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Moments after hitting the beaches of southern France during Operation Anvil-Dragoon in August 1944, these American soldiers sprint toward the cover of a grove of pine trees. These men are loaded with full packs of equipment and provisions for the long fight ahead.

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From the Alamo to the Riviera

By Bruce L. Brager

Operation Anvil, the invasion of southern France, was originally planned for June 1944, the same time as the Normandy invasion. Read more

A derelict, rusting Quonset hut is all that remains of the sprawling Camp Tarawa on the Big Island of Hawaii.

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Stumbling Over History

Has this ever happened to you? You’re on vacation or taking a trip and unexpectedly you stumble across a piece of history you didn’t even know existed. Read more

One of the B-24 assembly lines at Ford’s Willow Run (Michigan) plant, where one bomber was produced every hour.

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Willow Run Bomber Plant

Samantha L. Quigley

They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more

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Tigers in the Sky

By Christopher Miskimon

America had been at war for less than two weeks when Claire Chennault watched his American Volunteer Group (AVG) take off for its first combat mission. Read more

The cruiser HMNZS Achilles, manned by its crew of New Zealanders, opens fire on the German pocket battleship Graf Spee during the early moments of the Battle of the River Plate. The British naval squadron, which also included the British cruisers Ajax and Exeter, drove the German raider to seek safety in the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay.

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When German dictator Adolf Hitler loosed his troops into Poland on Friday, September 1, 1939, he hoped that a lightning conquest would result in a negotiated peace with Great Britain and France. Read more

During funeral services for Pfc. Felix Longoria on February 16, 1949, family members pause beside the flag-draped casket. Longoria was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery after a funeral home in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, refused to provide services to the Mexican American family.

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The GI Forum

By Mike Shepherd

Hector Garcia was born in Llera, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on January 17, 1914, to schoolteacher parents, Jose Garcia Garcia and Faustina Perez Garcia. Read more

In this painting titled Wounded Warrior by artist Richard Taylor, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed Silver Meteor, heavily damaged during a raid on Munich, Germany, on July 11, 1944, is escorted safely to its base in England by a pair of North American P-51 Mustang fighters. The Mustang provided long-range escort for the heavy bombers penetrating deep into German airspace.

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Little Friends

By Sam McGowan

Undoubtedly, the World War II aircraft type that attracts the most attention is the fighter plane. Yet, before the war, the U.S. Read more

An Sdkfz.261 light armored radio vehicle in Russia in 1941. Scouting vehicles were an integral part of the reconnaissance battalions of panzer and motorized regiments in World War II.

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German light and heavy armored cars enabled scouts to gather vital intelligence for panzer units.

By William E. Welsh

Following World War I, Visionaries within the German Reichswehr formulated and refined concepts for mobile warfare built around tanks. Read more

The vessel is now a museum at Jack London Square in Oakland, California.

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The USS Potomac served as FDR’s floating White House during World War II.

By Eric Niderost

Washington, D.C., is not known for its mild climate, but the summer of 1941 seemed particularly enervating. The city was enveloped in a fierce humid heat that tended to suck the air out of one’s lungs even as it drenched one’s body in perspiration. Read more

Australian, New Zealand, Dutch, and British prisoners of war lay track on the Burma-Thailand “Death Railway” near Ronsi, Burma, 1943. More than 12,000 Allied POWs and tens of thousands of Asian civilian workers died while working on the line. The Japanese needed the railway to supply Japanese forces in occupied Burma and exploit that country’s natural resources.

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Building Burma’s Notorious “Death Railway”

By Mark Simner

“Your heart stops. You feel dizzy and sick. You think you’re going to piss yourself and then you feel the pain. Read more

The battered entrance to Fort Driant after its capture.

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Patton’s Lost Battle

By Duane E. Shaffer

The road to Fort Driant began for the United States Third Army when it landed on Utah Beach at 3 pm on August 5, 1944. Read more

Newly liberated Polish prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp at Hanover-Ahlem queue up to receive rations of soup from American soldiers.

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Henry Kissinger’s World War II

By Tim Miller

In November 1944, a young American soldier wrote back to his parents in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Read more

Smoke and flames billow from the stricken battleship USS West Virginia in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

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Caught in the War

By Jim Campbell

Because it was such a long and cataclysmic event, World War II still resonates with so many of us. Read more

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Filling the Black Hole

By Michael D. Hull

A generally overlooked factor of World War II has been the influence, sometimes highly significant, of nations that remained neutral. Read more

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Charles Edward Stuart Evades the British

One of the “stranger than fiction” stories in military lore involves Charles Edward Stuart’s evasion of British forces following his defeat at Culloden on April, 16, 1746. Read more

The best place to be in an urban battle was next to the buildings where it was possible to find a degree of cover from enemy fire. An American machine-gun team belonging to the 26th Infantry Regiment engages the enemy in mid-October.

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Bloodbath in Aachen

By William F. Floyd Jr.

With weapons at the ready, the American squad advanced cautiously on both sides of the tree-lined boulevard toward the German strongpoint in Aachen. Read more

The Tirpitz fires her 15-inch main guns in the Baltic Sea in 1941. The British Royal Navy saw the huge battle-ship as a threat to merchant vessels and troop convoys bound for the British Isles.

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Saga of the Tirpitz

By Blaine Taylor

April 1, 1939, was a red-letter day in the history of the reborn German Kriegsmarine for two key reasons. Read more

Ottoman gunners played a central role in the siege. Their stone shot brought down whole sections of the city’s massive walls, opening large breaches.

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Medieval Bombards at the Siege of Constantinople.

The Ottoman army’s bombards played a key role in its successful conquest of Constantinople during the epic siege of 1453. In the 15th century the great powers of medieval Europe paid talented gunsmiths to build massive bombards to batter walls and shorten the length of sieges. Read more

Sailors aboard the USS Miami watch as the Rebel ironclad CSS Albemarle attacks the USS Southfield in a painting by Tom Freeman.

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The Plan to Destroy the Albemarle

By David A. Norris

Lieutenant William B. Cushing’s Union Navy steam launch chugged up the dark Roanoke River late in 1864. Read more

An American officer interrogates two recently captured German soldiers somewhere in France.

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A German-American Teen With a Flair for Psychology

By Phil Zimmer

Stephan H. Lewy was young, militarily inexperienced, and A Most unlikely American soldier. Yet when he reached Utah Beach 30 days after D-Day, he was all business as a staff sergeant in U.S. Read more

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From Around the Network

Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Italian Red Shirts

WWII Spies: the Soviet Cambridge Network

Elizabethans vs. “The Naturals”

Broken Lines: The Drunk and the Dead