WWII

WWII

Bitter Fight at Gela

The smoke had barely cleared from the battlefields of North Africa when the victorious Allies turned their attention northward to Europe. Read more

WWII

Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel

Buried in the October 24, 1944, edition of the New York times was the headline: “German Ex-Officer Held as Nazi Spy: Captain in Kaiser’s Army, 62 and Foster Daughter Accused of Sending Ship Data Before U.S. Read more

WWII

Hedy Lamarr: Allied Inventor and Actress

Hedy Lamarr was the most beautiful actress of her generation, a celluloid diva who was the epitome of Hollywood glamour, sensuality, and sophistication. Read more

WWII

The Battle for Henderson Field: the Harrowing Fight on Guadalcanal

“Colonel, there’s about 3,000 Japs between you and me.” Sergeant Ralph Briggs telephoned the command post of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment at about 9:30 on the night of October 24, 1942, to report what he had just seen. Read more

WWII

Battle of the Scheldt Estuary

As the Allied armies advanced across Western Europe in the summer of 1944, the First Canadian Army undertook the task of clearing the coastal areas and opening the Channel ports. Read more

WWII

Battle at Crossroads X: Glidermen of Bastogne

For the cold and hungry GIs of Company B, 1/401st Glider Infantry Regiment, holding the western approach to Bastogne would push the men to the limits of their endurance. Read more

WWII

Sir Claude Auchinleck: The Overshadowed Equal to Erwin Rommel

British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery has gone down in history as the victor of El Alamein and the relentless nemesis of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s famed “Desert Fox.” Read more

WWII

What did FDR know about the Katyn Forest Massacre?

Months after the Red Army stormed across the Polish frontier from the east and occupied approximately half of Poland in the autumn of 1939, the Soviet secret police (NKVD) rounded up thousands of Polish Army officers and summarily executed them at various locations around the war-torn country. Read more

WWII

Was Admiral Richmond K. Turner One of the Worst of WWII’s Leaders?

Historical controversy has famously surrounded Admiral Richmond K. Turner. In his responsibility as Director of the War Plans Division, he was to inform Admiral Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, of Japanese diplomatic threats alluding to military retribution for souring political relations. Read more

WWII

WWII Aircraft: The Arado Ar-234 Blitz Jet

When the Arado Ar-234 Blitz jet bomber first appeared in the skies of Europe, most Allied airmen did not know what it was. Read more

WWII

Mers el Kebir: Why the Royal Navy Sunk the French Fleet in WWII

When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. Read more

WWII

Blunder or Deception? Stilwell at Myitkyina

General Joseph W. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell and his Sino-American Myitkyina Task Force (MTF), in a coup de main attack, seized the vital Japanese-controlled airfield just west of the town of Myitkyina on the great Irrawaddy River in northern Burma on May 17, 1944. Read more

WWII

Nazi Time Capsule Found in Poland

A Nazi time capsule was discovered in Poland, buried in the foundations of the old Nazi training school of Ordensburg Krössinsee. Read more

WWII

Elite paratroop units clashed at Carentan.

The Germans had flooded the plain surrounding the key crossroads of Carentan before the Americans came ashore at Omaha and Utah Beaches on June 6, 1944. 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

George C. Marshall: Architect of Victory

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disturbed in the autumn of 1938 by the Munich agreement, at which the rights of Czechoslovakia were signed away, and by reports of mounting air strength in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Read more

WWII

WWII Vehicles: The Island-Hopping LVT

While making business calls in Tampa, Florida, during the summer of 1980, I spotted a strange looking tracked contraption atop an overgrown pedestal in front of the U.S. Read more

WWII

Hitler’s Lebensborn Children: Kidnappings in German-Occupied Poland

In the summer of 1943, Malgorzata Twardecki, a single mother living in Nazi-occupied Poland, received an ominous order to bring her five-year-old son to the local town council office by 6 the following morning. Read more

WWII

The Japanese Blitz on Bataan

Following their impressive string of victories in Malaya, Hong Kong, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, it appeared that the Japanese were invincible in the early days of World War II. Read more

WWII

Devastating Firestorm: A Gunner in the Superfortress Raid on Tokyo

When the Boeing B-29 Superfortress crews poured out of the briefing at North Field, Tinian, on the afternoon of March 9, 1945, they were disgruntled. Read more