WWII

WWII

Enough Is Enough!

By Colonel Bernd Horn, Canadian Army (ret.)

What drives individuals, or more specifically, units or large parts thereof, to commit acts of mass disobedience? Read more

WWII

Imperial Disaster

By Jeffrey Morris

Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Empire appeared unstoppable. By the summer of 1942, Japan had conquered vast territories across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, shattered Allied naval power, and established a defensive perimeter that seemed nearly impregnable. Read more

WWII

The Power of Cloth

By G. Paul Garson

The evolution of the Nazi-era military wardrobe followed from a long history of European uniforms in general and Imperial German uniforms in particular. Read more

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu holds up six fingers signifying the number of Japanese aircraft that fell to his guns during an eight-minute span on a single mission.

WWII

The Setting Sun

By David H. Lippmann

Once again, the Japanese regarded an upcoming naval engagement as the “decisive battle,” but it had been two years since her aircraft carriers and battleships had emerged from their Inland Sea lairs to menace the United States Navy. Read more

WWII

Lightnings on the Deck

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Second Lieutenant William Capron first saw the attacking Messerschmitts as black dots descending rapidly to ambush his squadron of American fighter-bombers. Read more

Located at Helwan, Egypt, the Middle East Command Camouflage Development and Training Center was a think tank and laboratory for the deception efforts of A Force. Taken in 1941, this photo shows a British tank with its sunshield split during vehicle servicing on the workshop floor.

WWII

Magic in the Desert

By Jon Diamond

In July 1939, Archibald Wavell was named General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of Middle East Command with the rank of full general in the British Army. Read more

Corpsmen attend to a wounded Marine while others bring another wounded man up the beach at Betio. Illustration by Kerr Erby.

WWII

Brutal Battle For Betio

By Steven Weingartner

Betio is the main island of the Tarawa Atoll in the Central Pacific nation of Kiribati, formerly known as the Gilbert Islands. Read more

WWII

The Infamous Thai Declaration

By Bob Bergin

It is a great story, and well known that in January 1942 Thailand’s ambassador to the United States refused to deliver Thailand’s declaration of war to the U.S. Read more

American soldiers rush to cross the captured Ludendorff railroad bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, captured largely intact, by Combat Command B from the 9th Armored Division. The German officers in charge of defending, then destroying, the bridge at Remagen were court martialed and shot.

WWII

The Bridge at Remagen

By Victor Kamenir

By the end of January 1945, Hitler’s desperate Ardennes Offensive had ground to a halt. Though the last-ditch push to the west had inflicted heavy casualties on American forces, it was the German army that suffered irreplaceable losses in men, equipment, and materiel and was no longer capable of offensive operations. Read more

U.S. Navy dive-bombers attack a Japanese cruiser at the Battle of Midway in this painting by Robert Benny.

WWII

Lifting the Japanese Military

By John W. Whitman

Japanese military successes in 1941 and 1942 shocked the West. Behind those successes lay a logistics effort not often appreciated, that of shipping. Read more

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