Germany’s Bold Naval Raider

World War I was only a few days old when the German light cruiser SMS Emden, patrolling off the Korean Peninsula, spotted its first target. Read more

Spain’s Invincible Admiral

On June 27, 1570, an Ottoman fleet sailed against Venetian-held Cyprus during the reign of Sultan Selim II. Read more

Dumbos, Black Cats, and Coastwatchers during World War II

Even after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Japanese were still in a commanding position in the western Pacific. Read more

An Alternate History WWII Game Goes Behind Enemy Lines, and Strategy Spans the Ages in a Unique Spin on the Genre

Some war games are all about the conflicts themselves, honing in on the minutiae of the tactics that walk the line between victory and defeat. Read more

Pathfinders Pave the Way

Captain Frank Lillyman drifted down toward a French field in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944. Frank was a pathfinder, one of the paratroopers assigned to prepare the way for the main airborne drop on D-Day. Read more

Ordnance: Boeing B-29 Superfortress Game Changer

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a game changer. First rolling off the assembly line as a production aircraft in July 1943, the Superfortress was the answer to America’s need for a high-level long-range strategic bomber. Read more

Top Secret: Gen. Mark Clark’s Daring Operation Flagpole

The five Americans were trapped in a small, dark, empty wine cellar in an isolated French villa on the coast of Algiers. Read more

Firestorm at Hollandia

By April 1944, American and Australian troops were moving westward along the northern edge of New Guinea, reclaiming territory taken by the Japanese in early 1942. Read more

Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley

At the start of the American Civil War in April 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that he planned to blockade the Confederacy by stationing warships in waters off its shores. Read more

C-47 Crew Chief’s Four Flights into Hell

By Elmer Wisherd with Nan Wisherd

Elmer Wisherd was born on December 1, 1920, in North Dakota. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to a farm in Bruce, Wisconsin. Read more

Siege of Bastogne: The Battle for Noville

By Kevin M. Hymel

It was December 19, 1944, one day before the Siege of Bastogne. Shortly after 10:30 am, 26-year-old Major William Desobry picked up his field telephone, called his combat commander, Colonel William Roberts, and asked if he could withdraw from the Belgian village of Noville. Read more

Bloody Clash at the Battle of Ia Drang

Specialist 4 George McDonald leaped out of a UH-1 helicopter on November 14, 1965, into a hellish firefight. Read more

Grant’s Ordeal at the Battle of Shiloh

It was raining heavily, a deluge of almost Biblical proportions that hammered down on the exhausted men of the Union’s Army of the Tennessee. Read more

Rescue Plane Down

“Awe c’mon, Mom,” Cecil Petty told his emotional mother before leaving Homer, Illinois, in February 1941. “Who knows, I might be a hero.” Read more

Soldiers: Edward O.C. Ord

By Frank Jastrzembki

Five busts of his greatest lieutenants during the Civil War watch over the sarcophagus of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Read more

Weapons: WWII PT Boats

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

Late in the day on October 24, 1944, all of the available 39 patrol torpedo (PT) boats of the U.S. Read more

A stirring chapter of naval history steeped in controversy.

While American troops slugged it out with the Japanese on the Philippine island of Leyte, one of the greatest battles in the history of naval warfare raged far and wide in the surrounding waters. Read more

Insight: Bombing the Abbey

For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more

Race to Moscow

The troops of Germany’s Army Group Center were more than a week into a fresh offensive to capture Moscow on July 14 when they approached the historic battlefield of Borodino where the Russians delayed Napoleon’s advance on Moscow in 1812. Read more

Peter Ortiz: OSS Operative, Undercover Hero

Along with three comrades, one of the Marine Corps heroes is still remembered in the small town of Centron in southeastern France. Read more