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The Children of WWII: Remembering the Conflict That Stole Their Childhoods
By Susan ZimmermanWorld War II affected nearly every area of the world. It was the deadliest conflict in all of human history. Read more
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Final Battle for Burma, 1945
By William StroockBy the beginning of February 1945, the British 14th Army was on the banks of the Irrawaddy River and poised to strike into central Burma. Read more
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Assault on Ludendorff Bridge: The First Allied Crossing of the Rhine
By Jon DiamondOn a cold March evening in the Goldenrod Café in West Point, Nebraska, Mary Timmermann, a waitress there, picked up the telephone receiver when her boss told her it was Omaha calling long distance for her. Read more
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Why Was Irma Grese, the Beast of Belsen, so Hated?
By Cynthia Southern“She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic, and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. Read more
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Naval Assault On Munda
By John J. DomagalskiThe first days of January 1943 found American forces winning the prolonged struggle for control of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Read more
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The Dachau Memorial
By Mark D. Van EllsThe Nazi regime in Germany has become synonymous with inhuman cruelty. Hitler incarcerated millions in his concentration camps and inflicted on his victims the harshest forms of torture and deprivation imaginable. Read more
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From Paratrooper to POW: Bob Nobles of the 82nd Airborne
By Kevin M. Hymel“The lieutenant said for everyone to lay your arms down,” a fellow paratrooper told Pfc. Bob Nobles, who had been fighting for six grueling days in the hedgerows following his unit’s jump into Normandy. Read more
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The OSS and the Fourth Dimension of Warfare
By Bob BerginMajor General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more
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Leonard J. Thom: JFK’s XO on PT-109
By Michael J. BellThe name Leonard Jay Thom may not mean anything to a great many people today, and that is unfortunate. Read more
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North African Campaign: WWII’s Ultimate War of Logistics
By Allyn VannoyBradley could have been referring to German General Erwin Rommel. While Rommel was winning the war of desert armor tactics during 1941-1942 in the North African Campaign, he was losing the war of logistics. Read more
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Pearl Harbor: The Sleeping Giant Awoken
By Flint WhitlockIt was, as the phrase goes, another perfect day in paradise. As the sun rose above the Pacific in the clear, cloudless sky east of the Hawaiian Islands, on December 7, 1941, the giant U.S. Read more
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Escape to Tashkent: Fleeing Operation Barbarossa
By Rebecca ManleyIn the fall of 1941, the Polish writer Aleksander Wat, recently released from confinement in a Soviet prison, made his way east across the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. Read more
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The Irish Brigade in WWII
By Tim NewarkIt was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more
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A Navy Chaplain on Iwo Jima: Doing God’s Work in Hell
By Reverend E. Gage HotalingBACKSTORY: The Reverend E. Gage Hotaling, the son of a Baptist minister, was born in Wellsville, New York, on January 21, 1916. Read more
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Helldiver Lieutenant Klenk
By Robert F. DorrLieutenant William A. “Bill” Klenk, piloting a Curtiss SB2C-3 Helldiver, bristled at the “clawing, miserable weather,” with inverted pyramids of cloud hanging from a low ceiling and gray murk everywhere. Read more
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Vierville-sur-Mer: Cracking a Critical Draw at Omaha Beach
By Kevin M. HymellShortly after 8 am on June 6, 1944, a German officer overlooking the Vierville-sur-Mer Draw on Omaha Beach reported that the soldiers defending the beach were repelling the Americans: “The enemy is in search of cover behind the coastal zone obstacles. Read more
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Storming the Reichstag in Russia’s ‘Military Disneyland’
By Nicholas VarangisExplosions send fire through the air, aircraft drone overhead, tanks rumble across the cratered ground, and machine guns chatter in murderous conversation on a chaotic battlefield. Read more
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Amazing Photos of the Crash and Rescue of a Torpedo Bomber Off Leyte
By Kevin M. HymelIt was a routine carrier takeoff, but nothing in warfare is ever routine. Lieutenant B. Sevilla launched his TBF Avenger torpedo bomber from the USS Anzio but within seconds he lost control and spun into the water. Read more
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4 Unsolved Mysteries of the Jimmy Doolittle Raid on Tokyo
By Susan ZimmermanApril 18, 1942, will forever live in American military glory as the date of the Jimmy Doolittle Raid on Tokyo––a gutsy, never-before-attempted combat mission to fly North American B-25 Mitchell bombers off the deck of an aircraft carrier and attack an enemy capital. Read more
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From the Philippines to Borneo: A PT Boat Skipper’s Life
By John NieselWhen the four members of the Japanese surrender delegation climbed aboard the deck of PT-375 on September 8, 1945, the boat’s skipper, Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Blake, directed the men to an open area on the forward deck where the Japanese could be closely watched for any signs of treachery. Read more
