Blitzkrieg

The Imperial War Museum

Although Britain has a number of war museums, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) is acknowledged as the Holy Grail of them all—the one you must visit when in London. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Queen of the Desert: The Infantry ‘Matilda’ Tank

The origins of the Matilda Tank or “I” Tank date back to 1934, when Maj. Gen. Percy C.S. Read more

Blitzkrieg

WWII Vehicles: The Czech Panzer 38(t)

Poland, the Netherlands, France, the Balkans, and Russia were subjected to Germany’s blitzkrieg between 1939 and 1941. At the forefront of those assaults were tanks of Czechoslovakian design. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Silent Blitzkrieg: the Battle of Fort Eben Emael

Belgian Fort Eben Emael was as close to impregnable as modern defense works could be—or so it seemed. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Heinrich Himmler: The Rise and Fall of Hitler’s Third Reichsführer-SS

On the evening of May 23, 1945, in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, five men in a British Army jeep were driving down a dark road. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Secret Agent Man: The Story of Eddie Chapman

Nations have often pressed unsavory characters and criminals into service during wartime, rationalizing that such action is in the best interest of the country during extraordinary times. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Any Bonds Today?

One of the most unusual baseball games ever played was a three- way game in New York City between the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Read more

Blitzkrieg

The City That Would Not Die: Siege of Leningrad

Leningrad, the old imperial capital, was the most beautiful city in Russia and had for centuries been her cultural heartland. Read more

Blitzkrieg

The Invention of Radar vs. The Luftwaffe

Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more

Blitzkrieg

Cauldron of Death: the Demyansk Salient and the Eastern Front

On the vast Eastern Front, the Demyansk salient represented little more than a smudge on the battle map. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Bradenburgers: Germany’s Special Forces in World War II

War had been raging for 10 days, and Wehrmacht columns were pouring through Poland in a ceaseless torrent. Read more

Blitzkrieg

WWII Polish Cavalryman: Lance-Wielding Anachronism?

In the late afternoon of September 1, 1939, the 18th Uhlan Regiment of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade was holding its position along Poland’s heavily forested northwest frontier when orders arrived to attack the flank of the advancing German 20th Motorized Infantry Division. Read more

Blitzkrieg

WWII: German Rations and Feeding the Troops of the Third Reich

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

Blitzkrieg

Swift Invasion of Denmark

On the night of April 8, 1940, almost four million people went to bed at peace in the midst of a world war. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Operation Barbarossa: How Stalin was Blindsided by Berlin

By Richard Z. Freemann, Jr.

“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”   

—Winston Churchill (1950)

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, as the sun slumbered, 3.6 million soldiers, 2,000 warplane pilots, and 3,350 tank commanders under skilled German command crouched at the border of Soviet-occupied Poland ready to invade the Communist nation Joseph Stalin had ruled with steel-fisted brutality for years.  Read more

Blitzkrieg

Overrunning Norway

By Mark Simmons

“U-64 was seen on the surface at the top of Herjansfjord near Bjrekvik. I selected the two anti-submarine bombs and put the Swordfish in a dive and released the bombs at 200 feet. Read more

Blitzkrieg

German Interest in Adolf Hitler on the Rise

German interest in Adolf Hitler is on the rise, according to a recent Telgraph article and a study conducted by the German Media Control group. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Ford’s Willow Run Factory

They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more

Blitzkrieg

Captured! Belgium’s Mighty Fort Eben-Emael

At 4:25am in the predawn darkness of May 10, 1940, nine German gliders silently skidded to a stop on the hilltop of the most heavily defended fortress in Europe, disgorging 71 highly trained German Fallschirmjäger. Read more

Blitzkrieg

WWII Diary of a Boy Soldier: A Story of Youth and Resistance

Julian Kulski was only ten years old when he was introduced to war. As he hunted for mushrooms near Warsaw, Poland, he was struck by the unmistakable buzz of the German blitzkrieg:

“… we heard the sound of engines. Read more