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Boer irregulars use the terrain to their advantages in a bloody clash at the outset of the Second Boer War. With their modern artillery and superior rifles, they proved more than a match for the British.

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‘A Most Lamentable Failure’

By John E. Spindler

It is not always the actions of the brave and mighty that determine a battle’s outcome—victory or defeat can hinge on the most mundane of events. Read more

Marines maintain a M48A3 Patton tank parked in the rocky, red clay soil at Con Thien in a painting by Navy combat artist Verciell Tossey. The outpost was an anchor point in the defense of the northern border of South Vietnam.

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Courageous Stand at Con Thien

By William E. Welsh

As the sun rose on May 8, 1967, it illuminated the 525-foot-high hill known as Con Thien where the Marine Corps had established a firebase two miles south of the Demilitarized Zone in South Vietnam. Read more

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British Disaster at Saratoga

By David A. Norris

Four months earlier Major General John Burgoyne had left Canada with a large army. He intended to deliver a fatal blow to the colonial revolt that had begun on April 19, 1775. Read more

Wellesley salutes soldiers of the 43rd Regiment as they collect their fallen comrades in the aftermath of the battle in south-central Spain.

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Bold Stand at Talavera

By Mike Phifer

Ignoring the scorching summer heat, Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley climbed one of the towers on the ruined estate of Casa de Salinas 80 miles southwest of Madrid, Spain, to survey the surrounding countryside. Read more

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Axis Collapse in Normandy

By Robert L. Durham

German panzergrenadiers surrounded Hill 314 just east of Mortain in Normandy on August 7, 1944, trapping several companies of the 2nd Battalion of the U.S. Read more

Vice Admiral Count D'Estaing arrived in the northeastern Caribbean in December 1778 too late to prevent the British capture of the French colony of St. Lucia.

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French Vice Admiral Charles D’Estaing

By William E. Welsh

In one of those ironic twists of history, French Vice Admiral Count Charles Henri Hector d’Estaing, who led the first French fleet to North America in 1778 to assist the Americans during their revolt against the British crown, never met George Washington. Read more

Union soldiers hold the line in the woods behind Boatswain’s Creek at Gaines' Mill. When the Confederates punched through the Union line, Butterfield seized the colors of the 83rd Pennsylvania and waved them aloft to rally his troops.

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Medal of Honor Recipient Daniel Butterfield

By William F. Floyd Jr.

The series of battles that constituted the Confederate offensive against the Union army on the eastern outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, in summer 1862 would thrust a number of Union officers into the limelight. Read more

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Royal Marine of the 2nd Battalion (1813-1815)

By William E. Welsh, Art by Don Troiani

After nearly 150 years of service to the British crown, the Royal Marines had upwards of 31,000 marines worldwide at the time of the War of 1812, which constituted about 13 percent of the 240,000 British troops under arms around the globe at that time. Read more

The crew of a ZSU-23-4 of President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian Armed Forces stands beside their ZSU-23-4. Introduced as a mobile air defense system during the Cold War in the 1960s, the ZSU-23-4 remains in use in 30 countries.

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The Soviet ZSU-23-4 Anti-Aircraft Platform

By Christopher Miskimon

Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan in March 1986 during the Soviet-Afghan War sought to annihilate a large force of Afghan Mujahedeen fighters that had sheltered in Xadigar Canyon in Kandahar Province. Read more

A single German soldier stands guard over several American prisoners, captured in the confusion on D-Day. At least some of these prisoners were airborne, and Charlie Lefchik shared a similar journey to a prisoner of war camp.

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Riding the German Rail

By Richard A. Beranty

The large number of Allied prisoners being funneled south to Rennes, France, following the D-Day invasion swelled the German transit camp to capacity so the decision was made to transport the men to permanent locations inside Germany. Read more

A frightening sight to the Japanese: the underbelly of a B-29 Superfortress. Some 4,000 of the giant bombers were produced during the war. One of the last two flyable examples is “Fifi,” which was delivered to the USAAF in 1945. It was purchased in 1971, restored, and is flown today by the Commemorative Air Force. It is based at the Vintage Flying Museum at Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Flaming Death in Tokyo

By Nathan N. Prefer

Despite his nickname, General Henry Harley (“Hap”) Arnold was unhappy. In early 1945 he was having major problems with one of his own special projects, the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, for which he had often risked his career. Read more

English longbowmen shower the French with arrows from a forecastle at Sluys. The longbow, with its rapid rate of fire and superior range, proved more valuable than the French crossbow at Sluys.

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Bloody Revenge at Sluys

By Eric Niderost

It was late afternoon on June 24, 1340, when the English fleet arrived off the Flanders coast, just short of the Zwin estuary, reputed to be the finest harbor in Europe. Read more

In this detailed painting by artist Rick Reeves titled Avengers of Bataan, soldiers of the U.S. 38th Infantry Division advance toward Japanese positions while under heavy fire during the bloody battle for Zig Zag Pass.

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Back to Bataan

By Nathan N. Prefer

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese caught the United States Army Air Forces units in the Philippines on the ground late on December 8. Read more

A Greek trireme rams a Persian trireme in Salamis Bay while hoplites and archers engage each other with spears and arrows.

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High Stakes at Salamis

By Erich B. Anderson

As the sun rose shortly after dawn on a morning in late September 480 BC, 170 rowers densely packed on three tiers within an Athenian warship strenuously pushed their oars to propel their vessel forward as fast as possible. Read more

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The U.S. Army M1910 Pattern Combat Equipment Web Belt

By Peter Suciu

The American combat soldier today looks quite a bit different from his ancestor of 100 years ago. Besides the style of uniform, which now features a digital camouflage pattern to blend into desert surroundings, the fabrics today are far more breathable than the heavy wool that was worn when American soldiers went “Over There” in World War I. Read more

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu, who shot down six Japanese aircraft in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, takes off in his F6F Hellcat from the deck of the USS Lexington in a painting by Nicolas Trudgian. By 1944 the Japanese carrier fleet had only half the number of aircraft of the United States, making it highly unlikely they would reverse the tide of the War in the Pacific.

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Carrier Clash in the Marianas

By Chuck Lyons

The Philippine Sea encompasses two million square miles of the western part of the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by the Philippine Islands on the west, the Mariana Islands on the east, the Caroline Islands to the south, and the Japanese Islands to the north. Read more

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Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory

By John Walker

After an almost uninterrupted, four-month-long string of Union successes beginning in early 1862, followed by the advance of a 100,000-man enemy army to the eastern outskirts of its capital at Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy suddenly found itself in a life-or-death struggle for its very survival. Read more

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