WWII
Captured at the Bulge
By Kevin M. HymelPrivate Leon Goldberg pulled the trigger on his heavy, water-cooled M-1917 Browning machine gun and fired bursts of .30-caliber rounds into the attacking German infantry. Read more
WWII
WWII
Night Battleship Action Off Guadalcanal
By David Alan JohnsonRear Admiral Willis Augustus Lee has been called, among other things, “one of the best brains in the Navy.” Read more
WWII
A D-Day Theme Park?
In the midst of numerous observations around the globe to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the most cataclysmic collective event in human history, comes a puzzling—if not downright troubling—business venture that calls into question just how future generations may perceive the events of the great conflict. Read more
WWII
D-Day Capture of Les Moulins Draw
By Kevin M. HymelTwelve Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVPs) carrying Captain William Callahan’s F Company and Captain Eccles Scott’s G Company—some 400 men—slapped the English Channel’s rough waves as they approached Omaha Beach’s Les Moulins Draw. Read more
WWII
The M29 Weasel: The WWII Track Vehicle Never Used as Intended
By Bob GordonThe M29 Weasel was a machine conceived by a bizarre British chemist obsessed with ice for a unit that did not exist and a mission that never occurred. Read more
WWII
Easy Company Mortarman
By Kevin M. HymelThe green light lit up the inside of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain’s fuselage, and 20 paratroopers from Easy Company’s Stick 70, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division charged out the door. Read more
WWII
Ordnance: The Piper L-4 “Eyes in the Sky”
By Arnold BlumbergDespite being caught up in the tide of isolationism prevalent duringthe interval between the world wars, the United States Army was lucky enough to have Congressional funding for the further development and expansion of its fledgling air arm, known initially in 1926 as the Army Air Corps and in 1941 renamed the Army Air Forces. Read more
WWII
Adolf Hitler’s Last Birthday.
On April 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler observed his 56th, and last, birthday. There was little to celebrate. The so-called “Thousand Year Reich” was in its death throes after only 12. Read more
WWII
Italian War Criminal Rodolfo Graziani
By Blaine TaylorThe town of Affile in Italy’s Lazio region erected a mausoleum to Italian Army Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in August 2012. Read more
WWII
U.S. Paratrooper Left for Dead at Nijmegen
By Christopher MiskimonAs Gene Metcalfe floated down toward the earth in his parachute, the first thing he saw below him was a German soldier walking down a path with girl on his arm. Read more
WWII
Great Raid on Cabanatuan
By Charles W. SasserOn January 30, 1945, a group of U.S. Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts, and Filipino guerrillas set out on a daring nighttime raid on Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines. Read more
WWII
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest: A Tactical Nightmare for Allied Forces
By Michael D. HullGray skies hung low and a steady drizzle dripped through the tall, dense fir trees near the German-Belgian border on the morning of Thursday, November 16, 1944, during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Read more
WWII
D-Day Landing at Omaha Beach
By Joshua ShepherdAs their landing craft plunged through heavy surf on the morning of June 6, 1944, it was obvious to the men of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Read more
WWII
Was Justice Served After the Malmedy Massacre?
By Michael E. HaskewIt was a dismal day, Sunday, December 17, 1944, just hours after the Germans had broken through the thinly held American lines in the Ardennes Forest along rugged terrain of the Western Front. Read more
WWII
Heroic Warsaw Airlift
By Patrick J. ChaissonWarsaw was burning. Captain Jack Van Eyssen first saw it as a dull glow on the night horizon, 35 miles distant. Read more
WWII
Junkers Ju-87 Stuka: What Made the Luftwaffe Vulture so Fearsome
By Michael D. HullOne of the deadliest and most effective airplanes of the Axis powers, the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka, owed its origin to a fearless World War I ace and, ironically, to innovative American aviation visionaries in the peaceful early 1930s. Read more
WWII
Battle of Berlin Prelude: Küstrin, and Death on the Oder
By Pat McTaggart“We felt that we were already dead men,” wrote former Captain Albrecht Wüstenhagen in a May 1988 letter to the author of his time in the fortress garrison of Küstrin. Read more
WWII
Profiles: ROTC Success
By Bruce PettyMore than 16 million Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, but as fluid as the situation was in the Pacific, and considering the priority given to the European Theater, it is difficult to obtain an accurate count of how many served in the Pacific at any one time during World War II. Read more
WWII
The T-34 Tank: The Story of Soviet Russia’s Rugged Armored Vehicle
By Phil ZimmerDecember 1941 was a dark month and the end of a dark year for the Soviets as the Germans pressed ever onward toward Moscow, the lair where Joseph Stalin and his minions plotted what to do next against the Nazi juggernaut that had, in a few short months, rolled over everything before them. Read more
WWII
A Tale of Two German Snipers on WWII’s Eastern Front
By Phil ZimmerThe three Soviet T-34 tanks edged forward slowly as the drivers scanned for the concealed Germans that lay ahead. Read more
