February 2022 Archives

Their foxhole reinforced with logs, a pair of American soldiers of the 99th Infantry Division watch and wait for a German attack during the Battle of the Bulge. The heroic stand at Lanzerath by 20 year old Lt. Bouch and the 21 men under his command slowed the advance of Kampfgruppe Peiper.

WWII History

Hold at All Costs

By Brent Dyck

After D-Day, the Allied armies slowly advanced across Europe and pushed the German army back. Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944, the Belgian capital of Brussels fell on September 3, and the important port of Antwerp was taken two days later. Read more

A patrol of the 77th Infantry Division makes its way along a dirt path on the island of Guam in the Marianas in the summer of 1944. The capture of Guam was a key event in the securing of the Marianas for forward air bases from which American heavy B-29 Superfortress bombers could strike the Japanese home islands.

WWII History

Fighting for Water

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Staff Sergeant Chester B. Opdyke, Jr., crouched down at the tree line. He could see his objective, a crossroads village named Barrigada, shimmering in the hot August sun across a large open field just 300 yards away. Read more

Polish troops engage in field exercises in April 1939, just five months before the Nazi invasion of their country and the outbreak of World War II. Some Poles initially thought the Soviet Army was there to help them.

WWII History

Invasion from the East

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

It was a quiet dinner on a side street in Berlin the evening of June 26, 1939, but more than food would be devoured that night. Read more

In this March 11, 1945, image, troops and M4 Sherman tanks of the U.S. First Army cross the Ludendorff railroad bridge to the eastern bank of the great Rhine River. The last natural barrier along the western frontier of Germany, the Rhine was also crossed by Allied armies in other locations.

WWII History

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

By George A. Larson

As Allied troops advanced along a broad front toward Nazi Germany in the winter of 1945, the United States Army was eager to capture an intact bridge over the Rhine River to allow its troops and heavy equipment to advance rapidly into Germany. Read more

American OSS officers accompanied by Chetnik guerrillas on the move from the original evacuation airstrip in Pranjani, Serbia in anticipation of Soviet Red Army advances, September 10, 1944. The OSS officers were part of OSS operations Halyard and Ranger.

WWII History

Hazardous Balkan Air Rescue

By Kevin Morrow

Black puffs from flak bursts began blossoming in the air around Lieutenant Tom Oliver’s Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber high over the town of Bor, Yugoslavia. Read more

WWII History, Editorial

This Month Marks the Anniversary of ‘If Day.’

The Defending soldiers surrendered at 9:30 am and marched with their hands up to a central point in the city. Nazi soldiers frisked them and made certain that they were unarmed. Read more

Searchlights stab into the darkness as Royal Navy warships illuminate Italian cruisers during the Battle of Cape Matapan. Prince Philip served aboard the battleship HMS Valiant during the decisive naval victory over Mussolini’s fleet.

WWII History, Profile

Prince Philip’s War

By Michael E. Haskew

The son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Prince Philip was the last of five children and a great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria. Read more

An Afrika Korps antiaircraft gun crew scans the sky for enemy planes in 1941. Homeland antiaircraft units were also raised in Germany to augment the air defenses against massive Allied bombing raids.

WWII History, Ordnance

Defending the Skies Above the Reich

By Allyn Vannoy

During the Allied air campaign against the Third Reich in World War II, well over a million tons of bombs were dropped on German territory, killing nearly 300,000 civilians and wounding another 780,000. Read more

First Lieutenant Rudolf Schutze of Wekusta 5 and his flight crew gather near a Heinkel He-111weather aircraft on the ice of Advent, Fjord.

WWII History, Top Secret

Wekusta: Weathermen of the Wehrmacht

By William McPeak

The fundamental pillars of war—strategy and tactics— inevitably depend on an imponderable and uncontrollable factor: the weather. With the increasing sophistication of weather data gathering, analysis, and forecasting in the early 20th century, predicting the weather became an integral part of World War II. Read more

$The three leaders with advisors during the Yalta Conference. The relationship between Churchill and Stalin was at times fractious, but the leaders managed to maintain the alliance that eventually defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.$

WWII History, Insight

The Uneasy Alliance

By Jon Diamond

In the Grand Alliance volume of Winston S. Churchill’s memoirs of the Second World War, the British prime minister lambasted his new ally, Josef Stalin, after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941. Read more

WWII History, Books

A Flawed and Brilliant WWII Combat Leader

By Christopher Miskimon

General George S. Patton, Jr., entered his first World War II battlefield on the morning of November 8, 1942. Read more

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Two World War II Outings Prepare To Take The Fight To Additional Platforms

By Joseph Luster

Back in July, publisher Team 17 and developer Black Matter Party unleashed Hell Let Loose, a 50-on-50 World War II strategic squad-based first-person shooter, on PC. Read more

February 2022

From Around the Network

The Rafael Trujillo Assassination: Why Did the CIA Follow Through?

Marines in the Air: The Story of Joe’s Jokers

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Failing Health at Dresden

The Model 1857 12-pounder