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After crushing the first-line Soviet armies in brutal three-week cauldron battles at the border, the steamroller of German Army Group Center continued deeper into Soviet territory during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more
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The fighting at Orsha saw the first battlefield use of the Red Army’s experimental battery of BM-13 multiple-launch rocket systems. Read more
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Around 10 o’clock on the morning of December 13, 1937, New York Times correspondent Hallett Abend received an unexpected visitor: Rear Admiral Tadao Honda of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Read more
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“The problem,” a member said, “is to make yourself so much master over the appalling difficulties of nature—heat, thirst, cold, rain, fatigue—that, overcoming these you yet have physical energy and mental resilience to deal with the greater object, the winning of the war.” Read more
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The U-boat landings of German spies off the coast of Long Island during Operation Pastorius were not the only instances of U-boats putting German agents ashore on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Read more
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It was just about midnight on June 12, 1942, and the Abwehr (Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency) hoped that Dasch and his three men, along with another four-man group to be put ashore on the coast of Florida, would be able to destroy factories of the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) located in the United States. Read more
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On the evening of June 16, 1940, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain was appointed Prime Minister of France. It was a critical time. Read more
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On May 27, 1945, U.S. Naval Reserve Lieutenant Leo Kennedy was patrolling from his station at Yonton Field in Okinawa. Read more
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“I’ve been old in all my ranks,” said Henri Philippe Pétain, created Marshal of France on December 8, 1918, at age 62. Read more
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Military posters played a crucial role in motivating Americans to do their best and make sacrifices—of all kinds—during World War II. Read more
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At 12:30 am, October 9, 1943, Commander Edward S. Hutchinson spotted his first targets as a submarine commander. Read more
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World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor. Read more
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He was, in the truest sense, a national hero. Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France, the hero of Verdun, is, however, best remembered in the modern world as a traitor, a collaborationist who sacrificed the honor of France to make a deal with Hitler and the Nazis. Read more
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In the annals of World War II, one of the most famous airplanes is the British-developed Supermarine Spitfire, an agile, elliptical-wing fighter that has become synonymous with the Royal Air Force victory in the Battle of Britain. Read more
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The image of Red Army soldiers hoisting their hammer and sickle emblazoned banner atop the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament, is a classic photo of World War II, an image that told the world Nazi Germany was at last finished. Read more
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During World War II, naval mines were used extensively in the Baltic Sea. Their low cost provided weaker German and Finnish fleets with an effective force multiplier in negating Soviet numerical and qualitative advantages. Read more
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Lawyer, poet, and Maryland militiaman Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was born in Frederick County, Md. He graduated from St. Read more
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Duty in the British Merchant Navy was hazardous during World War II. Braving the stormy Atlantic, the expanse of the Pacific, and the daily rigors of life aboard ship were challenging enough during peacetime; however, during the dark days of the war a determined enemy, bent on bringing the island nation and its far-flung empire to their knees, unleashed a vicious campaign against Britain’s merchant lifeline. Read more
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As the submarine USS Cod left Apra harbor, Guam, on the afternoon of June 26, 1945, for her seventh war patrol, her crew of 97 officers and enlisted men were all but certain that their new assignment was to be junk hunting—a thankless and dangerous job that in the words of one Cod crewman saw “Uncle Sam risk a seven million dollar submarine and crew to sink a leaky sailboat not worth more than $20,000!” Read more
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Admiral Ernest King could not believe what he was reading. The graying 63-year-old chief of U.S. naval operations had been awoken from his sleep. Read more
