WWII
Analyzing war and its outcomes remains an important exercise—for tactical, political, humanitarian and a whole host of other reasons—though not all critics or analysts will agree on the ideas that emerge from such scholarship. Read more
WWII
By Patrick J. Chaisson
Seaman Franz Machon was enjoying a smoke on deck when lookouts sounded the alarm. “Enemy aircraft!” they shouted before dropping down inside their vessel, a German Type IXC submarine named U-512. Read more
WWII
The heavy staccato thumping of a Browning Automatic Rifle echoed throughout the small French village. “Who’s doing all that firing?” Read more
WWII
When Rashid Ali seized power in Baghdad in 1941, his coup provided Nazi Germany with a key piece of its world strategy for victory. Read more
WWII
By Nathan N. Prefer
Despite his nickname, General Henry Harley (“Hap”) Arnold was unhappy. In early 1945 he was having major problems with one of his own special projects, the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, for which he had often risked his career. Read more
WWII
Not all those who died in World War II died in combat. There were also illness, heart attacks, cancer, friendly fire … and accidents. Read more
WWII
The African American Tuskegee Airmen took the fight to a well-trained and deadly enemy with a ferocity and tenacity that World War II aerial combat required. Read more
WWII
On maps of the Pacific, it’s barely visible––a mere, seemingly insignificant speck in a vast ocean. Its name––unlike Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa––is virtually unknown today. Read more
WWII
Although Britain has a number of war museums, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is acknowledged as the Holy Grail of them all—the one you must visit when in London. Read more
WWII
The large number of Allied prisoners being funneled south to Rennes, France, following the D-Day invasion swelled the German transit camp to capacity so the decision was made to transport the men to permanent locations inside Germany. Read more
WWII
The late summer of 1939 saw Great Britain teetering on the brink of war with Hitler’s Germany. The years of appeasement and vacillation, of meekly acquiescing to Hitler’s insatiable territorial demands, were over at last. Read more
WWII
The small (population 12,000), central-Texas town of Fredericksburg, about an hour’s drive west of Austin and a little more than that northwest of San Antonio, may seem an odd location for the National Museum of the Pacific War until one realizes that Fredericksburg is the hometown of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz––the Eisenhower of the Pacific Theater. Read more
WWII
When it came to the global war against tyranny, America’s blacks would not be denied a stake in the action. Read more
WWII
Of all the better-known Allied aircraft of World War II, the most controversial was Martin’s B-26 Marauder, a twin-engine cigar-shaped medium bomber that was loved by some and hated by many. Read more
WWII
Early in the morning of July 8, 1942, in the calm waters of Caballo Bay south of Corregidor Island in the Philippines, a casco, a 12-foot by 60-foot flat-bottomed wooden diving barge, bobbed placidly in the open water 120 feet above the ocean floor. Read more
WWII
With weapons at the ready, the American squad advanced cautiously on both sides of the tree-lined boulevard toward the German strongpoint in Aachen. Read more
WWII
During World War II, the United States employed 288 submarines, the vast majority of which raided Japanese shipping in the Pacific, thus preventing the enemy’s vital supplies and reinforcements from reaching the far-flung island battlefields. Read more
WWII
Like all Palestinians and most Arabs, Haj Amin al-Hussaini not only looked forward to an Axis Pact victory in World War II but also saw it as a means of defeating what he believed was a joint British-Jewish conspiracy to foist an Israelite homeland on the Middle East that would be to the detriment of his own people. Read more
WWII
By mid-December 1944, the 3rd Battalion, 33rd Armored Regiment, Third Armored Division “Spearhead” had seen plenty of action. Read more
WWII
On August 23, 1939, Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.P. Potemkin, waited at the Moscow Airport for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Read more
