December 2022

Volume 21, No. 6

Cover: These paratroopers of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) executed the first U.S. airborne drop in wartime as a component of Operation Torch.
Photo: National Archives

December 2022

WWII History

Achtung! Panzers in Normandy

By Michael E. Haskew

The ongoing debate between German Field Marshals Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Rundstedt over how best to use the German Army’s elite panzer divisions against the coming Allied invasion ultimately reached no clear conclusion. Read more

An American soldier gently removes the detonator from an S-mine, which was capable of severely injuring any man unfortunate enough to step on it. The Germans defending Mount Porchia planted thousands of land mines to impede Allied progress.

December 2022

WWII History

“I’m Going Up That Mountain!”

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Red-hot grenade fragments sliced through First Lieutenant Bill Munson’s left arm and shoulder, causing him to fall backwards onto the lip of a German machine gun nest. Read more

December 2022

WWII History

American Airborne In Operation Torch

By Michael E. Haskew

Only two years after the U.S. Army officially sanctioned the formation of an airborne arm, American paratroopers were committed to a vast offensive against Axis forces on the coast of French North Africa. Read more

December 2022

WWII History

The Longest Struggle

By Michael D. Hull

For the duration of World War II, from the evening of Sunday, September 3, 1939, to the evening of Monday, May 7, 1945, the Battle of the Atlantic never ceased. Read more

December 2022

WWII History, Editorial

Last World War II Recipient of the Medal of Honor Dies.

The citation made it plain. U.S. Marine Corps Demolition Sergeant Hershel W. “Woody” Williams had exhibited extraordinary courage during the bloody, protracted fight for the porkchop-shaped scrap of land in the Volcano Islands known as Iwo Jima. Read more

German POW camp Stalag Luft III was the scene of numerous escape attempts, and Bill Ash was a continuing thorn in the side of his Nazi captors throughout World War II.

December 2022

WWII History, Profiles

RCAF Pilot Bill Ash, The Cooler King

By James Reynolds

For Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen interned in enemy prison camps during World War II, escaping was regarded as their unwritten duty. Read more

The USS Langley, the first operational aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy, was converted from the fleet collier Jupiter in 1922. The carrier served as the cradle of U.S. naval aviation and was nicknamed “Covered Wagon” due to its resemblance to the wagons that crossed the American West in the 1800s.

December 2022

WWII History, Ordnance

USS Langley: The U.S. Navy’s Covered Wagon

By Frank Johnson

Five years after Great Britain had launched HMS Argus, the world’s first aircraft carrier, in 1917, and following the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty on February 6, 1922, the U.S. Read more

Adolf Hitler gives a stiff Nazi salute to seven men killed in an assassination attempt in Munich during the 1939 anniversary observances of the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.

December 2022

WWII History, Top Secret

A Sting In Venlo

By David H. Lippman

Sir Alexander Cadogan did not believe it.

He had been given a report from Admiral Sir Archibald “Quex” Sinclair, head of MI6, on October 6, 1939, that German generals were reaching out to the British Embassy in The Hague in neutral Holland, to orchestrate a coup against Adolf Hitler that would replace the Nazi regime with a military junta, which would then make peace. Read more

December 2022

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Aircraft Carrier Survival

By Joseph Luster

We’ve taken off from and landed atop our fair share of aircraft carriers in the past few decades spent with war-inspired video games, but how many of us have actually had to carefully manage said vessels? Read more

December 2022

WWII History, Books

Hitler’s Winter of ‘44

By Christopher Miskimon

Few festivities occurred on Christmas Eve, 1944, in the Ardennes Forest. Thousands of soldiers struggled to attack or defend positions, or to simply survive. Read more

December 2022

WWII History, Books

The 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion: Fighting on Both Fronts

By Christopher Miskimon

The men of the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion fought two opponents during World War II. From the moment they began their training in 1942, the African American soldiers assigned to the unit faced the prejudice endemic in American society of the time, and by extension the United States Army. Read more