WWII
While supply and logistics may seem like dull, dry topics, they are absolutely essential to military operations, for no victory can be achieved without a steady, uninterrupted flow of food, fuel, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, and other key matériel. Read more
WWII
Unlike many of the paratroopers in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Lieutenant John J. Dolan knew exactly where he was when he landed on June 6, 1944. Read more
WWII
In 1941-1942, British journalist Alistair Cooke traveled through the United States. In his description of his trip, American Home Front 1941-1942, he reported stopping for breakfast at a restaurant in West Virginia where, “the sugar was rationed at breakfast, and there was a note on the menu requesting that … in the interests of ‘national defense,’ keep to one cup of coffee.” Read more
WWII
Army commanders understand that the key to dealing with an enemy breakthrough is to slow the enemy’s advance and prevent the breach from widening—that is, “holding the shoulders.” Read more
WWII
In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, the largest armada ever sent into war assaulted the coast of France at Normandy. Read more
WWII
Colonel Ed Raff kept glancing at his wristwatch while trying to control the growing sense of dread inside him. Read more
WWII
Sergeant Larry Kirby will always remember the fighting on the morning of March 12, 1945, as his unit, Easy Company, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, attempted to move against Hill 362C under the cover of darkness in northeastern Iwo Jima. Read more
WWII
An estimated 1.2 million people were employed by the German ground-based air-defense system by the end of the war in Europe. Read more
WWII
By Mason B. Webb
After the debacle at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States realized that it had its hands full. Read more
WWII
Powerful, brisling with firepower and able to carry an amazingly large bombload, the majestic Avro Lancaster, along with the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, has come to symbolize the might of the Royal Air Force in World War II. Read more
WWII
In the summer of 1944, the Third United States Army under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton made a spectacular dash across France, a daring advance that ranks high on the list of great military endeavors. Read more
WWII
The Spanish-American War saw the development of the torpedo as we know it today. It was not the static mine of the Civil War but a propeller driven, waterborne explosive device. Read more
WWII
By Joshua Shepherd
At midnight of June 6, 1944, a trio of Halifax bombers, each towing a Horsa glider, roared above the black waters of the English Channel. Read more
WWII
No one ever used the words “graceful” or “elegant” to describe the M3 submachine gun. Instead, those soldiers, sailors and Marines who carried it called the M3 a “plumber’s nightmare” or “the cake decorator.” Read more
WWII
Just after midnight on February 9, 1945, across the diamond-shaped mass of forest, hills, and flooded terrain that defined the Reichswald, rain fell in a steady downpour upon a battlefield that had already seen some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Read more
WWII
Even today, they don’t like to talk about the St. Nazaire raid.
Compared to the thousand-plane raids that went deep into Germany later in World War II, the January 3, 1943, bomber mission from England to the coast of German-occupied France was small and spanned only a modest distance. Read more
WWII
A Handful of Heroes: Rorke’s Drift Facts, Myths and Legends (Katie Stossel, Pen and Sword Books, South Yorkshire UK, 2022, 201 pp., Read more
WWII
Early on the morning of Sunday, October 15, 1944, a platoon of the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) waited on a hill for its first action in the rugged Vosges Mountains of eastern France. Read more
WWII
Itching for sea duty but forced to cool his heels with shore assignments, 40-year-old U.S. Navy Captain Daniel V. Read more
