WWII
Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Teass walked into the Western Union office in the small town of Bedford, Virginia, early on the morning of July 17, 1944, fully expecting a normal day as the teletype operator. Read more
WWII
Oberleutnant zur See Walter Köhler floated alone in the freezing Atlantic in the predawn hours of December 21, 1941. Read more
WWII
The nights were “the most horrible ever experienced,” Bruce S. Wright, a Royal Canadian Lieutenant Commander later wrote about his time in Burma in February 1945. Read more
WWII
The Hitler Years: Holocaust 1933–1945 (Frank McDonough, Apollo/Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 416pp., Jan. 27, 2026, $45 HC)
Resisting Nazism: True Stories of Resistance to the World’s Most Dangerous Ideology, from 1920 to the Present (Luke Berryman, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY, 296 pp., Read more
WWII
During the Second World War the Western Desert campaign was a graveyard for the reputations of British generals—all at the hands of the Desert Fox, Gen. Read more
WWII
A full moon in a cloudless sky shone over Germany’s Ruhr Valley on the night of May 16, 1943, meaning that all Royal Air Force (RAF) bombing missions over Nazi Germany had been canceled. Read more
WWII
Close to the northern end of the island of Tokashiki, the largest member of a tiny group of islands called Kerama Retto, located 15 miles west of Okinawa and hardly 400 miles from the Japanese home islands, Corporal Alexander Roberts and the rest of the 306th Regimental Combat Team rested for the night beneath the starry skies of the northern Pacific. Read more
WWII
One of the most enduring questions emerging from World War II is the reaction of the West, and particularly the United States, to the plight of the Jews as they faced Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Read more
WWII
The origins of the Matilda Tank or “I” Tank date back to 1934, when Maj. Gen. Percy C.S. Read more
WWII
On June 6, 1944 the Allies opened the Second Front against Nazi Germany. Concentrated against the beaches of Normandy, Operation Overlord landed 20 army divisions plus support troops on five beaches in anticipation of a breakout across France and toward Berlin. Read more
WWII
With bond clerk Marge Henning standing by as a witness, Colonel Frank Eldridge removed the first piece of the puzzle. Read more
WWII
“This is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen.” Read more
WWII
History has not been kind to the Italian Royal Navy. Since World War II scholars have largely ignored La Regia Marina Italiana and the often pivotal role it played in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. Read more
WWII
The time had finally arrived. They would play second fiddle no more. An armada of American ships stretching as far as the eye could see entered Lingayen Gulf in Northwestern Luzon on the morning of January 9, 1945. Read more
WWII
Lieutenant Gus Connery and the crew of Juarez Whistle, a Consolidated B-24D Liberator heavy bomber, first spotted their target around midnight. Read more
WWII
Citizens of the Soviet Union,” blared the voice of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to a stunned nation on June 22, 1941, “the Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement: “Today at 4 o’clock am, without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunus and some others, killing and wounding over 200 persons. Read more
WWII
When they invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Germans were confident of a swift victory over the Russian untermenschen (subhumans). Read more
WWII
During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more
WWII
Prim, proper, and lacking any trace of braggadocio, the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, preferred placid pastimes and exchanging letters with close friends. Read more
WWII
The HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger liner afloat, took only five days to transport the entire 106th Division from New Jersey to Glasgow, Scotland, making port on November 17, 1944. Read more
