George S. Patton Jr.’s Upbringing: The Making of the Legend

George Patton knew exactly what he wanted to be from childhood on. “When I was a little boy at home, I used to wear a wooden sword and say to myself, ‘George S. Read more

The Shot That Killed British General James Wolfe

Before the Battle of Quebec, which would ensure him immortality in British military annals, one of General James Wolfe’s captains said of him, “No man can display greater activity than he does.” Read more

The Makin Island Raid: What Really Happened to the Marines?

In August 1942, the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion conducted the Makin Island raid in the Central Pacific. The purpose of the raid was to destroy Japanese installations on the island, gather intelligence, and to test the raiding tactics of the U.S. Read more

Uniform: Knight Templar 1240

The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Order of the Temple, was the first religious military order of the Latin Church. Read more

Churchill and Stalin’s Uneasy Alliance

In the Grand Alliance volume of Winston S. Churchill’s memoirs of World War II, the British prime minister lambasted Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and his inept government for failing to anticipate Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more

British Invasion of Madagascar

“The first I saw of Madagascar and the last after adventurous months ashore was the eerie color of the soil,” a British novelist turned security sergeant would write a decade later.  Read more

Last Chance for Victory at Gujrat

As 18 elephant-drawn heavy guns of the British East India Company’s Bengal Artillery opened fire, Major John Fordyce’s troop of the Bengal Horse Artillery rushed their 9-pounders ahead of the infantry. Read more

German Admiral Raeder’s Navy Raiders

On the nights of August 21 and 24, 1939, two dark ships slipped out of the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven and turned west toward the English Channel. Read more

Change WWII History With a Toy-Soldier Style Battle for the Ages, and Take the Fight to the Tabletop

For a World War II simulator with a surprisingly colorful twist, developer Noobz from Poland recently came through with the aptly titled Total Tank Simulator. Read more

Naval Showdown in the Solomons

The First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal began with a delay. Shortly before 1:30 am on November 13, 1942, the American cruiser USS Helena spotted a Japanese task force: “Radar contact. Read more

Prussian Blunder at Hochkirch

Cannons roared and muskets crackled in the darkness below the hill of Rodewitz, but King Frederick the Great of Prussia was in no hurry to move. Read more

Swift Invasion of Denmark

On the night of April 8, 1940, almost four million people went to bed at peace in the midst of a world war. Read more

The Great Viking Siege of Paris

Well before the great Viking siege of Paris, more than 300 islands dotted the length of the Seine River, reduced over the centuries by human impact and natural changes to slightly more than 100. Read more

Nazi Stuka Ace Hans Rudel

In the village of Seiferdau, Southern Prussia, an eight-year-old boy with an umbrella jumped out of a second-story window. Read more

The Essential Role of Navy PBR Boats in the Vietnam War

The U.S. Navy deployed a variety of small boats to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, but perhaps the best known of these is the river patrol boat. Read more

How Winston Churchill Prolonged the Defense of Antwerp in World War I

Joseph Mary Nagle Jefferies, a correspondent for Britain’s Daily Mail, was assigned to cover the opening phases of World War I in Belgium in October 1914. Read more

Peach Orchard Bloodbath: Day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg

By Mike Phifer

On July 2, the day of the Battle of Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard conflict, Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Read more

Operation Market Garden: The American Airborne’s Audacious Role

With his troops in a bitter fight with German forces in northern France in the late summer of 1944, General Omar Bradley, commander of the Allied 12th Army Group, could not believe his ears. Read more

Hitler’s Bold Attack at Mortain

For once, the ULTRA message came late. Normally, the decoding machines and hard-working British cryptographers at Bletchley Park had an abundance of German Army messages to go through, but in the first days in August 1944, the German panzer divisions had gone to radio silence, which suggested they were going to attack, but not in which direction. Read more

General Jonathan M. Wainwright survived the privations of captivity at the hands of the Japanese.

Amid the great assembly of senior Allied officers who stood by while the representatives of the Japanese government and those of the victors of World War II in the Pacific signed the instrument of surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay, two of the most unlikely attendees waited solemnly to step forward. Read more