The Sam Browne Belt Assembly

And here we have the Sam Browne belt assembly,” explained the sergeant who was showing us around the Police Academy. Read more

Easy Company Mortarman in Bastogne

When word reached 21-year-old Private Bradford “Brad” Freeman in Mourmelon-le-Grand, France, that the entire 101st Airborne Division was being put on 24-hour alert for movement to the front, he was neither surprised nor shocked. Read more

Hero with a Horn

One of the best known and most effective champions of the Allied cause in World War II was a dour, slightly built Iowa native wearing rimless glasses who never fired a shot in anger and collected no ribbons for gallantry. Read more

The Saga of Piyamaradu

Western Anatolia in the 13th century bc was the main arena for a protracted trial of strength between two vital and aggressive empires, Hatti and Ahhiyawa. Read more

General Garnet Wolseley & The First War Correspondents

War correspondents are relatively new to history. The Crimean War (1854-1856), pitting Great Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia against Russia, was the first conflict in which an organized effort was made for civilian correspondents reporting news directly to the civilian population of the home country. Read more

How The RAF’s Eagle Squadrons Joined the Eighth Air Force

“We went to London in ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer and pick up our U.S. Read more

What Made the B-25 Mitchell Bomber so Legendary

Little more than four months after the disastrous attack on Pearl Harbor, America went on the offensive against Japan with one of the boldest and best remembered bomber raids of World War II. Read more

Napoleon Bonaparte & The 1812 Battle of Borodino

At 11 o’clock on the evening of June 23, 1812, the first elements of Napoleon’s mighty army marched on three pontoon bridges over the river Niemen and set foot on Russian soil; the epic invasion of Russia had begun. Read more

Henry Shrapnel & The Battle of Waterloo

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air …”

That, as most people know, is a line from the American national anthem, words by Francis Scott Key, to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven by John Stafford Smith. Read more

Daring British Attack on Meiktila

While the soldiers and officers of the Japanese 15th Army fought fiercely to defend Mandalay in central Burma, they were alarmed to discover that British and Indian troops were dangerously close to attacking their supply depot at Meiktila, 90 miles to their rear. Read more

The M50 Reising Submachine Gun

On paper, the Reising submachine gun appeared to be an ideal close-combat weapon. Accurate, lightweight, and inexpensive to manufacture, it was selected by the U.S. Read more

The Battle of Al Mansourah and the Seventh Crusade, 1251

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

Soldier Profiles: General William C. Westmoreland

In 1989, this writer had occasion to interview four-star General William Childs Westmoreland, now 86, formerly U.S. military commander in South Vietnam and at the time of the interview a retired Chief of Staff of the Army. Read more

From Bavaria to the Philippines

Private First Class Bob Wolf rode in a jeep along an exposed hill in Germany’s Ruhr Valley when he heard an enemy artillery round screeching toward him. Read more

Operation Paperclip

At first, Major Robert Staver seemed to have plenty of time. An Army Ordnance officer with a mechanical engineering degree from Stanford, he had been sent to Germany as part of the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. Read more

British Paratrooper at Arnhem: An Interview With James Sims

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

Military Films

From earliest recorded history to yesterday, it is now possible to trace virtually all major human conflicts on videotapes and DVDs through both rental and purchase. Read more

84th Infantry: From Training to Trial

As casualties mounted in the fall of 1944, the U.S. Army began experiencing a problematic manpower shortage in the ranks of its infantry. Read more

Finnish Sniper Simo Häyhä

The 1939 war between Finland and Soviet Russia has been a minor inclusion in most histories of World War II. Read more

The Battle of Gaugamela: Alexander the Great vs. Darius III

The Battle of Gaugamela began on the morning of October 1, 331 bc, when two great armies drew up for battle to determine the destiny of empires. Read more