Allies
The desert sky lit up like a summer lightning storm on the night of December 31, 1941. The distant thunder of hundreds of guns rolled across the sandy, stony ground. Read more
Allies
When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the world changed forever.
Not only was Hitler determined to pay back Germany’s enemies for his country’s defeat during the Great War, but he was also determined to rid Germany and the rest of Europe of persons whom his twisted Aryan ideology believed were “inferior” or “subhuman.” Read more
Allies
It was May 23, 1945, roughly a year before the execution of Julius Streicher, founder and publisher of the vilest anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda of the war. Read more
Allies
For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more
Allies
On Christmas Eve, 1944, Colonel William Holden, commander of the prisoner of war camp at Phoenix, Arizona, suddenly lost all hope for a happy holiday. Read more
Allies
By the autumn of 1944, German resistance in the West was quickly crumbling as the British and Americans approached the German border 233 days ahead of schedule. Read more
Allies
One day shortly after the Battle of El Guettar in central Tunisia in March 1943, Colonel William O. Read more
Allies
Early in World War II, a bitter joke circulated within the Soviet military. It ran, “What is the first thing Russia does when war is declared? Read more
Allies
British General Orde Wingate is one of the more enigmatic World War II commanders encountered in a number of biographical and military historical accounts. Read more
Allies
At exactly 8 PM on November 8, 1939, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler strode briskly into Munich’s Burgerbraukeller beer hall at the head of his glowering entourage, brushing past a forest of hands raised in the Nazi salute. Read more
Allies
The fundamental pillars of war—strategy and tactics— inevitably depend on an imponderable and uncontrollable factor: the weather. With the increasing sophistication of weather data gathering, analysis, and forecasting in the early 20th century, predicting the weather became an integral part of World War II. Read more
Allies
Every American soldier who jumped into North Africa, Europe, the Philippines, and other combat zones around the globe during World War II had to first learn his trade at Fort Benning, Georgia. Read more
Allies
In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, the largest armada ever sent into war assaulted the coast of France at Normandy. Read more
Allies
Radar, atomic bombs, jet engines and early cruise missiles were among the numerous technological advances of World War II. Read more
Allies
It was Napoleon Bonaparte who purportedly said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Toward the goal of feeding his particular army’s stomach more efficiently, in 1795 the French general came up with an interesting solution to the problem. Read more
Allies
Early in World War II, the British War Office and the Admiralty were shocked by daring small boat attacks, some of them suicidal, on Allied shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. Read more
Allies
When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific. Read more
Allies
The 809th Tank Destroyer Battalion was an independently attached unit of the U.S. Army. The battalion was activated on March 18, 1942, at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and remained in the United States through most of the war. Read more
Allies
The iconic image of a woman in overalls, her hair tied up in a bandana, and flexing her bicep below the headline, “We Can Do It,” is one of the most recognizable images from World War II. Read more
