WWII

WWII

The Scholarly Spies

Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more

WWII

The “Nazi Account” Controversy

On Capitol Hill Tuesday, February 3, executives from the Swiss financial giant UBS were grilled by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and the U.S. Read more

WWII

Devils in the Forest

The German paratroopers marched the captured Canadian officer through the dark forest to the damp underground bunker that served as their platoon headquarters. Read more

WWII

How The RAF’s Eagle Squadrons Joined the Eighth Air Force

“We went to London in ones and twos during our precious 24-hour passes to transfer and pick up our U.S. Read more

WWII

Daredevil Tankers Turn the Tide at the Bulge

“Peiper must be stopped!”

Lieutenant General Courtney M. Hodges, commanding the U.S. First Army, looked up from his maps and saw chaos everywhere. Read more

WWII

The USCGC Taney: Pearl Harbor and Beyond

Built in the mid-1930s as one of the famed Treasury class of large U.S. Coast Guard cutters, USCGC Taney had a distinguished career spanning five decades of continuous service. Read more

WWII

Some sixty years later, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler’s death remains shrouded in mystery.

On Monday, May 21, 1945, men of the British 51st Highland Division were busy screening Germans and foreign nationals, mainly displaced persons attempting to go west over a small bridge near newly conquered Bremervoerde, Germany. Read more

WWII

Red Army Airborne Assault

Operation Typhoon, Germany’s final effort to capture Moscow, ground to a halt within sight of the Soviet capital as the temperatures hovered between -30ºF and -40ºF in early December 1941. Read more

WWII

The Fieseler Storch Fi 156

On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more

WWII

German Intelligence Chief Wilhelm Franz Canaris

In most popular spy thrillers, secret agents are tall, handsome, virile, and irresistible to women. Whether their name is Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, or James Bond, all are hard-drinking, well-tailored ladies’ men. Read more

WWII

A Bedford Boy at Omaha Beach

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

The Survivor of the Sinking of U-451

Oberleutnant zur See Walter Köhler floated alone in the freezing Atlantic in the predawn hours of December 21, 1941. Read more

WWII

Mystery at the Battle of Ramree Island

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

9 World War II Book Reviews for Spring 2026

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

Philip Neame

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

Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa

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

Allies’ Failure To Assist Jews During Holocaust Continues To Stir Debate

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

Queen of the Desert: The Infantry ‘Matilda’ Tank

The origins of the Matilda Tank or “I” Tank date back to 1934, when Maj. Gen. Percy C.S. Read more

WWII

Normandy Breakout

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

Battle of Rennell Island: A Fiery End for the USS Chicago

With bond clerk Marge Henning standing by as a witness, Colonel Frank Eldridge removed the first piece of the puzzle. Read more