Axis

A Luftwaffe Ace’s Joy-Ride in a Spitfire

When Hugo Broch flew his fighter for the Luftwaffe, he probably didn’t imagine he would ever find himself in the cockpit of a Supermarine Spitfire. Read more

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Hitler’s Religion: Was Hitler an Atheist, Christian, or Something Else?

Guest Post By History on the Net

No matter how little you know about history, you know something about Adolf Hitler. Read more

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A Soviet Red Army Victory at Vienna

In mid-March 1945, the Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Red Army launched a major offensive with the aim of clearing Axis forces out of Hungary and forcing them back to the very borders of Hitler’s Greater German Reich. Read more

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Fiery Fight for a Frozen Hell: Battle of the Bulge in Luxembourg

Described in one U.S. Army report as “the quiet paradise for weary troops,” the tiny nation of Luxembourg was viewed by American commanders in late 1944 much like Belgium—liberated, safe, and an ideal location for combat-worn troops to rest and for untested replacements to get exposed to outdoor living and military routine before being exposed to combat. Read more

Axis

La Gleize Battle of the Bulge Museum

There is no shortage of museums in the Belgian Ardennes to record the region’s dark winter of World War II. Read more

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Polish Cavalry Myth Debunked: CNBC vs the Polish Embassy

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money show, made a mistake on May 11th when he jokingly parroted a common misconception about the German invasion of Poland. Read more

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The Lions of Carentan Part III: Operation Cobra

Background: In this, the third and final installment of a three-part series excerpted from The Lions of Carentan, the 2011 book by a respected German military historian, Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6 (FJR 6) has been pushed out of Ste.-Mère-église, Read more

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The Lions of Carentan Part II: Defending Carentan

Background: Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6, under the command of Major Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, had the fortune (or misfortune) to be stationed in Normandy at the time of the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944. Read more

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The Lions of Carentan Part I: Paratrooper vs Paratrooper on D-Day

Background: Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6 was organized in February 1943, under the command of Major Egon Liebach. It was part of the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Division and was stationed in France, where it trained in parachute and glider operations. Read more

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British Paratrooper at Arnhem: An Interview With James Sims

Q: Could you give us a little personal background before we talk about your war experiences?

SIMS: I was born on April 29, 1925, at Sheffield in Yorkshire. Read more

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Teddy Roosevelt Jr.: Rare Photos from His Funeral in Normandy

This picture was taken by Army Pfc. Sidney Gutelewitz roughly a month after the D-Day Invasion, according to the Los Angeles Times. Read more

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The Codebreakers’ War in the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic was a life-and-death struggle between the German Kriegsmarine and the Allied navies that was fought for control of Britain’s lifeline to its empire and to the United States. Read more

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Battle of Graignes: An HQ Company’s Heroic Last Stand in Normandy

Some 16 million Americans served during World War II, and tens of thousands of sons of the State of Louisiana served in every branch of the U.S. Read more

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The New Trailer For the Film Dunkirk Will Give You Chills

“When 400,000 men couldn’t get home, home came for them.” These words could not better describe the amazing effort that the British military and civilian volunteers put toward saving the British and French soldiers trapped at Dunkirk. Read more

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Shootout in Kula Gulf

The island of Guadalcanal loomed in the distance as the warships of Task Force 36.1 approached the waters of Iron Bottom Sound on July 5, 1943. Read more

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Hiroshima’s Ground Zero Museum

Although located 420 miles west of Tokyo, the city of Hiroshima is today a tourist mecca, drawing tens of thousands of visitors from around the world for one single reason: to stand at the epicenter of history’s first nuclear explosion used against an enemy population. Read more

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Operation Chastise: Night of the Dambusters

May 16, 1943, had been a sweltering spring day in England. At 9:39 pm, as the sun was dipping below the western horizon, leaving a rim of light and still good visibility, the first three of 19 Avro Lancaster bombers of No. Read more

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The Guns of Finger Ridge: Airborne Artillery on the Defense in Market-Garden

On September 17, 1944, a massive but hastily planned airborne invasion of the Netherlands was launched. Codenamed Market-Garden, the operation called for three Allied airborne divisions (British 1st and American 82nd and 101st) to land along a narrow corridor reaching from advanced positions along the Dutch-Belgian border to a bridgehead on the northern bank of the Rhine River at Arnhem. Read more

Axis

The Battle of Biak: “A Terrifying Glimpse Into the Soul of Mankind”

“All I knew about Biak was that it was an island a degree south of the equator, one of the Schouten group lying north of Geelvink Bay toward the western end of New Guinea.” Read more

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Death of the Super Battleship Yamato and Musashi

Special Sea Attack Force (SSAF) was an ordinary-sounding name for the pitifully tiny remnant of what was once the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Read more