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The initial command structure in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of World War II produced a sharp contrast and clash of wills between two of the principal Allied leaders: British Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, and his American counterpart, Lieutenant General Joseph W. Read more
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ONE of World War II’s least known campaigns was fought over one of the most desolate places on earth. Read more
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The advance of long ranks of scimitar-wielding Nubian and robed Bedouin archers on foot signaled a dramatic change in Ayyubid Muslim tactics against the Frankish army marching south along the Palestinian coast from Acre towards Jaffa. Read more
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It is an intriguing truism of history that those who start wars inevitably end up losing them. A few examples spring to mind: Napoleon vs. Read more
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Yes, the world is at war. A surprise attack we didn’t see coming: germ warfare on a worldwide scale by an enemy we can’t see. Read more
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It seems that every month there is a news item that relates to World War II. Here’s one you may have missed:
Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler Burwitz, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler, head of the dreaded SS and one of Adolf Hitler’s closest henchmen, died in or near Munich last year. Read more
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1. The first American serviceman killed in World War II was Captain Robert M. Losey from Andrew, Iowa. He was serving as a military attaché and was killed in Norway on April 21, 1940, when German aircraft bombed the Dombås railway station where he and others were awaiting transportation. Read more
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JUNE 5
Israel launches a preemptive airstrike known as Operation Focus against Egyptian air bases in the morning with its French-supplied fighter bombers. Read more
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By April 1941, just over a year and a half into World War II, Nazi Germany was master of Europe. Read more
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Late on the night of Friday, October 13, 1939, Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien surfaced his 218-foot-long submarine, U-47, and guided it through the protected, shallow, narrow channel at Kirk Sound. Read more
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At 10:30 on the night of May 9, 1936, as 400,000 people stood crowded together on Rome’s Palazzo Venezia underneath the most famous balcony in the world, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, 52, the leader of the country’s ruling Fascist Party, strode forward and began to speak to the silent masses below him. Read more
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Ireland’s refusal to take part in World War II agitated Winston Churchill during the war’s first months. Read more
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It was in the early hours of the German invasion of Holland, May 10, 1940, and a Wehrmacht doctor was tending to a soldier wounded during the capture of the key Gennep border bridge. Read more
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French Admiral Pierre-Andre de Suffren de Saint Tropez did not fit the image of a dashing naval officer. Read more
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“I must tell you something…. I took part in a mass killing the day before yesterday.
[When we shot the Jews brought by] the first truck, my hand trembled somewhat during the shooting, but one gets used to it. Read more
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This past June I once again had the honor of guiding a group of 30 Smithsonian guests to the hallowed ground of Normandy, France, to visit the sites. Read more
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Ordered to “hold at all costs,” 300 American soldiers defended the small Luxembourg town of Hosingen during the first three days of the Battle of the Bulge. Read more
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In most war games, players are either in control of one unit or a very specific assortment of units. Read more
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The famous retreat of the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel across North Africa following his defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 was less a retreat than a series of stubborn battles to hold ground. Read more
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In the early weeks of the Second Boer War, General Jacobus Hercules De La Rey suggested a way to overhaul the tactics of his fellow Boers in a way that would prove devastating to his British opponents. Read more
