WWII
By Kevin M. Hymel
“OH MY GOD!” thought tanker Joe Cotten. “We’re shooting machine guns at a Tiger Royal!” It was late December 1944 in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, near the German border. Read more
WWII
Even in retreat, the German army was formidable. The Allies learned this time and time again on the long road to victory that began in North Africa in late 1942. Read more
WWII
It was a turbulent time, and perhaps when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, it was considered a reasonable response to the perceived treachery of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that had occurred only weeks earlier. Read more
WWII
Several Hollywood stars served proudly in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, including Tyrone Power, Louis Hayward, Lee Marvin, Macdonald Carey, Hugh O’Brian, Bill Lundigan, John Russell, Robert Ryan, Brian Keith, and Peter Ortiz. Read more
WWII
How did we get to dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Who was responsible? Where and when did it begin? Read more
WWII
For William “Red” Verzola, Friday night was the liveliest night of the week. That was when a group of soldiers from Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts, made their regular pilgrimage to Charlie Pino’s Victory Club, just up the road in the tiny town of Norton, to enjoy a few beers and a couple of hours of relaxation. Read more
WWII
“This was war deluxe,” observed Brig. Gen. Frederic B. Butler as his command car entered the French village of Quincon during Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of France in the country’s southern region, in August 1944. Read more
WWII
In October 1939, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill famously described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Read more
WWII
The American Ninth Army’s crossing the Rhine River on March 7, 1945, in the early days of the Battle of Remagen is a well-known chapter of military history. Read more
WWII
By Christopher Miskimon
Historians often compare Adolf Hitler to a gambler. He kept making risky bets that paid off time and again—until they didn’t. Read more
WWII
The German Luger is, most likely, the most famous pistol in modern warfare. Almost every World War II movie ever made featuring German armed forces seems to show it as an integral part of its action sequences. Read more
WWII
The blue arrows on Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third Army situation maps in his mobile headquarters trailer all pointed eastward. Read more
WWII
By Thomas Harper Kelly
On the third anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, men of the Powder Horn Regiment—the 100th Infantry Division’s 399th Infantry Regiment—were poised on the outskirts of the small Alsatian town of Lemberg, France in the northeast. Read more
WWII
Roza Shanina was cute as a kitten, yet as dangerous as a Siberian tiger. The 20-year-old drew many an eye behind Soviet lines in World War II with her striking blue eyes, fair skin, and strawberry blonde hair, but she earned her reputation out front in no-man’s-land. Read more
WWII
George Patton knew exactly what he wanted to be from childhood on. “When I was a little boy at home, I used to wear a wooden sword and say to myself, ‘George S. Read more
WWII
In August 1942, the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion conducted the Makin Island raid in the Central Pacific. The purpose of the raid was to destroy Japanese installations on the island, gather intelligence, and to test the raiding tactics of the U.S. Read more
WWII
In the Grand Alliance volume of Winston S. Churchill’s memoirs of World War II, the British prime minister lambasted Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and his inept government for failing to anticipate Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more
WWII
“The first I saw of Madagascar and the last after adventurous months ashore was the eerie color of the soil,” a British novelist turned security sergeant would write a decade later. Read more
WWII
On the nights of August 21 and 24, 1939, two dark ships slipped out of the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven and turned west toward the English Channel. Read more
WWII
The First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal began with a delay. Shortly before 1:30 am on November 13, 1942, the American cruiser USS Helena spotted a Japanese task force: “Radar contact. Read more
