Allies
The Wehrmacht in France: Decisions in a Time of Debacle
By Brooke C. StoddardMay 10, 1940, marked the beginning of the war in western Europe. Nazi-controlled Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Read more
Allies
First Strike Against Japanese Industry
By Phil ScearceConsolidated B-24 Liberator bomber crews of the U.S. 11th Bombardment Group spent the first three months of 1943 organizing on Hawaiian airfields and flying practice and patrol missions around the islands. Read more
Allies
Little Stalingrad: The Struggle for Ortona
By Jerome BaldwinBy the autumn of 1943, the Allied armies fighting in Italy had discovered that Winston Churchill’s description of Italy as the “soft underbelly of Europe” had been a falsehood of monumental proportions. Read more
Allies
A Tale of Two Famiglie: Resistance and Atrocities During the Italian Resistance
By Ed EmeringIn March 1940, Benito Mussolini met with Adolf Hitler near the Brenner Pass on the border between Austria and Italy. Read more
Allies
No Deserts for Il Duce: The Italian Rout in East Africa
By John W. Osborn Jr.“I am not a collector of deserts,” Mussolini declared regarding his imperial ambitions. Instead, he would be a loser of them, most publicly in North Africa and, in one of World War II’s least-known campaigns, in East Africa. Read more
Allies
The Italian Army in Russia: from Barbarossa to Stalingrad
By James I. MarinoThe most successful Italian Army of World War II was a political creation of dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more
Allies
Ordeal at Outpost Snipe: Defiant Stand at El Alamein
By Christopher MiskimonThe war in North Africa flung vast armies across the arid deserts of Libya and Egypt for two long years, beginning with the Italian invasion of Egypt in September 1940. Read more
Allies
Debacle at Dakar
By David H. LippmanThe director flicked his finger, and General Charles de Gaulle began reading his address into the British Broadcasting Corporation’s microphone, speaking from London to his defeated countrymen across the English Channel, calling upon them to continue resistance in the face of overwhelming German supremacy. Read more
Allies
“This is the Army”: Irving Berlin’s War
By Sheldon WinklerThe most successful and popular patriotic show of World War II and one of the most unique productions in the history of entertainment was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, which originally began as a Broadway musical. Read more
Allies
The Battle of Narvik: Crippling the Kriegsmarine
By David H. LippmanThe Germans could not believe it. Without suffering the loss of a single soldier or sailor, the German Army and Navy had sailed 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Royal Navy and captured Narvik without firing a shot, bagged nearly 500 Norwegian soldiers, seized one of Norway’s major military depots, and even taken five armed British merchant ships and their crews. Read more
Allies
Eric Dorman-Smith: Churchill’s Scapegoat in North Africa
By Jon DiamondWhen one gazes upon the bookshelves in the Military History section of a well-endowed library, one cannot help but notice the number of volumes dedicated to the battles for North Africa during World War II and particularly to the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Read more
Allies
Raid on Bruneval: Stealing the Enemy’s Eyes
By Kelly BellThe parachute of aptly named Major J.D. Frost cracked open in the freezing air high above the French Channel coast at 12:45 am, and he commenced drifting down through the moonlit gloom. Read more
Allies
Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Steel’s Hammer
By Blaine TaylorThe arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more
Allies
Marshall Builds the U.S. Army
By Earl RickardOn July 17, 1941, United States Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall sat before the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Read more
Allies
George Beurling: Canadian Fighter Ace Known as “The Falcon of Malta”
By Herb KugelIn September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more
Allies
Commando Kidnapping: Capturing General Kreipe on Crete
By John W. Osborn Jr.Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more
Allies
The First Day of World War II
By Michael D. HullJust after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more
Allies
Easter Victory at Tobruk
By Christopher MiskimonIn April 1941, things were going quite well for the German armed forces. In a series of earlier campaigns, they had conquered Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France. Read more
Allies
Tula: Hero City of the Soviet Union
By Pat McTaggartIn 1976, the Soviet city of Tula joined an elite group of nine other Soviet communities designated as “Hero Cities.” Read more
Allies
Project Habakkuk’s Iceberg Aircraft Carrier
By Stephen D. LutzDuring World War II British and American aircraft carriers, serviced and ready for naval combat, averaged 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Read more
