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On Sunday, September 3, 1939, the day that Great Britain and France formally declared war on Germany after the Nazis’ invasion of Poland, the German supply ship Altmark concluded her stay at the refinery center of Port Arthur, Texas, where she had taken on a full cargo of diesel oil, and returned to sea. Read more
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After docking in New York on August 28, 1939, only four days before the outbreak of World War II, Captain Adolf Ahrens of Germany’s North German Lloyd shipping line was faced with a decision. Read more
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Stanislaw Sosabowski started his military career in the anti-Hapsburg Polish underground movement in 1907, served in the Austrian Army in World War I, and rose to the command of the Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II. Read more
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The style of leadership practiced in Britain’s Eighth Army during the early years of the Desert War left much to be desired. Read more
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Established in the summer of 1939, Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell’s Middle East Command encompassed nine countries and parts of two continents, an area of 1,700 miles by 2,000 miles. Read more
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In her previous life, she had been the Hansa-line freighter Goldenfels. She was launched in 1937 and displaced 7,862 tons. Read more
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Upon visiting Oradour-sur-Glane, one finds a quiet, rural French village where the populace carries on about its business much like in any commune in France. Read more
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It was around noon, June 19, 1940, when a small caravan of cars set out from Antibes in southern France en route to the Spanish border. Read more
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On the morning of April 7, 1939, Albania, the smallest of the Balkan countries, was invaded by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Army. Read more
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Eighty miles off the coast of New Jersey and 280 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean lies the forward section of a World War II destroyer, where it came to rest more than 60 years ago. Read more
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Opened on June 6, 2000, on the 56th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the National D-Day Museum, as it was then known, initially focused on the amphibious invasion of Normandy. Read more
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Ever since the tank appeared on the battlefield during World War I, armies the world over have sought to field man-portable infantry antitank weapons to give the infantryman a viable defense against the metal monsters. Read more
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Early on the morning of December 16, 1944, the commander of the U.S. 406th Artillery Group, Colonel George Axelson, had a difficult decision to make. Read more
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The men of Lieutenant Edwin K. Smith’s antitank platoon, 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division peered over the gun shields of their 37mm cannon at the column of Vichy French armored cars approaching their roadblock. Read more
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In 1942, many Americans considered anyone of Japanese ancestry to be an enemy, regardless of where they had been born or how long their families had lived in the United States. Read more
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A dangerous outlaw regime sits in power in Baghdad; the leader of one of the world’s superpowers decides it has to be removed at all costs; an army marches across the desert to topple it. Read more
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The American war in the Pacific proved to be largely a maritime endeavor. Fighting consisted of widespread naval battles between the two major opponents followed by American invasions of Japanese-held island bases. Read more
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Inside the shabby tent that served as his command post on Peleliu, a despondent Maj. Gen. William Rupertus sat on his bunk, slumped over with his head in his hands. Read more
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On June 22, 1940, the British prime minister, the formidable Winston Churchill, directed that an airborne force of at least 5,000 men was to be formed. Read more
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Following World War II, the British returned to a much different Malaya than they had departed three years earlier. Read more
