Allies

Bastogne’s Bedsheets: The Story of Lieutenant Colonel John Hanlon

By Ken Parker

Many people who never knew John Hanlon personally may remember him as that paratrooper who took the sheets back to Bastogne. Read more

Allies

Benito Mussolini & The Fascist March on Rome

By Blaine Taylor

On March 23, 1919, but four months after the armistice that ended the Great War—100 young toughs, ex-Italian Army war veterans, former socialist politicians, and newspapermen met in Milan’s Piazza San Sepolchro in industrial northern Italy to form a new political party. Read more

Allies

Portugal during WW2: Covering the Azores Gap

By Norman Herz

The year 1944 dawned with America already at war for over two years. In an event not marked by history books, the 96th Navy Construction Battalion, Seabees, crossed the Atlantic from Davisville, Rhode Island, on the Abraham Lincoln, a converted banana boat escorted by two destroyers, the USS Ellis and USS Biddle. Read more

Allies

The Lee-Enfield Rifle and its Effectiveness in World War II

By Arnold Blumberg

By 1901, the Small Arms Committee—the body within the War Office tasked with arming the British Army with weapons—sought to replace their then-standard issue rifle: the Magazine Lee-Metford Rifle Mark II. Read more

Allies

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

By Michael P. Slater

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

Allies

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) Graduates Who Shaped WWII

By Phil Gioia

Watching his forces prepare to attack the Union Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson commented to an aide, “The Institute will be heard from today.” Read more

Allies

Sherman Tanks vs. Tiger Tanks: Which Was Best at the Bulge?

by Michael D. Hull

When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more

Allies

Miracle at Dunkirk

By Jon Diamond

Following the 76th anniversary of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, one is amazed at the number of articles and volumes written about the subject. Read more

Allies

The Supermarine Spitfire and the Battle of Britain

by William F. Floyd Jr.

On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more

Allies

Hero to the End: Airman William “Ed” Dyess on the Philippines

By Sam McGowan

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot and squadron commander, was considered a hero by men who served under him in the Philippines and who felt they owed their own lives to Ed’s sacrifice. Read more

Allies

Fort Driant: General George S. Patton Jr’s Only Lost Battle

By Duane E. Shaffer

The road to Fort Driant began for the United States Third Army when it landed on Utah Beach at 3 pm on August 5, 1944. Read more

Allies

WWII Vehicles: The British Universal (or “Bren Gun”) Carrier

by Arnold Blumberg

The origins of the Universal Bren Gun Carrier can be traced to the Ford T-powered Carden-Loyd machines developed in Great Britain in the mid-1920s, specifically the Mark VI model of 1927. Read more

Allies

John Steinbeck in World War II

By Robert E. Cray, Jr.

A fuming John Steinbeck vented his frustration over World War II to a friend on March 15, 1943. Read more

Allies

U.S. Involvement in WWII: How (and How Much) the Military Grew

By Allyn Vannoy

U.S. involvement in WWII grew to be about 16,000,000 military personnel by the war’s end: approximately 11,200,000 in the Army, 4,200,000 in the Navy, and 660,000 in the Marine Corps. Read more

Allies

Bloody Encounter at Hell’s Point: The Story of Al Schmid

By Al Hemingway

As the light of a sickly green flare shot skyward, three Marines from the 11th Machine Gun Squad, H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment crouched in the hole awaiting the Japanese onslaught on Guadalcanal. Read more

Allies

The USS Houston and the Battle of Sunda Strait

By A.B. Feuer

The heavy cruiser USS Houston ventured into the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java on the dark night of February 28, 1942, and was never heard from again. Read more

Allies

German Military’s Emissary for Peace

By Jon Diamond

Many accounts have been written about the peace mission flight of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess and his parachute landing in a farm field in Scotland in May 1941 to discuss with the Duke of Hamilton a proposal to end hostilities. Read more

Allies

The Hawker Typhoon 1A & 1B: Worst RAF Fighters in WWII?

by Arnold Blumberg

In 1934 the British War office accepted a new aircraft design eventually designated the Hawker Hurricane Mark 1. Read more

Allies

A Newspaper Headline Nearly Exposed the U.S. Navy’s Codebreaking Success Against Japan

By Colonel James W. Hammond, Jr.

Stanley Johnston, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune accredited to the Navy as a correspondent, had made two forays into the South Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier Lexington. Read more

Allies

The Pointe du Hoc Rangers: a Madman’s D-Day Mission

By Daniel R. Champagne

On the morning of June 6, 1944, the 2nd Ranger Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, began its ascent of a sheer 100-foot precipice called Pointe du Hoc. Read more