Allies

Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Steel’s Hammer

By Blaine Taylor

The 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 Rickard

On 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 Kugel

In 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. Hull

Just 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 Miskimon

In 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 McTaggart

In 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. Lutz

During World War II British and American aircraft carriers, serviced and ready for naval combat, averaged 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Read more

Allies

Hot Chow on the Frontlines

By Kevin M. Hymel

From the training grounds to the battlefront, soldiers and Marines usually dined on C and K rations. Read more

Allies

Undeclared War in the Atlantic

By James I. Marino

Between September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. Read more

Allies

Sinking the Shokaku

By Johnd Domagalski

On the morning of June 13, 1944, the brilliant new aircraft carrier Taiho weighed anchor and slowly moved out of Tawi-Tawi anchorage in the Sulu archipelago in the southwestern Philippines. Read more

Allies

OSS in Germany

By John Mancini

By the autumn of 1944, most of Nazi-occupied Europe had been liberated by Allied forces. The conquering armies now faced the invasion of the German homeland. Read more

Allies

“Do You Recognize My Voice?”: The Question That Ended Operation Valkyrie

By Blaine Taylor

At 12:40 PM on a hot, sultry July 20, 1944, German Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, 55, was seated on a wicker stool in a conference hut at his principal Eastern Front headquarters at Wolf’s Lair, Rastenburg, East Prussia, for the mid-day wartime map meeting. Read more

Allies

Tank Battle in Happy Valley: 1st Armored Division in the Run for Tunis

By Christopher Miskimon

The U.S. Army entered the war in North Africa in November 1942, eager to engage the German and Italian armies and prove itself their equal. Read more

Allies

The Nuremberg Tribunal: Otto Ohlendorf and the Einsatzgruppen Face Judgment

By Lance D. Jones

To plead Superior Orders one must show an inexcusable ignorance of their illegality. The sailor who voluntarily ships on a pirate craft may not be heard to answer that he was ignorant of the probability that he would be called upon to help in the robbing and sinking of other vessels … a man who sails under the flag of skull and crossbones cannot say that he never expected to fire a cannon against a merchantman,” wrote Judge John L. Read more

Allies

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress: Stories from a WWII Pilot

By Lester F. Rentmeester

The following story describes one of our air raids when I was piloting a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II. Read more

Allies

“Why I Hate My Uncle”: Hitler’s Nephew’s Letter to FDR

By Michael E. Haskew

It may come as a surprise to many that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler failed to win the cooperation of all his family members for the dark vision of an Aryan Germany and a new world order.  Read more

Allies

Operation Felix: Franco and Hitler Play Cat and Mouse

By Michael D. Hull

After his heady series of victories in the spring and early summer of 1940, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was in for a frustrating six months. Read more

Allies

One Vote Against War

By Gary Kidney

On December 8, 1941, America was still shocked by news of war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the day before had been “a date which will live in infamy” because of the “unprovoked and dastardly attack” by Japan on Pearl Harbor. Read more

Allies

“My Sister and I”: An Elaborate Literary Hoax

By Sheldon Winkler

During World War II, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, from her exile in London, urged her staff to find a 12-year-old Dutch boy, Dirk van der Heide. Read more