January 2009

Volume 8, No. 1

Cover: A German corporal, weapons in hand, moves forward on the Eastern Front in 1941. Photo courtesy of ulstein bild.

Several of them arriving aboard a jeep, troopers of the 101st Airborne Division enter the important Norman town of Carentan on June 14, 1944. The fighting at Carentan was heavy, and the Americans withstood several German counterattacks.

January 2009

WWII History

Band of Brothers’ Buck Compton: One Man’s Call of Duty

By Flint Whitlock

Thanks to the late historian Stephen Ambrose, his book Band of Brothers, and the HBO series of the same title, the legendary, extraordinary exploits of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division, have become well known to a whole new generation. Read more

Exiting toward freedom, former Allied prisoners of war carry their belongings to waiting transportation as Japanese guards bow humbly. Thousands of Allied POWs were freed at the end of the war, but others met terrible fates aboard hell ships or were executed by their captors.

January 2009

WWII History

Prisoner of War

By Robert F. Dorr

He enlisted in 1934. Except for those at Pearl Harbor, he was the first American casualty of the war. Read more

January 2009

WWII History

Operation Barbarossa: Holding the Line at Smolensk

By Victor Kamenir

After crushing the first-line Soviet armies in brutal three-week cauldron battles at the border, the steamroller of German Army Group Center continued deeper into Soviet territory during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more

January 2009

WWII History

The USS Panay: First Step on the Road to War

By Eric Niderost

Around 10 o’clock on the morning of December 13, 1937, New York Times correspondent Hallett Abend received an unexpected visitor: Rear Admiral Tadao Honda of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Read more

January 2009

WWII History

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Nazi Saboteur

By David Alan Johnson

It was just about midnight on June 12, 1942, and the Abwehr (Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency) hoped that Dasch and his three men, along with another four-man group to be put ashore on the coast of Florida, would be able to destroy factories of the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) located in the United States. Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Dispatches

Pearl Harbor Revenge

Dear Editor:

David Alan Johnson’s article, “Pearl Harbor Revenge” (December 2008 issue) was interesting to read, as most books and articles on the Battle of Leyte Gulf focus primarily on Taffy 3’s escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts trying to hold off Admiral Kurita’s Center Force. Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Ordnance

Army Mules: The Beast of Burden in War

By Christopher Miskimon

In the words of a veteran of the China-Burma-India Theater, retired Technical Sergeant Edward Rock Jr., [they] “served without a word of complaint or lack of courage. Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Profiles

Sergeant Anton Schmid: Saint in a Feldwebel’s Uniform

By Michael D. Hull

After the German Army’s invasion of Russia in June 1941 and the capture of the historic Lithuanian city of Vilnius late that month, Abba Kovner and a group of friends took refuge in a Dominican convent on the city’s outskirts. Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Top Secret

Nomads of War: The Long Range Desert Group

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

“The problem,” a member said, “is to make yourself so much master over the appalling difficulties of nature—heat, thirst, cold, rain, fatigue—that, overcoming these you yet have physical energy and mental resilience to deal with the greater object, the winning of the war.” Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Books

A Megalomaniac’s Lust for Power

By Mason B. Webb

Few men have had an impact on world history equal to that of Adolf Hitler. His megalomania resulted in the deaths of millions and redrew the map of Europe. Read more

January 2009

WWII History, Games

Burut adds an online death match mode to Ubersoldier II.

By Eric T. Baker

One of the signs of how many games devoted to the first person portrayal of the in the trenches, down the rifle sight experience of combat in World War II there have been is that Ubisoft is now releasing Brother’s in Arms Hell’s Highway, a big-budget, multiplatform (PC, Xbox 360, PS3) game that recreates the Allies’ defeat by the Germans in Operation Market Garden. Read more