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From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more
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Watching his forces prepare to attack the Union Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson commented to an aide, “The Institute will be heard from today.” Read more
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“Japan cannot defeat America; therefore, Japan should not go to war with America.” Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, spoke those words to a group of school children as his government contemplated just that. Read more
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Not all of the 68 infantry divisions available to the U.S. Army during World War II were made up of draftees and enlistees. Read more
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The capture of Guantànamo Bay, Cuba, by U.S. Marines in 1898 was a brief but violent phase of the Spanish-American War. Read more
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It was raining, raining with a force and intensity few had ever experienced. The Macedonian army was marching upstream near the northern banks of the Hydaspes River in India (now Pakistan), trying to reach a ford under the cloak of darkness. Read more
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The appointment of Erwin Rommel as commander of the 7th Panzer Division (nicknamed the “Ghost Division”) in February 1940 seems, in the light of his many triumphs in France and North Africa, an unremarkable and perfectly natural choice. Read more
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Iron Bottom Sound was full of transport ships unloading supplies in the early afternoon sun on November 12, 1942. Read more
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Practically all students of military history know of George Armstrong Custer the cavalry officer, Civil War hero, and dashing, controversial Indian fighter ultimately killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Read more
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Private Harry Cruse and the men of the 83th Armored Field Artillery Battalion were waiting for a march order in the snow-swept town of Langlire when they heard an approaching German fighter plane. Read more
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Darwin, Australia, was hot even though it was mid-winter. On the afternoon of July 12, 1942, four newly deployed pilots of the U.S. Read more
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While all the combatant nations engaged in World War I fielded machine guns during the conflict, the British Army’s Vickers was arguably the best medium machine gun of the war, while their Lewis gun—an American design but perfected by the English—was the most effective light machine gun. Read more
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Rarely in the history of warfare had one nation absorbed such numbing losses in so rapid a time as did the United States in the Pacific War’s first five months. Read more
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The famed general of World War II, George S. Patton III, often spoke with pride of the military deeds of his forefathers. Read more
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When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more
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At about 2:30 on the morning of August 21, 1942, U.S. Marine units east of Henderson Field on the embattled island of Guadalcanal were awakened by several bursts of machinegun fire. Read more
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Following the 76th anniversary of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, one is amazed at the number of articles and volumes written about the subject. Read more
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Twenty-four hours earlier, Grazzi had hosted a gala reception for Metaxas and Greece’s figurehead king, George II, at the Italian consulate following a performance of Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly. Read more
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On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more
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During the Vietnam War, the land mine was responsible for large numbers of casualties among both military and civilian personnel. Read more
