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World War II Soldier’s First Combat: “You Learn Fast”
By Kevin M. HymelPrivate Armand Lorenzi and his fellow soldiers were advancing through a snowy German forest when enemy machine guns opened fire. Read more
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Operation Barbarossa: How Stalin was Blindsided by Berlin
By Richard Z. Freemann, Jr.
“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”
—Winston Churchill (1950)
On Sunday, June 22, 1941, as the sun slumbered, 3.6 million soldiers, 2,000 warplane pilots, and 3,350 tank commanders under skilled German command crouched at the border of Soviet-occupied Poland ready to invade the Communist nation Joseph Stalin had ruled with steel-fisted brutality for years. Read more
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Roman Army Pluck at the Battle of Pydna
By Tim MillerWhat began as a polite truce between armies that allowed each to draw water from the same river turned into the battle that would give Greece to Rome. Read more
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Armored Clash in Alsace-Lorraine
By Allyn VannoyThe American light tanks, bringing up much needed supplies, were in column as they began to take fire. Read more
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Germany’s Bold Naval Raider
By Christopher MiskimonWorld 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
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Spain’s Invincible Admiral
By William E. WelshOn June 27, 1570, an Ottoman fleet sailed against Venetian-held Cyprus during the reign of Sultan Selim II. Read more
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Dumbos, Black Cats, and Coastwatchers during World War II
By William G. DennisEven after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Japanese were still in a commanding position in the western Pacific. Read more
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An Alternate History WWII Game Goes Behind Enemy Lines, and Strategy Spans the Ages in a Unique Spin on the Genre
By Joseph LusterSome 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
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Pathfinders Pave the Way
By Christopher MiskimonCaptain 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
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World War II British Submarine Operations in the Pacific
By Arnold Blumberg
During World War II, after the Royal Navy’s traumatic departure from the Pacific Ocean in early 1942, the 4th Submarine Flotilla and its depot ship, the HMS Adamant, operated with the Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee––a large, natural harbor located on the coast of Sri Lanka in the heart of the Indian Ocean. Read more
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Ordnance: Boeing B-29 Superfortress Game Changer
By Gregory A. HenryThe 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
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Top Secret: Gen. Mark Clark’s Daring Operation Flagpole
By Duane SchultzThe five Americans were trapped in a small, dark, empty wine cellar in an isolated French villa on the coast of Algiers. Read more
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Firestorm at Hollandia
By Gene Eric SaleckerBy 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
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Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley
By William F. Floyd, Jr.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
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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
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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
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Rescue Plane Down
By Kevin M. Hymel“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
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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
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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
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Race to Moscow
By Victor KamenirThe 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
