Allies

WWII Ordnance: The Marauding Marder

By William E. Welsh

On the second day of Adolf Hitler’s bold invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Germans were confronted with one of their most glaring shortcomings in weapons and armament. Read more

Allies

Top Flying Tiger: General Claire Chennault

By Michael D. Hull

Laden with 500-pound bombs and incendiaries, 10 Japanese twin-engine Mitsubishi Ki21 Sally bombers took off from the Hanoi airfield in Indochina on the morning of Saturday, December 20, 1941. Read more

Allies

The Long Lance Torpedo at Guadalcanal

By David Alan Johnson

The bogey man of the U.S. Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign was not the Zero fighter or the I-class submarine. Read more

Allies

The Battle of Peleliu: Was it necessary?

by Eric Niderost

If Peleliu was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific Theater, it was also one of the least known until recently. Read more

Allies

Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki: Underwater Peril at Pearl Harbor

By John Perry

During the early hours of December 7, 1941, five midget submarinesof the Imperial Japanese Navy waited to enter Pearl Harbor, the anchorage of the U.S. Read more

Allies

Smolensk & The Eastern Front: The Katyusha Rocket System

by Victor Kamenir

The fighting at Orsha saw the first battlefield use of the Red Army’s experimental battery of BM-13 multiple-launch rocket systems. Read more

Allies

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

Allies

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

Allies

Hero of Verdun: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain

By Blaine Taylor

“I’ve been old in all my ranks,” said Henri Philippe Pétain, created Marshal of France on December 8, 1918, at age 62. Read more

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World War II Propaganda Posters

By Eric H. Roth

Military posters played a crucial role in motivating Americans to do their best and make sacrifices—of all kinds—during World War II. Read more

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USS Rasher: The Legendary Undersea Warrior

By Kelly Bell

At 12:30 am, October 9, 1943, Commander Edward S. Hutchinson spotted his first targets as a submarine commander. Read more

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Hollywood’s Dream Factory During World War II

By Herb Kugel

World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor. Read more

Allies

The Muddled History of Philippe Pétain

By Michael E. Haskew

He was, in the truest sense, a national hero. Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France, the hero of Verdun, is, however, best remembered in the modern world as a traitor, a collaborationist who sacrificed the honor of France to make a deal with Hitler and the Nazis. Read more

Allies

‘Raising a flag over the Reichstag’ Photographer Yevgeni Khaldei

By Michael E. Haskew

The image of Red Army soldiers hoisting their hammer and sickle emblazoned banner atop the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament, is a classic photo of World War II, an image that told the world Nazi Germany was at last finished. Read more

Allies

Naval Mines: Why They Were the Great Military Equalizer

by Victor J. Kamenir

During World War II, naval mines were used extensively in the Baltic Sea. Their low cost provided weaker German and Finnish fleets with an effective force multiplier in negating Soviet numerical and qualitative advantages. Read more

Allies

Reginald Earnshaw: The Youngest British Casualty

By Michael E. Haskew

Duty in the British Merchant Navy was hazardous during World War II. Braving the stormy Atlantic, the expanse of the Pacific, and the daily rigors of life aboard ship were challenging enough during peacetime; however, during the dark days of the war a determined enemy, bent on bringing the island nation and its far-flung empire to their knees, unleashed a vicious campaign against Britain’s merchant lifeline. Read more

Allies

Rescue at Ladd Reef

By Paul Farace

As the submarine USS Cod left Apra harbor, Guam, on the afternoon of June 26, 1945, for her seventh war patrol, her crew of 97 officers and enlisted men were all but certain that their new assignment was to be junk hunting—a thankless and dangerous job that in the words of one Cod crewman saw “Uncle Sam risk a seven million dollar submarine and crew to sink a leaky sailboat not worth more than $20,000!” Read more

Allies

USS Astoria Sunk: The Disaster Off Savo Island

By John Domagalski

Admiral Ernest King could not believe what he was reading. The graying 63-year-old chief of U.S. naval operations had been awoken from his sleep. Read more

Allies

Bringing Down the Bridges

By John Mancini

In April 1941, German troops swarmed into Greece from Bulgaria. Despite a valiant defense by the Greek Army and support from the British, the Nazis smashed their battle lines and controlled Greece within weeks. Read more

Allies

George S. Patton’s End Run: The Story of His Final Days

By Major General Michael Reynolds

By early 1945, less than a year before General George S. Patton’s mysterious death, Adolf Hitler’s armies were almost exhausted. Read more