WWII
I wrote previously about my guided three D-Day tours in the summer of 2014. I repeated the tour-guiding experience in May and June this year for the Minnesota World War II History Roundtable during a tour of Fifth Army battlefields in Italy. Read more
WWII
Two of America’s most famous senior commanders to emerge from World War II were Eisenhower and MacArthur. These officers were largely responsible for command decisions that resulted in Allied victories in the South Pacific and in Europe. Read more
WWII
On orders from Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, the offensive that resulted in the capture of the Nazi capital of Berlin in April 1945, developed into a race between the army groups of two Soviet commanders, Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. Read more
WWII
The most contentious of command rivalries during World War II involved General George S. Patton, Jr., of the U.S. Read more
WWII
In the misty early morning of February 4, 1944. thousands of Japanese troops marched silently through the jungle in the first move of their counter-offensive against the British-Indian XV Corps attempting to advance south in the Arakan region of Burma. Read more
WWII
The mighty invasion armada for the main thrust at Luzon in the Philippine Islands was being assembled on December 28, 1944. Read more
WWII
A series of swift victories took Japanese troops to the gates of India in 1941-1942 when British and Indian units fell back to the Assam hills northwest of Burma. Read more
WWII
In November 1941, about 150 miles off the west coast of Australia, a singular naval battle was fought that had great implications for all struggles at sea, past and future. Read more
WWII
Germany operated surface auxiliary cruisers, sometimes termed commerce raiders, in both world wars. The defeat of France in June 1940 opened Atlantic Ocean ports to the Germans for the first time, greatly facilitating access to the high seas by such raiders. Read more
WWII
Operation Frantic was a seven-shuttle bombing series conducted by American bomb squadrons operating out of Southern Italy and Great Britain. Read more
WWII
Angelo J. “Red” Mantini was hardly an angel growing up in the small coal-mining towns of western Pennsylvania in the 1930s. Read more
WWII
CONFIDENTIAL TO LEADERS
It is a well-known fact, of course, that any movement needs something to dramatize it, to appeal to the public’s sense of sensationalism. Read more
WWII
The records of the House Unamerican Activities Committee are kept in the National Archives in Washington, DC. The collection of “Unamericans” is stored in pull-out drawers, filling an entire wall in the building’s Legislative Archives. Read more
WWII
She was a beautiful ship, long and sleek and very fast. She was christened Scharnhorst,named for Prussian General Gerhard Scharnhorst,one of the revered founders of the Prussian Army. Read more
WWII
General Joseph Stilwell was one of the United States’ best military commanders, yet in the course of America’s involvement in World War II he never led U.S. Read more
WWII
A few days after the Marines had established a toehold on the island of Guadalcanal, a trio of natives appeared at the mouth of the Tenaru River. Read more
WWII
Staff Sergeant William Nolan dared not raise his hopes this August day in 1945, but something unusual was unfolding. Read more
WWII
When the Nazis paraded in triumph down the Champs Elysees on June 14, 1940, Sara Hauptman shook her fist at them from the crowded Parisian sidewalk. Read more
WWII
The haggard American sailors aboard the limping cruiser hoped that the journey upon which they had just embarked was the long-expected voyage back to the United States. Read more
WWII
In the 1930s Shanghai was in its heyday, a teeming metropolis of some 3.5 million people. The great city was a fascinating blend of cultures, its very existence refuting Rudyard Kipling’s famous aphorism. Read more
