Colonel Harrison Jeffords retakes the regimental colors of the 4th Michigan Infantry during hand-to-hand combat in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863. Painting by Don Troiani.
Military Heritage

Summer 2023

Volume 25, No. 2

Cover: A British soldier from the 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers, carrying a Bren gun and full equipment, moves up in Holland. In February 1945, British and Canadian forces fought the Germans through the Reichswald and into Germany. See story page 44. Photo: Imperial War Museum.

Israeli-upgraded Centurion main battle tanks (Sho’t Kal) advancing into Syria on October 11, 1973. Having withstood the initial four-day assault of the Yom Kippur War and retaken the Golan Heights, Israeli leaders immediately decided to invade Syria and knock them out of the war.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

‘Israel’s Survival at Stake’

By John E. Spindler

Lieutenant Zvi “Zvicka” Greengold raced back to Nafakh, commanding his fifth or sixth Sho’t Kal, an Israeli-upgraded Centurion main battle tank, having had the previous ones knocked out beneath him. Read more

Colonel Harrison Jeffords retakes the regimental colors of the 4th Michigan Infantry during hand-to-hand combat in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863. Painting by Don Troiani.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

Civil War Diary

By Eric Niderost

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon of July 2, 1863, when Colonel Ira Coray Abbott ordered his regiment to halt on a low rise called “Stony Hill,” near Gettysburg, a small town in southern Pennsylvania. Read more

Soldiers of the 154th Infantry Brigade (part of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division) man a Vickers machine gun in support of the advance of Operation Veritable from Holland into Germany on February 8, 1945.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

Reichswald: The Battle for a Sinister Forest

By Mike Phifer

The bloody fight for the Reichswald, according to Lieutenant General Horrocks, was a soldiers’ battle “fought by the regimental officers and men under the most ghastly conditions imaginable.”  Read more

Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France receives Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Damietta, Egypt, in June of 1249. Robert is lending his knights to the battle ahead, the Seventh Crusade. Nineteenth century painting by French artist Oscar Gué.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

The Battle of Al Mansourah and the Seventh Crusade, 1251

By Douglas Sterling

After a century and a half of efforts—with mixed success—by Western Europe to seize control of the Holy Land, the Seventh Crusade of 1250 led by Louis IX of France was the last best chance to change the political and military situation in the Eastern world before the Reformation. Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

Britannia Triumphant at the Nile

By Joshua Shepherd

Smoke drifted across the quarterdeck of H.M.S. Vanguard, occasionally obscuring the figure of a slender officer bowed with battle wounds and outright exhaustion. Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Editorial

Horatio Nelson: Deserving Hero

Days before the impending battle of Trafalgar, a sailor on Horatio Nelson’s flagship Victory was so busy ensuring that each man’s letters home were secured for dispatch on a vessel bound for England that he forgot until after the ship had sailed that he hadn’t included his own. Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Uniform

First Rhode Island Detached Militia, 1861

By Paul Loane Artwork by Don Troiani

In the days following the outbreak of war, Northern states scrambled to assemble small militia groups into regiment-size units, recruit additional volunteers and uniform them all in a cohesive manner. Read more

A crowned Duke William II of Normandy discovers the Saxon King Harold lying dead on the battlefield in this Victorian painting of the Battle of Hastings by Frank Wilkin. The actual encounter was some six miles from Hastings, at Senlac Hill, near the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Soldiers

William, Duke of Normandy

By Mark Carlson

The final defeat of the Saxon King Harold at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, meant that England became forever Norman. Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage

Military History Book Reviews for Summer 2023

By Christopher Miskimon Full Reviews

America’s War in Syria: Fighting with Kurdish Anti-Isis Forces (Till “Baz” Paasche, John Foxx and Shaun Murray, Casematte Books, Havertown PA, 2022, 304 pp., Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Games

Warpath

By Joseph Luster

Following up on its previous debut on iOS and Android devices, free-to-play real-time strategy game Warpath recently made its way to PC courtesy of Lilith Games. Read more

Wellington’s artillery commander at Waterloo said that without Henry Shrapnel’s devastating new shell, Allied forces could not have taken a key position on the battlefield.

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Weapons

Henry Shrapnel & The Battle of Waterloo

by Robert Whiter

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air …”

That, as most people know, is a line from the American national anthem, words by Francis Scott Key, to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven by John Stafford Smith. Read more

Summer 2023

Military Heritage, Games

The Great War: Western Front

By Joseph Luster

For a detailed strategy game focusing on World War I, the folks behind Command & Conquer Remastered and Star Wars: Empire at War have delivered The Great War: Western Front. Read more