December 2020 / January 2021 Archives

A PzKpfw. V Panther medium tank smolders after being hit by the American infantryman at lower left firing his bazooka. Other GIs rush toward the tank to take out any crewmen who may have survived the blast. At Mairy, France, the soldiers of the 90th Infantry Division utterly defeated a spoiling attack by the German Panzer Brigade 106.

WWII History

The “Tough ‘Ombres” of 90th ID Stand Tall at Mairy

By Christopher Miskimon

As summer neared its end in early September 1944, the U.S. Army raced across northern France toward the German border. Read more

WWII History

A Marine Scout’s War Journey

By Matt Broggie

Sergeant Larry Kirby will always remember the fighting on the morning of March 12, 1945, as his unit, Easy Company, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, attempted to move against Hill 362C under the cover of darkness in northeastern Iwo Jima. Read more

A Supermarine Spitfire fighter of the British Royal Air Force chases a German Heinkel He-111 bomber during a swirl of aerial combat in the Battle of Britain. Canadian pilot Howard Peter “Cowboy” Blatchford served with the RAF during the crucial battle and was later killed in action.

WWII History

Cowboy of the Royal Air Force

By Neil Taylor

In the six weeks since Britain’s formal declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots of No. Read more

San Francisco residents snap up the latest editions of the city’s newspapers and try to separate fact from rumor amid a swirl of information related to enemy activity in the early days of the war. The Japanese made numerous attempts to bring the war home to the U.S. West Coast, including submarines surfacing off the coast to shell targets or attempting to launch attack aircraft.

WWII History

War on the West Coast

By Glenn Barnett

Throughout World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy dreamed of taking the war to the West Coast of the United States. Read more

A British M4 Sherman medium tank races past a knocked-out German PzKpfw. IV tank during the desperate fight for control of the crossroads and communications hub of Caen during the weeks after D-Day. Allied planners had projected that Caen would be in British hands on D-Day itself; however, a month of bitter fighting was required for Allied forces to capture the town.

WWII History

Panzer Fury at Caen

By Kelly Bell

The black uniformed German panzer crews climbed into their Panther tanks at 10 pm on June 8, 1944. Read more

WWII History, Editorial

Yuki Okinaga Hayakawa remains a symbol of racial inequity in the United States.

It was a turbulent time, and perhaps when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, it was considered a reasonable response to the perceived treachery of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that had occurred only weeks earlier. Read more

WWII History, Profile

Australia’s Heroic Son

By Christopher Miskimon

John Hurst Edmondson, known to his friends as Jack, died April 14, 1941, lying on the concrete floor of a sand-swept fighting outpost in the perimeter around Tobruk, Libya. Read more

WWII History, Ordnance

The Workhorse Lancaster

By Nigel Price

Powerful, brisling with firepower and able to carry an amazingly large bombload, the majestic Avro Lancaster, along with the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, has come to symbolize the might of the Royal Air Force in World War II. Read more

WWII History, Insight

The Blunder of Barbarossa

By Michael D. Hull

By April 1941, just over a year and a half into World War II, Nazi Germany was master of Europe. Read more

A group of Japanese Americans who have renounced their U.S. citizenship and expressed a desire to return to Japan are in custody of law enforcement officers at the Tule Lake relocation camp. These men were en route to the Santa Fe internment camp, where nationals of Axis countries were held during the war.

WWII History, Top Secret

Detention In Wartime

By Gene Eric Salecker

After the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Americans in authority began to fear the large number of people of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast of the United States, thinking that some of them might have sympathies for Japan and might assist in a possible invasion or sabotage American efforts to resist such an invasion. Read more

GIs manhandle a 57mm anti-tank guns into position during the Battle of the Bulge.

WWII History, Books

With Third Army Across Europe

By Christopher Miskimon

Corporal Frank Sisson spent eight freezing hours in a truck, riding through France toward Belgium. A day earlier, Frank and his fellow GIs of the 667th Field Artillery Battalion, 10th Armored Division lay comfortably billeted in a French town, warm and relatively safe. Read more

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Enlisted Opens Up a New Avenue for First-person WWII Action, While Commandos 2 Finds Another Home for Its Remaster

by Joseph Luster

With the latest console generation upon us already, it was a race out of the gate to be among the first war games on the platforms. Read more

December 2020 / January 2021

From Around the Network

Solferino: Birth of a Nation

Was It Right to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

The 1st Commando Brigade’s Invasion of Germany

Bridging the Rhine at Remagen: Infantryman Paul Priest Recalls the Historic Crossing