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Armored Strike at Nomonhan
By Phil ZimmerGeneral Georgi Zhukov had arrived at the Mongolia-Manchuria border in the early morning hours of June 5, 1939, after a grueling three-day trip from Moscow. Read more
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A Hitler Youth Girl Comes to America
By Don A. GregoryFrieda’s last doll was bought for her by her father, August Streit, in 1938. At age 10 she was really too old for dolls, her father thought, but he would buy her this last one. Read more
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The Polish II Corps in Italy
By James I. MarinoDespite the Nazi conquest of European nations during World War II, individual soldiers from the occupied countries rose again to fight the German Army, and the largest army in exile to fight the Germans was Polish. Read more
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Battle of Arras: Rommel’s View
By William E. WelshSouth of the crossroads of Arras in the Pas de Calais region of France, British and German troops are buried alongside each other. Read more
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Sir John Dill and Winston Churchill: A Clash in Strategy
By Jon DiamondIn describing the relationship between British General Sir John Dill and his political superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Dill’s biographer, Alex Danchev, noted, “It was … an association strikingly lacking in empathy or understanding, etched in fundamental disagreement, and scarred by a mutual disaffection welling up at times into personal distaste.” Read more
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The Christmas Truce of 1914: Fact and Fiction
The German offensive into France and Belgium had ground to a halt as armies on both sides constructed sophisticated trenches to escape the murderous artillery and machine guns of a 20th c. Read more
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Operation Drumbeat’s Devastating Toll on Allied Shipping
By Michael D. HullAfter refueling in the mid-Atlantic and suffering bow damage from being rammed by a tanker, a 769-ton German submarine reached its destination, the American East Coast, early on Monday, May 4, 1942. Read more
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Fighting on the Volkhov Front: The First Soviet Counteroffensive at Leningrad
By Pat McTaggartThe great city of Leningrad was being strangled, its people dying by the thousands.
Death came in many ways. Read more
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Melee for the Manhay-Grandmenil Sector in the Bulge
By Kirk A. FreemanThe young men of Companies H and I of 3rd Battalion, 517th Parachute Regiment (PIR) were about to move out for their assault on the crossroad town of Manhay, Belgium. Read more
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Zemke’s Wolfpack: Famed P-47 Fighter Group
By Kelly BellOn May 4, 1943, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 56th Fighter Group was ordered to meet a formation of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers returning from a run over Antwerp, Belgium. Read more
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Wingate’s Operation Thursday: Genius or Ineffectual?
By Jon DiamondThe interest in Brigadier Orde Wingate, founder and leader of the Commonwealth Chindits or Special Force, persists to this day, more than 75 years after his fiery death after his B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed in the hills of India. Read more
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Dudley Clarke’s Commandos
By Jon DiamondAfter the British Expeditionary Force’s (BEF) debacle at Dunkirk in northern France in May 1940, the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, needed a novel type of fighting force to strike back at Nazi Europe. Read more
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Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’s Drive to the Don
By Pat McTaggartRostov was the key to the Caucasus and the rich Soviet oil fields that lay along the Black and Caspian Seas. Read more
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Seaplane Destroyers in the Pacific
By Gary McintoshThe Fletcher-class destroyer was one of the finest, most versatile warships of World War II. More than 170 of them were built, a figure that far exceeds the total of any other type of warship of the era. Read more
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Game Review: Battlefield 1
By Joseph LusterOne of the most interesting aspects of Battlefield 1’s initial announcement was how oddly novel the entire concept seemed. Read more
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Normandy’s Little Victims
By Kevin HymelWar spared no one. As modern armies clashed in France’s Normandy countryside, French civilians found themselves in the crossfire or on the receiving end of bombs and heavy weapons. Read more
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Greeting the Liberators: The Civilians of Normandy
By Kevin M. HymelThe Germans were gone. After more than four years of occupation, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht had been evicted from France’s Normandy region by the American and British armies. Read more
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Developing the Atomic Bomb
By Michael E. HaskewIn 1938 the Italian Fascist government of Benito Mussolini began enacting a series of laws intended to intimidate, persecute, and otherwise control virtually every aspect of the lives of Italian Jews. Read more
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Roman Disaster at Adrianople
By Alex ZakrzewskiAfter five hours of continuous slaughter, an eerie calm descended on the blood-soaked plain near the Roman city of Adrianople. Read more
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Disaster At Dieppe
By Jon Diamond“Don’t worry men—it’ll be a piece of cake!”
So declared Maj. Gen. John Hamilton “Ham” Roberts while briefing the officers of his 2nd Canadian Infantry Division on the eve of the large-scale Allied raid at Dieppe—a small port city on the northern French coast between Le Havre and Boulogne—scheduled for August 19, 1942. Read more
