WWII
During the Battle of the Bulge, Adolf Hitler launched his last great counteroffensive along the Western Front. From full armored divisions running on gasoline fumes to “American schools” teaching spies how to pose as Allied soldiers, Hitler used everything in his arsenal to try to turn the tide of the war. Read more
WWII
The pictures are heartbreaking.
Thousands of refugees fleeing persecution by their government and possible death in their homeland, leaving all their possessions behind, spending their life savings and risking almost anything to escape an existence that had become intolerable. Read more
WWII
During the more than 60 years since the detonation of the first atomic bombs—and the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used operationally—a major debate has erupted over the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Read more
WWII
On August 7, 1945, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, President Harry S. Truman announced, “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. Read more
WWII
After the German Army’s invasion of Russia in June 1941 and the capture of the historic Lithuanian city of Vilnius late that month, Abba Kovner and a group of friends took refuge in a Dominican convent on the city’s outskirts. Read more
WWII
In the words of a veteran of the China-Burma-India Theater, retired Technical Sergeant Edward Rock Jr., [they] “served without a word of complaint or lack of courage. Read more
WWII
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the battleship USS Oklahoma was moored along Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, outboard of the battleship USS Maryland. Read more
WWII
It was Colonel Hiromishi Yahara who designed and implemented the jiykusen, or the yard-by-yard battle of attrition that cost the American forces so many casualties in the three-month battle, and he was the highest ranking officer to survive the battle and make it back to Tokyo. Read more
WWII
Ernie Pyle did not want to go to Okinawa. He was too old, too tired, and—some said—too jaded for yet another American invasion of ferocious enemy territory. Read more
WWII
This article was provided by Martin Cherrett, whose blog, World War II Today, provides a unique way military history enthusiasts can understand and experience the Second World War. Read more
WWII
In the winter of 1942-1943, the Allies had every reason to believe that they were on the verge of total victory in North Africa. Read more
WWII
Normally, the end of combat brings satisfaction and a sense of relief, but the Army infantrymen and Marines who slugged it out with the Japanese at Saipan experienced little of either. Read more
WWII
When the Tokyo War Crimes Trials opened in the former hilltop headquarters of the Japanese military at Ichigaya on May 3, 1946, American-born chief prosecutor Joseph Keenan faced a difficult task. Read more
WWII
During the last days of World War II in Italy, former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was a hunted man. Read more
WWII
With a quarter of a million German troops pouring through the Ardennes Forest, three Americans fleeing in a jeep should have raised no alarm. Read more
WWII
Wednesday, August 23, 1944, was a day of triumph for the Allies in their struggle against the Axis powers. Read more
WWII
“Hitler’s generals, raised on the dogma of Clausewitz and Moltke, could not understand that war is won in the factory.” Read more
WWII
When Adolf Hitler’s last major World War II offensive burst through the chill Ardennes Forest early on December 16, 1944, it scattered American frontline units and caused many anxious hours in the Allied high command. Read more
WWII
At the outbreak of World War II, the British War Office assumed that conditions on the Western Front in France would be the same as those experienced in the Great War of 1914-1918. Read more
WWII
One of the main reasons for the success of the battleships West Virginia, Tennessee, and California at Surigao Strait was their Mk 8 fire control radar, which was used in conjunction with the Mk 8 rangekeeper computer. Read more
