WWII
Watching his forces prepare to attack the Union Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson commented to an aide, “The Institute will be heard from today.” Read more
WWII
“Japan cannot defeat America; therefore, Japan should not go to war with America.” Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, spoke those words to a group of school children as his government contemplated just that. Read more
WWII
Not all of the 68 infantry divisions available to the U.S. Army during World War II were made up of draftees and enlistees. Read more
WWII
The appointment of Erwin Rommel as commander of the 7th Panzer Division (nicknamed the “Ghost Division”) in February 1940 seems, in the light of his many triumphs in France and North Africa, an unremarkable and perfectly natural choice. Read more
WWII
Iron Bottom Sound was full of transport ships unloading supplies in the early afternoon sun on November 12, 1942. Read more
WWII
Private Harry Cruse and the men of the 83th Armored Field Artillery Battalion were waiting for a march order in the snow-swept town of Langlire when they heard an approaching German fighter plane. Read more
WWII
Darwin, Australia, was hot even though it was mid-winter. On the afternoon of July 12, 1942, four newly deployed pilots of the U.S. Read more
WWII
While all the combatant nations engaged in World War I fielded machine guns during the conflict, the British Army’s Vickers was arguably the best medium machine gun of the war, while their Lewis gun—an American design but perfected by the English—was the most effective light machine gun. Read more
WWII
Rarely in the history of warfare had one nation absorbed such numbing losses in so rapid a time as did the United States in the Pacific War’s first five months. Read more
WWII
When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more
WWII
At about 2:30 on the morning of August 21, 1942, U.S. Marine units east of Henderson Field on the embattled island of Guadalcanal were awakened by several bursts of machinegun fire. Read more
WWII
Following the 76th anniversary of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, one is amazed at the number of articles and volumes written about the subject. Read more
WWII
Twenty-four hours earlier, Grazzi had hosted a gala reception for Metaxas and Greece’s figurehead king, George II, at the Italian consulate following a performance of Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly. Read more
WWII
On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more
WWII
In the 1940s, war disrupted the lives of millions of people around the globe: fuel rationing, food rationing, shortages of all kinds, and, of course, the death and destruction that was visited on cities, nations, and whole populations. Read more
WWII
Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot and squadron commander, was considered a hero by men who served under him in the Philippines and who felt they owed their own lives to Ed’s sacrifice. Read more
WWII
The road to Fort Driant began for the United States Third Army when it landed on Utah Beach at 3 pm on August 5, 1944. Read more
WWII
It was early in 1945 when the Battle of Po Valley officially began: from their hiding places in the valley below, the soldiers looked up at the wall of shale looming more than 3,000 feet above them. Read more
WWII
The November 21, 1944, daylight flight of Teddy’s Rough Riders was anything but routine for American pilot Werner G. Read more
WWII
The origins of the Universal Bren Gun Carrier can be traced to the Ford T-powered Carden-Loyd machines developed in Great Britain in the mid-1920s, specifically the Mark VI model of 1927. Read more
