WWII

WWII

Red Army Airborne Assault

Operation Typhoon, Germany’s final effort to capture Moscow, ground to a halt within sight of the Soviet capital as the temperatures hovered between -30ºF and -40ºF in early December 1941. Read more

WWII

The Fieseler Storch Fi 156

On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more

WWII

German Intelligence Chief Wilhelm Franz Canaris

In most popular spy thrillers, secret agents are tall, handsome, virile, and irresistible to women. Whether their name is Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, or James Bond, all are hard-drinking, well-tailored ladies’ men. Read more

WWII

A Bedford Boy at Omaha Beach

Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Teass walked into the Western Union office in the small town of Bedford, Virginia, early on the morning of July 17, 1944, fully expecting a normal day as the teletype operator. Read more

WWII

The Survivor of the Sinking of U-451

Oberleutnant zur See Walter Köhler floated alone in the freezing Atlantic in the predawn hours of December 21, 1941. Read more

WWII

Mystery at the Battle of Ramree Island

The nights were “the most horrible ever experienced,” Bruce S. Wright, a Royal Canadian Lieutenant Commander later wrote about his time in Burma in February 1945. Read more

WWII

9 World War II Book Reviews for Spring 2026

The Hitler Years: Holocaust 1933–1945 (Frank McDonough, Apollo/Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 416pp., Jan. 27, 2026, $45 HC)

Resisting Nazism: True Stories of Resistance to the World’s Most Dangerous Ideology, from 1920 to the Present (Luke Berryman, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY, 296 pp., Read more

WWII

Philip Neame

During the Second World War the Western Desert campaign was a graveyard for the reputations of British generals—all at the hands of the Desert Fox, Gen. Read more

WWII

Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa

Close to the northern end of the island of Tokashiki, the largest member of a tiny group of islands called Kerama Retto, located 15 miles west of Okinawa and hardly 400 miles from the Japanese home islands, Corporal Alexander Roberts and the rest of the 306th Regimental Combat Team rested for the night beneath the starry skies of the northern Pacific. Read more

WWII

Allies’ Failure To Assist Jews During Holocaust Continues To Stir Debate

One of the most enduring questions emerging from World War II is the reaction of the West, and particularly the United States, to the plight of the Jews as they faced Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Read more

WWII

Queen of the Desert: The Infantry ‘Matilda’ Tank

The origins of the Matilda Tank or “I” Tank date back to 1934, when Maj. Gen. Percy C.S. Read more

WWII

Normandy Breakout

On June 6, 1944 the Allies opened the Second Front against Nazi Germany. Concentrated against the beaches of Normandy, Operation Overlord landed 20 army divisions plus support troops on five beaches in anticipation of a breakout across France and toward Berlin. Read more

WWII

Battle of Rennell Island: A Fiery End for the USS Chicago

With bond clerk Marge Henning standing by as a witness, Colonel Frank Eldridge removed the first piece of the puzzle. Read more

WWII

Mildred Gillars (a.k.a. ‘Axis Sally’) in WWII

“This is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen.” Read more

WWII

Italian Sub Luigi Torelli

History has not been kind to the Italian Royal Navy. Since World War II scholars have largely ignored La Regia Marina Italiana and the often pivotal role it played in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. Read more

WWII

Bud Elliott and the Forgotten 40th

The time had finally arrived. They would play second fiddle no more. An armada of American ships stretching as far as the eye could see entered Lingayen Gulf in Northwestern Luzon on the morning of January 9, 1945. Read more

WWII

Bombs Over Balikpapan

Lieutenant Gus Connery and the crew of Juarez Whistle, a Consolidated B-24D Liberator heavy bomber, first spotted their target around midnight. Read more

WWII

20 Million Lives

Citizens of the Soviet Union,” blared the voice of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to a stunned nation on June 22, 1941, “the Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have authorized me to make the following statement: “Today at 4 o’clock am, without any claims having been presented to the Soviet Union, without a declaration of war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders at many points and bombed from their airplanes our cities; Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunus and some others, killing and wounding over 200 persons. Read more

WWII

The Kursk Battle: The Eastern Front’s Turning Point

When they invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Germans were confident of a swift victory over the Russian untermenschen (subhumans). Read more

WWII

The B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the Man Behind the Plane

During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more