WWII
To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42 (Prit Buttar, Osprey Publishing, Oxford UK, 2023, 464 pp., maps, photographs, notes, bibliography, index, $40, hardcover)
Death and Life in the Big Red One: A Soldier’s World War II Journey from North Africa to Germany (Joseph P. Read more
WWII
In 1982, Captain Bert Earnest and Commander Harry Ferrier were present at an event to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway. Read more
WWII
The pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was conceived as a commerce raider. Along with the other panzerschiffe, literally “armored ships,” of the Kriegsmarine, Graf Spee was heavily armed with 11-inch main guns. Read more
WWII
The 80th Infantry Division’s lineage goes back to the First World War. It was first organized at Camp Lee, Virginia, on August 5, 1917. Read more
WWII
On November 11, 1941, the U.S. Navy gunboats USS Luzon and Oahu were ordered to “make quietly all preparations within the ship for a cruise at sea.” Read more
WWII
It was the third winter in Russia for the men of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South, and things were going from bad to worse. Read more
WWII
It was an impressive sight. Upon the reviewing stand as honored guest was General Dwight D. Read more
WWII
On this writer’s desk sits a small, pewter mug, dented and somewhat bat-tered. It is neatly engraved, and the lettering reads: “Wardroom H.M.S. Read more
WWII
On the island of New Britain, at the north end of the Solomon chain, lay a major base that provided Japanese forces with the naval power, supplies, and reinforcements to control the sea lanes of the Southwest Pacific. Read more
WWII
If there is an American combat airplane that has achieved an ill-deserved reputation, no doubt it would be the much-maligned Bell P-39 Airacobra, a tricycle landing gear single-engine fighter whose reputation was greatly overshadowed by the more famous, and of more recent design, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and North American P-51 Mustang. Read more
WWII
Today, in his nineties, Paul Tibbets is still a handsome man. He has a full head of silver hair. Read more
WWII
To their Russian enemies they were the “Spanish mercenaries of Hitler’s Fascist lackey, Franco.” To Hitler himself, “One can’t imagine more fearless fellows. Read more
WWII
Every man in uniform dreamed of taking that big boat home, but stepping foot on American soil was just part of the journey. Read more
WWII
Many people have heard of the six American Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters that actually got off the ground and contested the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Read more
WWII
The three rubber dinghies struggled through the rough surf in the pitch black night toward an inhospitable stretch of rocky beach. Read more
WWII
In April 1940, Adolf Hitler’s SS began building a walled compound in occupied Warsaw in which to imprison Jews who had survived the previous autumn’s bitter fighting as the German juggernaut romped through western Poland. Read more
WWII
Say the words “pocket battleship” and up pops the name Admiral Graf Spee. Her two sister ships, the Deutschland/Lutzow and the Admiral Scheer are virtually unknown to Americans. Read more
WWII
Panic and confusion reigned across France as the bright, warm spring of 1940 turned into summer.
Blitzkrieg, a brutal new mode of warfare, was on the loose in Western Europe. Read more
WWII
In the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught unprepared in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. Read more
WWII
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
