WWII
Under a midnight moon, hundreds of soldiers crept forward into position along the riverbank. Fields of tall reeds helped conceal them from observation but could not muffle the sounds of weary men slipping in the mud. Read more
WWII
On April 1, 1945, the American X Army landed at Okinawa, just 340 miles from the home islands of Japan. Read more
WWII
Deception is a vital tool in war. During World War II, the British developed a dummy tank to fool enemy surveillance planes into thinking they had more tanks than they needed, were strong where they were weak, and were preparing to attack where they were not. Read more
WWII
Both sides needed reinforcements.For the Japanese and the Americans in October 1942, the battle for Guadalcanal was turning into a bottomless pit, demanding more and more scarce resources—in the air and at sea and, most importantly, on the ground. Read more
WWII
Saipan’s shallow, tropical lagoons are a veritable waterpark for World War II enthusiasts who do not mind getting wet. Read more
WWII
The iconic photograph the Blinded Soldier, New Guinea taken on Christmas Day 1942, reveals a wounded and barefoot Australian soldier, Private George “Dick” Whittington of the 2/10th Battalion, being led down a path through a surrounding field of tall kunai grass to an Allied field hospital at Dobodura in Papua, the eastern third of the world’s second largest island, New Guinea. Read more
WWII
As soon as the British radio operator started batting out the distress signal on December 2, 1939, the German pocket battleship opened up with a 37mm gun. Read more
WWII
During the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle America has ever fought, Hitler chose the Sixth Panzer Army for the German juggernaut’s most important role. Read more
WWII
The deliberate crashing into enemy targets by Japanese aviators did not begin at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. Read more
WWII
At about 8 am on the morning of December 7, 1941, I stood on the third-floor deck of a red brick barracks that looked across the Schofield Barracks golf course toward the infantry barracks that housed much of the U.S. Read more
WWII
While America and Europe struggled through economic depression and nervously watched the spread of fascism in the second half of the 1930s, the situation was far more ominous in the Far East. Read more
WWII
An Associated Press report described “a chorus of hisses and boos” that echoed through the chamber when the Congresswoman from Montana cast her vote. Read more
WWII
As soon as Colonel James Doolittle’s B-25 raid struck Japan in April 1942, Japan sought to wreak revenge on the United States, but by 1944 devastating aerial bombings on Japan by the Americans had become all too regular. Read more
WWII
Brigadier Eric Dorman-Smith, serving as a liaison to Lt. Gen. Richard O’Connor during Operation Compass, the Western Desert campaign, traveled to General Archibald Wavell’s Middle East Command headquarters in Cairo on February 12, 1941, to seek permission to advance British XIII Corps farther west to Tripoli after the total victory over the Italian Xth Army at Beda Fomm, which gave Britain and her Commonwealth Allies control of the Cyrenaican half of Libya. Read more
WWII
When it came to advanced military technology in World War II, arguably no one was better at it than Nazi Germany, whose scientists Adolf Hitler keep busy trying to invent the ultimate “super weapon” capable of defeating his enemies. Read more
WWII
Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more
WWII
The German Panzer-kampf-wagen V (Panther) tank was superior to the American M4 Sherman in almost every respect, but it could not guarantee victory at every encounter. Read more
WWII
On Saturday, December 6, 1941, a Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson bomber on a reconnaissance mission from Khota Bahru on the west coast of Malaya was flying northwest over the China Sea toward the Gulf of Thailand. Read more
WWII
On April 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Reich Chancellor and Führer of Germany, emerged from his underground bunker in the center of Berlin. Read more
WWII
After overrunning France and other Western European countries in 1940, Adolf Hitler was certain that the Allies would one day attempt to invade the European continent and attack through the occupied countries to destroy his regime. Read more
