Hard-Won Victory at Passchendaele

British soldiers fixed their bayonets and waited tensely in the trenches for the order to go over the top. Read more

Bloody Collision at Cedar Mountain

In the shadow of Cedar Mountain on the southern outskirts of Culpeper, Virginia, Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson deployed the troops at the head of his column of march against a reinforced Union corps on August 9, 1862. Read more

Second Lieutenant Ernest “Red Eagle” Childers

After three years of brutal warfare in World War II, the Italians in July 1943 overthrew fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the hope of obtaining a separate armistice with the Allies. Read more

Greek Hoplite (8th – 4th century B.C)

Illustration by Peter Connolly

The Greek hoplite was a heavily armored infantryman who fought in a phalanx formation. Read more

The Grinding Horror of Iwo Jima

For the men of the 28th Marine Regiment, the morning of February 19, 1945, brought a sobering moment of truth. Read more

Chariot of Fire

The year 1942 started disastrously for Britain, just as 1941 had ended badly for the United States. Japan’s entry into the war not only devastated the U.S. Read more

Sergeant Dean Kenney and the M10 Tank Destroyer

The tank-destroyer branch of the U.S. Army was possibly the shortest-lived of all the Army’s branches in World War II. Read more

Flying “The Jug”

BACKSTORY: 2nd Lt. Edwin Cottrell served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from August 1942 through 1945, then enlisted in the Air Force Reserves in 1950 and completed 28 years in uniform, retiring as a colonel in the Air Force. Read more

Throwing Heroes Under the Bus

Here at WWII Quarterly, and in all my book writing, I spend a lot of time advancing my deeply held belief that military heroes—men and women who, over the decades, have put their lives on the line (and sometimes gave their lives in the process) to serve their country for a higher ideal and the causes for which they fought—deserve our enduring praise. Read more

The long-awaited National Museum of the U.S. Army is a stunning tribute to America’s oldest branch of service.

by LTC Adam Morgan

After many years of planning, fundraising and construction, the spectacular, long-awaited National Museum of the United States Army was finally opened on Veterans Day, 2020, promptly shut down due to Coronavirus restrictions, and has reopened. Read more

The Legacy of Justice Jackson

A few weeks ago, I was able to take a long-delayed summer vacation, this time to New England, where I took in the Maine Maritime Museum and Bath Iron Works (where many American warships were constructed in WWII—and are still being built). Read more

Tigers on the Prowl

During World War II, the United States fielded 16 armored divisions, and all contributed to the Allied victory. Read more

Requiem for a Prince and a Sergeant

The number of World War II survivors continues to grow smaller. This spring, two of them made the news.

The first, of course, was Prince Philip, husband of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth, who died on April 9, 2021. Read more

Desperate Jump in the Ardennes

In 1944, Germany’s once victorious armies were in retreat on all fronts. Germany’s borders were threatened, and the American Army already occupied the German city of Aachen, the ancient city of Charlemagne and one-time capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Read more

France Avenged!

By Alan Davidge

That France made an early exit from hostilities at the start of World War II is well known. Read more

The Allies’ Near-Catastrophic Intelligence Failure

After the tumultuous liberation of Paris and the German Army’s eastward flight from France, Allied hopes rose high in the late summer and autumn of 1944. Read more

An Airman’s Saga

Howard Linn was a member of the 492nd Bombardment Group—the “Hard Luck” group of the Eighth Air Force. Read more

Prisoners on the Potomac

May 3, 1944: The nondescript army bus slowed to make a turn off the Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway just outside suburban Alexandria, Virginia. Read more

From the Army to the Resistance

September 1943 was an extraordinary month for the Royal Italian Army. On the 8th, General Dwight Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio announced Italy’s surrender to the Allies. Read more

Russian Deception—Lessons Hard Earned

Russian deception, misdirection, and misinformation, as evidenced in ecent years, can be very destructive. But it’s nothing new—it’s the result of hard-earned experience during World War II. Read more