February 2020

Volume 19, No. 2

Cover: British General Miles Dempsey confers with Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division during Operation Market Garden.
Photo: National Archives

February 2020

WWII History

Swift Invasion of Denmark

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

On the night of April 8, 1940, almost four million people went to bed at peace in the midst of a world war. Read more

February 2020

WWII History

New Year’s Day Defense in Alsace

By Allyn Vannoy

Like something out of a dream, a soldier walked into the command post. He unspooled a line of wire, hooked a field phone to it, checked the line, and handed the receiver to the officer in charge, Captain Howard Trammell, saying, “Someone wants to talk to you.” Read more

February 2020

WWII History

Fatal Pride at Peleliu

By John McManus

Inside the shabby tent that served as his command post on Peleliu, a despondent Maj. Gen. William Rupertus sat on his bunk, slumped over with his head in his hands. Read more

Invasion of Madagascar. In order to protect the great French possession from a coup de main of the axis, the Allies disembark troops there.

February 2020

WWII History

British Invasion of Madagascar

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

“The first I saw of Madagascar and the last after adventurous months ashore was the eerie color of the soil,” a British novelist turned security sergeant would write a decade later.  Read more

February 2020

WWII History, Profiles

Nazi Stuka Ace Hans Rudel

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

In the village of Seiferdau, Southern Prussia, an eight-year-old boy with an umbrella jumped out of a second-story window. Read more

February 2020

WWII History, Top Secret

Sterling Hayden, Hollywood Actor, Viking Hero of the OSS

By Michael D. Hull

Several Hollywood stars served proudly in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, including Tyrone Power, Louis Hayward, Lee Marvin, Macdonald Carey, Hugh O’Brian, Bill Lundigan, John Russell, Robert Ryan, Brian Keith, and Peter Ortiz. Read more

February 2020

WWII History, Insight

Churchill and Stalin’s Uneasy Alliance

By Jon Diamond

In the Grand Alliance volume of Winston S. Churchill’s memoirs of World War II, the British prime minister lambasted Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and his inept government for failing to anticipate Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more

February 2020

WWII History, Books

Pathfinders Pave the Way

By Christopher Miskimon

Captain Frank Lillyman drifted down toward a French field in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944. Frank was a pathfinder, one of the paratroopers assigned to prepare the way for the main airborne drop on D-Day. Read more