WWII
In mid-December 1941, during the thick of the Battle of Wake Island, the 400 U.S. Marines who called the island outpost home stood a lonely sentinel in the watery Central Pacific wilderness, like a cavalry fort in an oceanic version of the Western frontier. Read more
WWII
As in thousands of other homes across America, there was an air of tension in the living room of the modest frame house at 98 Adams Street, Waterloo, Iowa, on the afternoon of Sunday, December 7, 1941. Read more
WWII
The Allies eyed New Britain as a key prize in General Douglas MacArthur’s island-hopping strategy, but the ferocious combat—and the terrible weather and terrain—would take its toll. Read more
WWII
It was surely as ungainly a weapon as was ever made, and one of the clumsiest. It was a 3-foot, 32-pound steel tube with a monopod to support it, a huge trigger on the underside, and a padded shoulder piece at one end. Read more
WWII
Sixty-four-year-old Robert Stubbs slowly walked across the playing field of the Staveley Road School in the West London suburb of Chiswick. Read more
WWII
Through the long, lovely days of the summer of 1940, almost two years before Operation Biting or the “Bruneval Raid,” Royal Air Force Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes turned back the might of the Luftwaffe over southern and southeastern Britain. Read more
WWII
Fifty years have gone by since the inception of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., Read more
WWII
Less than a year after the sudden and devastating Japanese attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the American military was about to embark on a large-scale offensive operation against German and Italian forces in North Africa. Read more
WWII
“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more
WWII
The Allied indictment against Hermann Wilhelm Göring (1893-1946) at Nuremberg as issued by the International Military Tribunal in 1945 reads as follows:
“The defendant Göring between 1932-45 was: member of the Nazi Party, Supreme Leader of the SA (Brownshirts), General in the SS, a member and President of the Reichstag, Minister of the Interior of Prussia, Chief of the Prussian Police and Prussian Secret Police, Chief of the Prussian State Council, Trustee of the Four Year Plan; “Reich Minister for Air, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, President of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, member of the Secret Cabinet Council, head of the Hermann Göring Industrial Combine, and Successor Designate to Hitler. Read more
WWII
The psychological and military shock that the Allies experienced when they first encountered Mitsubishi’s legendary A6M2 Zero fighter plane at the beginning of the Pacific War may be difficult to understand today. Read more
WWII
“With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Read more
WWII
At 11:30 pm on December 22, 1948, four handcuffed men were led by guards into the chapel of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. Read more
WWII
World War II was responsible for numerous technological advances, not the least of which was the establishment of the largest airline in history. Read more
WWII
On March 3, 1945, the 27,100-ton aircraft carrier USS Franklin churned out of Pearl Harbor and headed westward for the war zone. Read more
WWII
Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a Soviet Ukrainian tank driver and mechanic who fought on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany during World War II. Read more
WWII
Early in December 1941, Operation Typhoon, the German drive on Moscow, withered in the face of tenacious Soviet resistance and one of the worst Russian winters in living memory. Read more
WWII
In early 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England firmly entrenched in the belief that continuous and accurate daylight precision bombing was the only way to decisively crush German industrial capacity. Read more
WWII
In September 1948, Lt. Gen. Walton Harris Walker, 58, took over command of the Eighth Army on occupation duty in Japan from his predecessor, Robert Eichelberger, a former West Point superintendent and devotee of Allied Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur. Read more
WWII
It was shortly before seven o’clock on the rain-drenched morning of April 27, 1945, the day before the death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more
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