admirals handled their forces in battle and to the fighting abilities of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Read more

Utilizing the natural terrain around Puebla, French Zoaves take cover while preparing to move on Mexican positions. Despite the superior pedigree of Comte de Lorencez’s French forces, General Ignacio Zargaoza’s homegrown defenders would serve as more than a match.

“Viva El Cinco de Mayo!” The Battle of Puebla

By Ron Gilliam

A hard, late-afternoon rain was falling on May 5, 1862, and the slopes at the foot of Puebla, Mexico’s twin forts were too slippery for another assault. Read more

The OSS’ Operation Cardinal: Locating General Jonathan Wainwright

By John Mancini

On May 6, 1942, in the Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor Island, General Jonathan Wainwright waited for the Japanese to respond to his surrender offer with a cease-fire. Read more

English and Dutch warships unleash thunderous broadsides against each other in the heavy seas of the English Channel, in this painting by Dutch artist Abraham Storck.

“Hurrah, Over You Go Again!”: The High Seas Battle of Portland

By Keith Milton

For nearly a century, England and the Netherlands were longtime allies in the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish Empire. Read more

American and Filipino troops raise their hands in surrender after emerging from Malinta Tunnel on the island of Corregidor. The victorious Japanese captured thousands of prisoners during the largest mass capitulation of U.S. military personnel in the nation’s history.

WWII Veterans: Donald L. Versaw, From Shanghai to Corregidor

By Eric Niderost

Donald L. Versaw joined the U.S. Marine Corps on Armistice Day, November 11, 1939. After basic training and a stint in the Marine Corps Operating Base Band in San Diego, he was sent overseas to join the Fourth Marines Band in Shanghai. Read more

Wounded but triumphant, Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson receives homage from his worshipful Knights Hospitallers after beating back the Turkish siege of Rhodes.

Siege of Rhodes: The Will Of The Hospitallers

By William McPeak

Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more

The Battle of Brody: Disaster Along WWII’s Eastern Front

By Pat McTaggart

The German Army found itself facing a massive challenge in the spring of 1944, just months before its total disaster at the Battle of Brody — they were facing the possibility of a war on three fronts. Read more

Sir Peter Parker’s nine-warship fleet unleashes a devastating barrage of fire on Ft. Sullivan from Charleston Harbor.

Patriots’ Great Day: The Battle of Sullivan’s Island

By Earl Echelberry

By the early 1770s, with a full century of settlement already behind it, Charleston, S.C., had come into its own as a thriving urban center. Read more

The Murmansk Run: Running the Gauntlet of WWII’s Arctic Convoys

By Flint Whitlock

It was unbelievably dull and uncomfortable duty, often interspersed with moments of sheer terror and the possibility of sudden and violent death. Read more

With a spillway for the Wawa Dam before them, three American infantrymen manning a .50-caliber machine gun provide cover for an advance patrol.

Ipo Dam: A Campaign For Water

By David Lash

In February 1945, General Douglas MacArthur was poised to begin one of the great battles of his career. Read more

Viking longboats cut through the sea while on expedition. King Harald’s nickname was “Hardradi,” meaning “the ruthless;” something his enemies could surely attest to.

Harald “Land Waster” Hardradi

by Kenneth Cline

For many history buffs, the date 1066 conjures up an image of Norman knights breaking through the shield wall of the ax-wielding Anglo-Saxons at Senlac Hill. Read more

Backward in Battle

By Robert F. Dorr

Up front, guns chattered. Out back, in his pressurized compartment aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber high over Japan, Andy Doty heard a warning shouted over the intercom. Read more

Franklin Roosevelt’s Pre-Pearl Harbor Intervention Plans

By Donald J. Young

This is a story of what might have been. If Japan had chosen to attack far-off British Malaya on December 7, 1941, instead of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, President Franklin Roosevelt was prepared to go before Congress and ask—for the first time in American history—for a declaration of war against a nation that had not fired the first shot against us. Read more

Finnish Mosin Nagants

By Chuck Lewis

Deral Mosby is hooked. In a little over two years, the 58-year-old retired chemist’s collection of 20th-century military-surplus firearms has evolved from a handful of Russian Mosin Nagant infantry rifles valued at around $125 each to an ever-growing horde of Finnish military rifles and carbines, some of which are quite rare and worth considerably more. Read more

The Striking Cobra: Phase Two of the D-Day Invasion

By David Alan Johnson

“We’ve been slogging our way through hedgerow country, half an acre a day, and we’ve got to find a way to break out.” Read more

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Atlantic Wall defenses, inspects the work of laborers during a tour to assess preparedness to repel an Allied invasion.

D-Day 1943: Could the Allied Invasion of Western Europe Have Happened One Year Earlier?

By Lt. Col. John Fenzel III

On June 6, 1944, the Allies unleashed on land, air, and sea the largest invasion force in world history in an enormous effort to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny. Read more

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