WWII
Himmler’s Recruits
By John Osborn, Jr.In August 1942, with Operation Barbarossa at its height, the invader in coal shuttle helmet and field gray uniform crawled on his elbows through brush up the hillock, pistol in his right hand. Read more
WWII
WWII
Hitler’s Iron Fist
By Allyn VannoyHitler’s Germany was known for its organization and efficiency, as well as its deprivations, terror, and cruelty. This was exemplified in its security forces. Read more
WWII
Australia’s Backyard Wars
By John BrownIn June 1943, with the war on the island of New Guinea in its last stages, a proposal was under discussion in Washington that the huge Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain be bypassed and “left to wither on the vine.” Read more
WWII
Interview with a Screaming Eagle
By Brandt HeatheringtonReginald Alexander was born in Gardnerville, Nevada, in 1924 to Scottish émigré parents who were originally from Westcolvin, Scotland. Read more
WWII
Nuremberg Prosecutor: Brigadier General Telford Taylor
By Blaine TaylorOn March 23, 1991, at a reunion of the postwar Nuremberg International Military Tribunal staffers in Washington, I had occasion to meet the former American prosecutor, Brigadier General Telford Taylor. Read more
WWII
From Doughboy to GI Helmet
By Earl RickardWhen the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more
WWII
Beasts of War
By Chuck LyonsNot all World War II heroes were men or women. Some were four-legged, hoofed, or winged. They included horses and mules, elephants, and dogs as well as more exotic animals such as bats, camels, reindeer, and pigeons. Read more
WWII
Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe
Roy Morris Jr.Among the thousands of American soldiers slogging through the miserable winter of 1944 in southern Italy after the Allied landing at Anzio were two GIs who existed only on paper, but who became as real to their readers as the mud-covered, K-ration-eating guys sitting next to them in their foxholes. Read more
WWII
Vinegar Joe and the Burma Road
By William StroockWhen the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Joseph Stilwell was already a highly regarded officer. Read more
WWII
Island-Hopping at Tarawa
By John WalkerRear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, commander of the elite Japanese garrison entrenched on tiny Betio Island in the central Pacific Ocean, boasted in mid-1943 that his heavily fortified island redoubt could hold out “against a million Americans for a thousand years.” Read more
WWII
Recently released documents remind the world of Adolf Eichman’s denial of wrongdoing.
When an Israeli tribunal found Adolf Eichmann, the right hand of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against Poles, Gypsies, and Slovenes, and membership in the Nazi Gestapo, SS, and SD—all three deemed criminal organizations by the Free World—he remained obstinate. Read more
WWII
The Last Days of World War II
By Christopher MiskimonGriefswald, a small German city on the Baltic Coast, lay directly in the path of Soviet tanks on April 30, 1945. Read more
WWII
Civilization Under Siege
As you may know, we produce this magazine several months in advance of its publication date, so this editorial will be “old news” by the time you read it. Read more
WWII
Adolf Hitler’s Time in Landsberg Prison
By Michael HaskewWhen the Nazi party attempted to seize power in the Bavarian capital of Munich in November 1923, a number of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted ruffians were killed or injured when the right-wing marchers were confronted by troops loyal to the government. Read more
WWII
Mildred Gillars (a.k.a. ‘Axis Sally’) in WWII
“This is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen.” Read more
WWII
The Race To Messina: George S. Pattons’ Fall From Grace
By Maj. Gen. Michael ReynoldsOn August 3, 1943, the day that General George S. Patton, Jr., learned that his superior, General Dwight D. Read more
WWII
Operation Uranus: Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s Stalingrad Trap
by Pat McTaggartIn the fall of 1942, in a prelude to the now-famous Operation Uranus, the Red Army had its back to the wall once again. Read more
WWII
One Family’s Ordeal
By Christopher MiskimonIt was early in the morning of June 14, 1940, when the Third Reich arrived in Paris. The defeat of France was nearly complete, with French and British forces in retreat. Read more
WWII
FDR’s Dilemma: Did Politics Trump Strategy?
By Robert A. RosenthalIt was late November 1943, almost two years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II. Read more
WWII
The Thompson Gun’s Curious History, from World War I to World War II
By Arnold BlumbergIn 1917, when America entered the First World War, the United States Army tasked Brigadier General John T. Read more
