WWII
Captain (Dr.) Willis P. McKee did not like what he was seeing. For several hours now, crowds of panicky civilians had been streaming past his unit’s tent hospital located at a crossroads eight miles northwest of Bastogne, Belgium. Read more
WWII
Julius Boreali’s diary entry from May 29, 1944, is different from the more typical “calm sea, sun shining” entries that precede it: 12:30 am attacked by a group of German planes. Read more
WWII
Aboard one of two LCIs carrying French commandos approaching the Normandy coast, Lieutenant-Commander (Capitaine de Corvette) Philippe Kieffer looked at his watch. Read more
WWII
Patton’s War: An American General’s Combat Leadership, Volume 2 August-December 1944 (Kevin M. Hymel, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO, 2023, 467 pp., Read more
WWII
Just after releasing their bomb-load, flak slammed into the B-17, causing it to go out of control, falling fast. Read more
WWII
In late 1940 and early 1941, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was concentrating on his next great conquest, the Soviet Union. Read more
WWII
On the morning of June 1, 1943, the Douglas DC-3 lifted off from the airport at Lisbon in neutral Portugal. BOAC Flight 777 or Dutch KLM Flight 2L272, as it had been designated, carried 13 passengers and its crew on a flight bound for London. Read more
WWII
In 1944, following the American victories in the South Pacific of operational commanders General Douglas MacArthur in western New Guinea and Admiral Chester Nimitz in the Marianas, American planners considered the next offensive against Japan’s empire. Read more
WWII
In the late afternoon of July 18, 1944, in what was left of the main square of battle-scarred St. Read more
WWII
The U.S. 85th Infantry Division was one of the Allied workhorses in Italy during World War II. Read more
WWII
The German mountain troops were dug into their shallow, frozen foxholes waiting for the enemy ski troops to appear across the horizon. Read more
WWII
On January 26, 1944, in the midst of the Ukrainian winter, the tanks of Gen. Ivan S. Read more
WWII
For the lucky few that got the opportunity, putting on a bathing suit and hitting the waves or pools was a welcome escape from the war. Read more
WWII
He could be described as reckless, impulsive, undisciplined, lucky, fearless, and also as one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of the U.S. Read more
WWII
By late October 1941, the armies of the Third Reich had swept deep into western Soviet Russia. Read more
WWII
Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more
WWII
War clouds gathered rapidly once Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Allied demands that Hitler withdraw his armies went unheeded. 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
On the evening of October 29, 1943, a middle-aged man, innocuous in appearance but for his deep-set, penetrating eyes, appeared at the German embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Read more
WWII
The English officer studied the Burmese river and its surroundings. The area seemed quiet, for the moment peaceful. Read more
