WWII
In the first installment, a large German force made a surprise counteroffensive against American positons along the Belgian-German border—an operation that became known in the West as “the Battle of the Bulge.” Read more
WWII
BACKSTORY: Unternehmen Wacht-am-Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine), better known in the West as the Battle of the Bulge, had its beginnings following the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life by Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and a group of other high-level plotters who felt that their Führer was not only leading Germany to defeat but also its doom, and thus had to be eliminated. Read more
WWII
On October 18, 1944—the 131st anniversary of the Battle of the Nations’ victory over Napoleon in 1813—Reichsführer-SS (National Leader) Heinrich Himmler stepped up to a microphone to make a national radio address announcing the formation of the Nazi Party-controlled Volkssturm, or People’s Militia. Read more
WWII
BACKSTORY: In World War II, the American submarine force was inordinately small—just 252 total boats, compared to the more than 1,100 deployed by Germany and over 600 built by Japan. Read more
WWII
On the morning of April 18, 1945, amid street fighting in rubble-strewn Nuremberg, Germany, 20-year-old U.S. Read more
WWII
Not long ago, I came across an article about the remains of a carrier pigeon that had been discovered lodged in the chimney of a 17th-century home in the village of Bletchingley, Surrey, some 18 miles due south of London. Read more
WWII
It was November 1, 1944. I, Feldwebel (Technical Sergeant) Gustav Jack Lothar Carl Herbert Julius Hans Jergen Hildebrandt von Lengerke (aka “Jack” Hildebrandt), had just completed a successful strafing run against British General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery’s advancing army along the southern end of the Dutch-Belgian border. Read more
WWII
On the surface it may seem odd that men of conquered nations would eagerly sign up to fight for their masters, but that is exactly what happened in Scandinavia in the 1940s. Read more
WWII
‘‘As I floated down, the whole dropping zone seemed to be on fire; tracer bullets had set the tinder-dry stubble alight. Read more
WWII
Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Japanese Americans, especially those living on the West Coast, were suspected of being possible spies, saboteurs, and disloyal Americans. Read more
WWII
BACKSTORY: After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. Read more
WWII
Almost from the beginning, the fractious alliance that defeated Nazi Germany was in peril. The United States and Great Britain had long distrusted the communist regime of the Soviet Union, and the feeling was strongly mutual. Read more
WWII
In October 1813, the combined allied armies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Saxony, and Württemberg met and defeated the French Grand Armee under Napoleon Bonaparte at the German city of Leipzig, forcing him to retreat and hastening his eventual abdication and exile to the island of Elba. Read more
WWII
It sent Japanese warships to the bottom of the ocean. It pulverized fortifications on Japan’s home islands. Read more
WWII
World War II in the Pacific was fought in thousands of remote locations. The island of Borneo was the site of one of the least known clandestine operations of the conflict, led by an adventurous, but arrogant, anthropologist. Read more
WWII
In 1920, a young, handsome Jewish boy from New Jersey took the train from Grand Central Station to Princeton, New Jersey, where he would enroll that fall. Read more
WWII
The very nature of war means that some participants will be killed and others will be wounded, and some estimate the deaths in WWII to be around 85 million. Read more
WWII
Operation Bagration, the largest operation of World War II, has never been adequately acknowledged in the West to the same extent as a number of smaller campaigns. Read more
WWII
By June 1, 1943, British actor Leslie Howard, 50, was one of the most famous actors in the world, one of the leading male stars of one the greatest box-office draw movies of all time, the 1939 blockbuster Gone with the Wind. Read more
WWII
Without warning, from behind his desk in his miniature coliseum of an office in Rome’s Palazzo Venezia, Benito Mussolini on the morning of May 26, 1940, pronounced those words that were to prove fateful for Italy, fatal for him: “I have sent Hitler a written statement, making it clear to him that I do not intend to stand idly by and that from June 5th I shall be in a position to declare war on France and England.” Read more
