Volume 3, No. 1
Cover: Legionnaires of the 1st Free French Brigade move across the desert near Bir Hacheim to face Rommel’s Afrika Corps. Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum
January 2004
WWII History
By December 24, 1944, the commander of the Sixth Panzer Army’s strongest battlegroup, SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Jochen Peiper, was facing the ultimate military nightmare. Read more
January 2004
WWII History
From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more
January 2004
WWII History
When Brig. Gen. Joseph-Pierre Koenig, commander of the 1st Free French Brigade, surveyed the area he had just been ordered to defend, he must have been mightily discouraged. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Ordnance
The four ships that raced into battle on December 13, 1939, off the mouth of the River Plate were, as historian and novelist Len Deighton tartly observed, “three different answers to the question that had plagued the world’s navies for half a century: what should a cruiser be?” Read more
January 2004
WWII History
Lieutenant General Hachiro Tagami, commanding officer of the 36th Division, dubbed the Tiger Division, did not like the news he had received from Imperial Army Headquarters in Tokyo. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Editorial
The nightmarish vision that the Japanese high command had hoped to forestall with its Special Attack Unit raids on American airbases in the Marianas did, with devastating effect, become reality in the spring of 1945. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Dispatches
Dear WWII History:
My compliments on your fine article by John Wukovits in the November 2003 issue, “Heroic Fight Against Long Odds,” describing the last battle of the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth and the American heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA 30). Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Profiles
On July 19, 1940, fresh from his victorious campaigns on the Western Front, German Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler delivered his “peace speech” to the Reichstag in Berlin’s Kroll Opera House. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Top Secret
On the bitterly cold, windswept morning of February 18, 1944, the crews of 19 De Havilland Mosquito Mk.VI Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Ordnance
Of all the better-known Allied aircraft of World War II, the most controversial was Martin’s B-26 Marauder, a twin-engine cigar-shaped medium bomber that was loved by some and hated by many. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Insight
The days following Pearl Harbor were grim ones for the United States. Headlines screamed of one Japanese victory after another. Read more
January 2004
WWII History, Books
They were two unlikely looking warriors, yet their fateful friendship and shared leadership ensured the Allied victory in World War II and laid the groundwork for peace. Read more
