By David A. Norris
 Captain Daniel Lienard de Beaujeu rushed to save the remote French outpost of Fort Duquesne in early July 1755. Weeks away from receiving substantial reinforcements, the fort was the target of British Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock. With Braddock was the largest army in the North American frontier,   More »

By Michael D. Hull
Of all the workhorse weapons in the Allies’ World War II arsenal, from the American M-4 Sherman medium tank and jeep to the British Handley Page Halifax bomber and 25-pounder field gun, none was more widely and effectively deployed than the Douglas C-47 transport plane.
Dubbed the Skytrain by   More »

By Sam McGowan
 Undoubtedly, the World War II aircraft type that attracts the most attention is the fighter plane. Yet, before the war, the U.S. Army Air Corps paid little attention to fighter development and tactics because its senior officers, with certain exceptions, would later lead the Army Air Forces with   More »

By Christopher Miskimon
Six battalions of Russian infantry, 30 cannons, and a cavalry force deployed in the North Valley east of Sevastopol near the town of Balaclava. They occupied three sides of the valley, looking down on it. The other end was in the hands of the British Army. Spread across   More »

By Michael E. Haskew
The concept of elite or “special” forces matured during World War II, and the term became synonymous with extraordinary heroism, particularly against long odds. The editors of WWII History magazine have put together a Special Issue, World War II Special Forces, entirely devoted to these units and   More »

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

When world war engulfed Europe for the second time in a generation, the Netherlands placed its faith in the diplomatic delusion that it could remain neutral like it had during World War I. When that failed it counted on a military miracle that turned out to   More »

By Tim Miller

On October 28, ad 312, a Roman emperor was drowning. The sight must have amazed his soldiers. All summer Rome had been filled with rumors of the western emperor, Constantine, and the ease with which he and his army had crossed the Alps and, once on Italian soil,   More »

By David A. Norris
Wind lifted away the fog sheltering the French lines. Atop a low ridge where the French army was deployed, a lone windmill provided a vivid range marker for 58 Prussian cannons on the neighboring hills. Shot fell like black hailstones amid the staff officers by the man-made   More »

By Steven D. Smith

In the predawn darkness of Dobodura, New Guinea, 2nd Lt. William J. Smith of the U.S. Army Air Corps was roughly awakened by a noncom announcing that it was time to get dressed and get to the mess tent for breakfast.

Smith had not slept well, having spent   More »

By Arnold Blumberg
British naval operations in the Far East in World War II started badly and went downhill from there. Years of underfunding in defense meant that Britain simply did not have the means to defend its huge empire, and for 18 months prior to the Japanese attack on the   More »