Fall 2024 Archives

WWII History, Editorial

Charles de Gaulle seized the opportunity to oppose the Nazis and assert political control in France.

When Charles de Gaulle flew to London in 1940, his country was on its knees and days later Nazi jackboots were tromping down the Champs Élysées in Paris. Read more

WWII History, Profiles

Finnish Sniper Simo Häyhä

By Ronald Anderson

The 1939 war between Finland and Soviet Russia has been a minor inclusion in most histories of World War II. Read more

Members of a U.S. Congressional committee investigating German atrocities and war crimes inspect a rocket engine captured at an underground Nazi manufacturing facility at Nordhausen. A top American priority, Operation Paperclip was tasked with gathering German scientists and rocket technology for development in the U.S. after World War II.

WWII History, Top Secret

At first, Major Robert Staver seemed to have plenty of time. An Army Ordnance officer with a mechanical engineering degree from Stanford, he had been sent to Germany as part of the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. Read more

A U.S. Coast Guardsman carries a Model 50 Reising submachine gun while on patrol with his dog. The Reising proved to be quite unpopular with line troops fighting during World War II, particularly Marine units in tropical climates.

WWII History, Weapons

The M50 Reising Submachine Gun

By Patrick J. Chaisson

On paper, the Reising submachine gun appeared to be an ideal close-combat weapon. Accurate, lightweight, and inexpensive to manufacture, it was selected by the U.S. Read more

WWII History, Insight

The Death of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

By Jack Adamson

When interviewed in the late 1960s by John Toland for his book, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, Takeshi Hirakushi told a fantastic tale. Read more

WWII History, Books

16 Book Reviews for Fall 2024

By Christopher Miskimon Full Reviews

Midway: The Pacific War’s Most Famous Battle (Mark Stille, Osprey Publishers, Oxford, UK, 2024, 328 pp., Read more

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Commandos: Origins

By Joseph Luster

The vaunted Commandos series is going back to the beginning in the latest entry, appropriately titled Commandos: Origins. Read more

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Men of War II

By Joseph Luster

The Men of War series first kicked off with Soldiers: Heroes of World War II in 2004 and has gone by a few other names since. Read more

Liberated French prisoners of war cheer American soldiers as they advance rapidly through Germany. Wolf’s 86th Infantry Division joined General George S. Patton’s Third Army for its dash across the Third Reich in the waning days of the war in Europe.

WWII History

From Bavaria to the Philippines

By Kevin M. Hymel

Private First Class Bob Wolf rode in a jeep along an exposed hill in Germany’s Ruhr Valley when he heard an enemy artillery round screeching toward him. Read more

A soldier of Company G, 335th Infantry Regiment, fires on German positions near the town of Beeck, Germany, November 29, 1944. The 335th Regiment was part of the 84th Infantry Division—a training unit deployed to Europe as the U.S. Army experienced a shortage of combat troops.

WWII History

84th Infantry: From Training to Trial

By James G. Bilder

As casualties mounted in the fall of 1944, the U.S. Army began experiencing a problematic manpower shortage in the ranks of its infantry. Read more

Canadian tanks and troops advance across the Liri Valley toward the so-called Hitler Line in May 1944. The tanks seen in the distance likely belong to the 8th “Princess Louise” Hussars, which accompanied the Cape Breton Highlanders during this movement forward in the Italian campaign.

WWII History

Bouncing the Hitler Line

By Patrick J. Chaisson

A Polish flag, followed minutes later by a Union Jack, appeared above the ruins of the abbey on the summit of Italy’s 17,000-foot Monte Cassino. Read more

Soldiers of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion work on the moorings of a barrage balloon on the coast of Normandy after D-Day. The balloons were made of two-ply cotton fabric impregnated with vulcanized or synthetic rubber, then coated with aluminum. Typically, the balloons were raised in the evening after Allied aircraft had returned to bases in England.

WWII History

African American D-Day Heroes

By Dr. Forest Issac Jones

The heroics of African American soldiers during the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, have not been taught regularly in high school or college history classes. Read more

Armament on display: HMS Warspite, with her 15-inch guns in the forward position, sails from Gibralter through the Mediterranean enroute to take part in support of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, July 1943. By the time she was decommissioned, Warspite had earned the most battle honors ever awarded to an individual ship in the Royal Navy and the most awarded for actions during World War II.

WWII History

The ‘Grand Old Lady’ Packed a Wallop

By Glenn Barnett

HMS Warspite fought in two world wars and several major battles against a combination of enemies to become the most decorated ship ever to serve the Royal Navy. Read more

The Nazi concentration camp at Dachau was liberated by American soldiers of the 45th Infantry Division, Seventh Army, on April 30, 1945. Prisoners who were able to stand and to comprehend that the hour of deliverance had come cheered the liberators just days before the final collapse of the Third Reich.

WWII History

Evil on Trial

By Flint Whitlock

In the spring of 1945, after more than five-and-a-half years of total, merciless war in Europe––and the deaths of millions of human beings on the battlefields, the bombed-out cities and in the concentration and extermination camps––the carnage and destruction in Europe had finally come to an end. Read more

Fall 2024

From Around the Network

Elizabethans vs. “The Naturals”

Capturing Caen

The King’s German Legion at Waterlooo

Franklin Roosevelt’s Pre-Pearl Harbor Intervention Plans