WWII
When built, the French Surcouf was the largest submarine in the world. She was named for Robert Surcouf, the famed French privateer who waged successful economic warfare against England during the Napoleonic era. Read more
WWII
After Adolf Hitler’s audacious invasion of Russia finally ground to a halt in December 1941 on the forested outskirts of Moscow, the exhausted German Army stabilized its winter front in a line running roughly from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. Read more
WWII
As Allied troops advanced along a broad front toward Nazi Germany in the winter of 1945, the United States Army was eager to capture an intact bridge over the Rhine River to allow its troops and heavy equipment to advance rapidly into Germany. Read more
WWII
Throughout World War II, the British Admiralty’s deepest concern was the all-important shipping lanes that supplied their island fortress. Read more
WWII
Eugene Sledge knew a thing or two about combat fatigue. It was September 15, 1944, on a tiny spit of land called Peleliu: the Japanese opened up with heavy mortar fire just as the Marines moved off the beach and started inland. Read more
WWII
To bring soldiers swiftly and silently onto a battlefield, the U.S. Army decided to follow the German and British examples and build tactical gliders. Read more
WWII
When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to organize guerrilla resistance against the Nazis, he famously ordered it to set Europe on fire. Read more
WWII
Historian Christian Wolmar concludes that the two world wars could not have been fought to such devastation without military railways, in his book Engines of War. Read more
WWII
On January 9, 1945, after almost three years, General Douglas MacArthur and the United States Army returned to the Philippine island of Luzon, landing at Lingayen Gulf on the northwest coast. Read more
WWII
On a darkened airfield at 2230 hours on June 5, 1944, a reinforced company of British gliderborne infantry, D Company of the Second Battalion, Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox & Bucks), boarded gliders, prepared to start the invasion of France. Read more
WWII
Why was Myitkyina such an important objective in the reconquest of Burma in 1943 through 1944 for the Allies and especially among them, Lt. Read more
WWII
In the closing months of World War II, Staff Sergeant Henry E. “Red” Erwin, Sr., picked up a burning phosphorus flare inside the cramped fuselage of his Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber high over Japan. Read more
WWII
Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Leningrad. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Read more
WWII
The smoke had barely cleared from the battlefields of North Africa when the victorious Allies turned their attention northward to Europe. Read more
WWII
Hedy Lamarr was the most beautiful actress of her generation, a celluloid diva who was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, sensuality, and sophistication. Read more
WWII
“Colonel, there’s about 3,000 Japs between you and me.” Sergeant Ralph Briggs telephoned the command post of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment at about 9:30 on the night of October 24, 1942, to report what he had just seen. Read more
WWII
As the Allied armies advanced across Western Europe in the summer of 1944, the First Canadian Army undertook the task of clearing the coastal areas and opening the Channel ports. Read more
WWII
For the cold and hungry GIs of Company B, 1/401st Glider Infantry Regiment, holding the western approach to Bastogne would push the men to the limits of their endurance. Read more
WWII
British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery has gone down in history as the victor of El Alamein and the relentless nemesis of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s famed “Desert Fox.” Read more
WWII
Months after the Red Army stormed across the Polish frontier from the east and occupied approximately half of Poland in the autumn of 1939, the Soviet secret police (NKVD) rounded up thousands of Polish Army officers and summarily executed them at various locations around the war-torn country. Read more
