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The Indian Ocean Raid: Disaster for the Royal Navy
By David H. Lippman“So this is the Eastern Fleet,” ran Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville’s signal. “Never mind. Many a good tune is played on an old fiddle.” Read more
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Arnhem Bridge: Why it was “Britain’s Alamo” in WWII
By David H. LippmanIt was getting dark when they reached Arnhem bridge, but there it was, still intact.
Lieutenant Jack Grayburn’s No. Read more
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Raid on Bruneval: Stealing the Enemy’s Eyes
By Kelly BellThe parachute of aptly named Major J.D. Frost cracked open in the freezing air high above the French Channel coast at 12:45 am, and he commenced drifting down through the moonlit gloom. Read more
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Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Steel’s Hammer
By Blaine TaylorThe arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more
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Marshall Builds the U.S. Army
By Earl RickardOn July 17, 1941, United States Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall sat before the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Read more
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George Beurling: Canadian Fighter Ace Known as “The Falcon of Malta”
By Herb KugelIn September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more
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Clear Skies Over Bastogne: Patton’s Prayers Answered
By David H. Lippman“This is the shortest day,” General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe, wrote in his diary for December 21, 1944. Read more
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Liberating Cherbourg, Normandy’s Great Port
By David H. LippmanIt was the storm that forced the battle. On June 19, 1944, a massive gale hit the English Channel, sweeping in from the west, hitting the gigantic artificial harbors the Allies had built on their D-Day invasion beaches. Read more
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Commando Kidnapping: Capturing General Kreipe on Crete
By John W. Osborn Jr.Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more
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The Real Adolf Hitler
By Michael E. HaskewNearly three-quarters of a century distant from the end of World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, one may conclude with confidence that few images of mankind’s violent history stir greater revulsion and, yes, lingering fear than that of a glowering Adolf Hitler—steely eyes gazing outward from a page or the glow of a computer screen. Read more
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The First Day of World War II
By Michael D. HullJust after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more
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Easter Victory at Tobruk
By Christopher MiskimonIn April 1941, things were going quite well for the German armed forces. In a series of earlier campaigns, they had conquered Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France. Read more
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Tula: Hero City of the Soviet Union
By Pat McTaggartIn 1976, the Soviet city of Tula joined an elite group of nine other Soviet communities designated as “Hero Cities.” Read more
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Blue and Gray at Omaha Beach
By Major General Michael ReynoldsThe U.S. 29th Infantry Division was formed in July 1917, three months after America entered World War I. Read more
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Submarine Special Missions in the Pacific
By Steven Trent SmithSunsets over Manila Bay are nothing less than spectacular. Once the sun dips below the horizon there is a lingering illumination known as “blue hour” as the sky gradually shifts from pale azure to deep indigo before fading completely into the black tropical night. Read more
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Project Habakkuk’s Iceberg Aircraft Carrier
By Stephen D. LutzDuring World War II British and American aircraft carriers, serviced and ready for naval combat, averaged 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Read more
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D-Day Funnies: No Joke to the Nazis
By Michael D. HullGerman defenders hunkered in their concrete and steel bunkers along the Normandy coast were in for two major shocks on Tuesday, June 6, 1944. Read more
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Hot Chow on the Frontlines
By Kevin M. HymelFrom the training grounds to the battlefront, soldiers and Marines usually dined on C and K rations. Read more
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Undeclared War in the Atlantic
By James I. MarinoBetween September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. Read more
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Sinking the Shokaku
By Johnd DomagalskiOn the morning of June 13, 1944, the brilliant new aircraft carrier Taiho weighed anchor and slowly moved out of Tawi-Tawi anchorage in the Sulu archipelago in the southwestern Philippines. Read more
