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An RAF Westland Lysander Mark I flies over the Beirut waterfront shortly after the city fell to the British in July 1941.

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Paul Smiddy’s ‘Moonlight Crusaders’

By Kevin Seabrooke

A pilot since the age of 16, later trained by the RAF, the author has assembled a dashing narrative of the Royal Air Force’s Special Duties pilots, who performed clandestine operations such as inserting or extracting agents, dropping supplies, and flying secret missions into occupied Europe, often using aircraft like the Westland Lysander—noted for its Short Take-Off and Landing (STOLT) capabilities. Read more

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The Dawn of Destruction

By John Wukovitz

The seaplane tender USS Tangier floated at its moorings that peaceful day at Pearl Harbor. Little disrupted the serenity of the beautiful Sunday morning. Read more

Staff Sergeant Audie Murphy races through the set of a war-torn village in a scene from the the 1955 autobiographical film, To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name. Murphy, the most decorated U.S. soldier of World War II earned 33 awards, decorations, and citations—including the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals (one with a “V” device), three Purple Hearts, a French Legion of Honour and a French Croix de Guerre with silver star—played himself in the film.

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Through the Vosges

By Daniel R. Champagne

On the morning of October 3, 1944, an all-out assault was launched to drive the enemy from Cleurie Quarry in northeast France. Read more

A 12th Armored Division GI stands guard over a group of surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers in April 1945. Manpower shortages forced the U.S. Army to retrain soldiers in service units—including African-Americans—as combat riflemen in 1945.

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Ending the Divide

By David H. Lippman

Three German armies surprised the Allies by breaking across the Our River and storming into the Ardennes on December 16, 1944. Read more

This illustration shows Britain’s “desert workhorse,” the Valentine Mk. III navigating the heat of North African combat in WWII. Though celebrated for its mechanical grit and reliability in the sand, the tank’s 2-pounder gun eventually proved inadequate. Large numbers of “Valentines” were later shipped to the Soviet Union to bolster the Eastern Front.

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Bitter Road to Tobruk

By Michael D. Hull

When powerful German forces stormed through the Low Countries and France was about to fall in the late spring of 1940, Great Britain faced the darkest hour in its history. Read more

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Roar of the Lightning Brigade

By Joshua Shepherd

Convinced that a major fight was in the offing, 33-year-old Colonel John T. Wilder clambered up the branches of a nearby tree as the sun dipped below the horizon. Read more

Cloaked in distinctive white mantles with red crosses, a charge of the “warrior monks” known as the Knights Templar was a fearsome sight. The devout medieval Catholic military order was established to protect Christian pilgrims after the Holy Land was reopened following the First Crusade.

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Bloody Brotherhood

By Kelly Bell

By 1119, the Holy City of Jerusalem had been back under Christian control for 20 years. The soldiers of the First Crusade had secured the city and re-opened it as a center for Christian pilgrimage. Read more

A drawing of the 92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry by John Hillen, a soldier in the unit before he was wounded and discharged.

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The Unforeseen Precipice

By Roy Morris Jr.

Every war will astonish you,” American General Dwight D. Eisenhower said after World War II. As the leader of the Allied forces that successfully landed on D-Day and marched into Berlin 11 months later, Eisenhower obviously knew what he was talking about. Read more

In July 1781 a company of African American soldiers of the Continental Army’s Rhode Island Regiment under Lt.-Col. Jeremiah Olney marches through Philadelphia on their way to Yorktown.

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Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

By Kevin Seabrooke

When the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, Black men had already been serving in colonial militias for some time, particularly in New England. Read more

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Over the Top: WWI

By Joseph Luster

Dialing things back a moment from WWII, let’s enter the trenches of WWI with the help of a recently-launched contender known as Over the Top: WWI. Read more

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Foxhole Airborne

By Joseph Luster

For those just joining us in the ‘hole, the elevator pitch is war on a massively-multiplayer scale, with players zooming in close to control individual soldiers that each have their own crucial role to play in battle. Read more

During the 1945 liberation of the Philippines, the 25th Infantry Division faced stiff resistance in the mountains near Baguio. Here, a flame-throwing team works in tandem to shutter a Japanese pillbox during the height of the Luzon campaign.

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The Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) Command

By Marc C. Jeter

Analyzing war and its outcomes remains an important exercise—for tactical, political, humanitarian and a whole host of other reasons—though not all critics or analysts will agree on the ideas that emerge from such scholarship. Read more

A Douglas B-18 Bolo—rechristened the Digby Mk.I in Canadian service—soars through the skies of World War II in this painting by Standa Hájek. Overshadowed by more famous heavy bombers, these rugged aircraft served as the backbone of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrols.

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The Digby Mk.I: RAF U-boat Killer

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Seaman Franz Machon was enjoying a smoke on deck when lookouts sounded the alarm. “Enemy aircraft!” they shouted before dropping down inside their vessel, a German Type IXC submarine named U-512. Read more

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The Battle for North Africa

By John F. Murphy,Jr.

When Rashid Ali seized power in Baghdad in 1941, his coup provided Nazi Germany with a key piece of its world strategy for victory. Read more

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Banzai

By Colonel Dick Camp (USMC, Ret.)

In the summer of 1944, the 5th Amphibious Corps under Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Read more

French men-at-arms assault a formidable English position at Auray in September 1364. An English counterattack shattered the French.

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Bertrand du Guesclin

By William E. Welsh

One month after the disastrous French defeat at Poitiers in September 1356, a large English army besieged Rennes in eastern Brittany. Read more

A frightening sight to the Japanese: the underbelly of a B-29 Superfortress. Some 4,000 of the giant bombers were produced during the war. One of the last two flyable examples is “Fifi,” which was delivered to the USAAF in 1945. It was purchased in 1971, restored, and is flown today by the Commemorative Air Force. It is based at the Vintage Flying Museum at Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Flaming Death in Tokyo

By Nathan N. Prefer

Despite his nickname, General Henry Harley (“Hap”) Arnold was unhappy. In early 1945 he was having major problems with one of his own special projects, the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, for which he had often risked his career. Read more