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Royal Navy Ravaged
By Michael D. HullHistory was made in the Mediterranean Sea on the night of Monday, November 11, 1940, when the Italian Navy’s battle fleet was devastated at Taranto, off the Ionian coast of southern Italy. Read more
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Seizing the Altmark
By Joseph M. HorodyskiOn Sunday, September 3, 1939, the day that Great Britain and France formally declared war on Germany after the Nazis’ invasion of Poland, the German supply ship Altmark concluded her stay at the refinery center of Port Arthur, Texas, where she had taken on a full cargo of diesel oil, and returned to sea. Read more
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Dorie Miller: A Black Sailor’s Heroism at Pearl Harbor
By Michael D. HullHis name was Doris, but he was a powerfully built football fullback, a heavyweight boxer, and the first black American hero of World War II. Read more
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Shifting Sands of Nieuwpoort
By Louis CiotolaThe Dutch revolt against Spain reached one of its many climaxes on July 10, 1584, when an assassin took the life William the Silent, stadtholder of the new Dutch Republic and the most prominent member of the House of Orange. Read more
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The S.S. Bremen: Last Voyage of a Luxury Liner
By David LuhrssenAfter docking in New York on August 28, 1939, only four days before the outbreak of World War II, Captain Adolf Ahrens of Germany’s North German Lloyd shipping line was faced with a decision. Read more
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Stanislaw Sosabowski: Poland’s Premier Paratrooper
By Tom Aiello, Ph.DStanislaw Sosabowski started his military career in the anti-Hapsburg Polish underground movement in 1907, served in the Austrian Army in World War I, and rose to the command of the Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II. Read more
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U.S. Marines on Nicaragua
By Al HemingwaySince the 19th century, Nicaragua has been of key strategic interest to the U.S. government. Revolution regularly rocked the Central American country. Read more
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Frank Messervy: Britain’s Frontline General
By Jon DiamondThe style of leadership practiced in Britain’s Eighth Army during the early years of the Desert War left much to be desired. Read more
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Operation Compass: Masterstroke in the Desert
By John DiamondEstablished in the summer of 1939, Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell’s Middle East Command encompassed nine countries and parts of two continents, an area of 1,700 miles by 2,000 miles. Read more
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Dogs in WW2: from Paratroopers to Medical Dogs in Combat
By Bob CashnerAnimals of several kinds were used during WW2 by the military forces of belligerents both large and small. Read more
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Miyamoto Mushashi: Samurai Legend
By O’Brien BrownThe samurai warrior sat in the middle of the dueling grounds in the village of Hirafuku, Japan, glaring at the spectators who had gathered around him. Read more
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The Atlantis: The Kriegsmarine’s Last Corsair
By David LippmanIn her previous life, she had been the Hansa-line freighter Goldenfels. She was launched in 1937 and displaced 7,862 tons. Read more
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Martyr Village: Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane
By Robert MuellerUpon visiting Oradour-sur-Glane, one finds a quiet, rural French village where the populace carries on about its business much like in any commune in France. Read more
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Operation Willi: The Nazi Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor
By Eric NiderostIt was around noon, June 19, 1940, when a small caravan of cars set out from Antibes in southern France en route to the Spanish border. Read more
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The Hossbach Memorandum
By Blaine TaylorOn June 24, 1937, German Minister of War Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg issued a directive marked Top Secret with only four copies to be made, the first for himself and the other three for the heads of the armed forces of the Third Reich. Read more
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Nick “Cooky” Kukich: Covert Operative in Albania
By John ManciniOn the morning of April 7, 1939, Albania, the smallest of the Balkan countries, was invaded by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Army. Read more
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USS Murphy: Long Service in Wartime
By William B. AllmonEighty miles off the coast of New Jersey and 280 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean lies the forward section of a World War II destroyer, where it came to rest more than 60 years ago. Read more
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ANZACs at Maleme
By David H. Lippman“Maleme. 20th May, 1941. Usual Mediterranean summer day. Cloudless sky, no wind, extreme visibility; e.g., details on mountains 20 miles to the southeast easily discernible.” Read more
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The National World War II Museum
By Peter SuciuOpened on June 6, 2000, on the 56th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the National D-Day Museum, as it was then known, initially focused on the amphibious invasion of Normandy. Read more
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The PTRS 41 and Other and Russian Anti-Tank Rifles
By Robert CashnerEver since the tank appeared on the battlefield during World War I, armies the world over have sought to field man-portable infantry antitank weapons to give the infantryman a viable defense against the metal monsters. Read more
