WWII

WWII

Felice Benuzzi’s Extraordinary Climb of Mount Kenya

By Chuck Lyons

Felice Benuzzi’s part in the war may have been a small one, but his story is one of the oddest to come out of World War II. Read more

WWII

Sculpin and Squalus: Fated Sister Subs During The Pacific War

By Eric Niderost

On September 14, 1938, fleet submarine USS Squalus (SS-192) was launched at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. Read more

WWII

Sculpin and Squalus: Instrumental In Changing Face Of Naval Warfare

by Eric Niderost

Early Navy submarines, notably the S-class models, were so dangerous and cramped they were derisively labeled “pig boats.” Read more

WWII

Hans Baur: Hitler’s Pilot Flew Führer Across Europe and History

By Blaine Taylor

Adolf Hitler’s wartime Armaments Minister Albert Speer was right when he termed the Führer’s pilot from 1932 to 1945, Lt. Read more

WWII

Pearl Harbor Aftermath: the Salvage Effort to Keep the Navy Fighting

By Mike McLaughlin

The Pearl Harbor aftermath presented the U.S. Navy with a sobering question: how to recover? More than 2,000 men had died. Read more

WWII

The USS Oklahoma Rescue Mission After Attack On Pearl Harbor

by Mike McLaughlin

During the Pearl Harbor attack, both Utah and Oklahoma capsized after suffering multiple torpedo hits. Utah had been converted to a training ship, and to the Japanese pilots, her modified deck resembled that of an aircraft carrier. Read more

WWII

Prince Paul Karađorđević of Yugoslavia

By Blaine Taylor

On June 2, 1939, the last great prewar military parade of the Third Reich came rolling past the reviewing stand under Nazi eagles with swastikas in their taloned grip in front of the Berlin Technical High School. Read more

WWII

Evans Carlson Forms Carlson’s Raiders

By Michael D. Hull

One of America’s earliest heroes in World War II was the tall, soft-spoken son of a Connecticut Congregational minister who distinguished himself in some of the fiercest fighting in the South Pacific. Read more

WWII

Ernest Hemingway’s War

By Roy Morris, Jr.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the nation’s most famous writer, a man who had built his reputation on gritty and intense novels about wars, soldiers, and “grace under pressure,” was nowhere to be seen—at least not on the home front. Read more

WWII

Consolidated B-24 Liberator: Bomber Turned Transport

by Sam McGowan

Although the Douglas C-47 is usually thought of as the most important transport of the war, in reality it was the transport conversions of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber that opened up the world to the Air Transport Command. Read more

WWII

More on Paul Allen’s Discovery of the Musashi

By Michael E. Haskew

Paul Allen is one of the wealthiest men in the world. In fact, Forbes magazine ranks him 51st with a net worth of approximately $17.5 billion. Read more

WWII

The Battle of France: Furor Teutonicus & Gallic Débâcle

By Blaine Taylor

The year 1939 was one of massive military parades across Europe. On April 20, the largest ever was held in Berlin to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, complete with the paratroopers, wheeled artillery, tanks, half-tracks for motorized infantry, and overhead Luftwaffe fly-bys that would mark the coming campaigns and revolutionize warfare forever. Read more

WWII

May 1940: Allied Leadership Was On the Brink

By Blaine Taylor

In May and June of 1940 the attacking Germans had a supreme authority, Hitler, and an army that—if skeptical, even in places traitorous—was subdued and followed orders with astonishing competence. Read more

WWII

The U.S. Cavalry: Boots, Saddles & Tanks

By Ted Pulliam

On June 15, 1930, a poised cadet from the Virginia Military Institute proudly drove his dilapidated old Ford through the gates of Fort Myer, Va., Read more

WWII

Stuka Legend Hans-Ulrich Rudel

By Michael E. Haskew

The Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber proved itself an effective weapon of terror during the Spanish Civil War as part of Hitler’s Condor Legion. Read more

WWII

Bruno Mussolini’s Untimely Death

by Michael Haskew

The Piaggio P-108 Bombardiere was a promising aircraft. Its four powerful engines and substantial 7,700-pound bomb payload gave it strategic capabilities, the only bomber produced in wartime Italy that could make that claim. Read more

WWII

Operation Torch: The Allied Invasion of North Africa

By Roy Morris Jr.

The Allied decision to invade North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch, was reached in the summer of 1942 after lengthy—and sometimes bitter—arguments between interested parties. Read more

WWII

Benito Mussolini Ousted: Behind His Fall From Power

by Michael Haskew

King Victor Emmanuel III waited impatiently at the Villa Savoia in Rome on the afternoon of July 25, 1943. Read more

WWII

Behind the Names: The Cornell War Memorial

By Flint Whitlock

Whenever I look at names on a war memorial, I can’t help but wonder about who those people were, what they looked like, what kinds of lives they led, and the circumstances of their deaths. Read more

WWII

The Life of a Military Historian: Walking Through the D-Day Invasion

by Flint Whitlock

One of the great things about being a military historian is that you get to go places and meet people you might not ordinarily get to see and meet. Read more