German

Ford’s Willow Run Factory

By Samantha L. Quigley

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

German

FDR’s Confidential Crusader

By Michael Williams

On March 14, 1988, a solemn ceremony took place at Arlington National Cemetery. Resplendent in their white caps and dress blues, the Marine body bearers laid to rest the ashes of Ernest Cuneo in the Columbarium with full military honors. Read more

German

Dementi Shmarinov: Tracings of Barbarossa

By Kevin M. Hymel

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, showed the world the extent of Nazi brutality. Read more

German

The Graf Spee & Britain’s First Naval Victory of World War II

By David Lippman

As soon as the British radio operator started batting out the distress signal on December 2, 1939, the German pocket battleship opened up with a 37mm gun. Read more

German

Before the Battle of the Bulge: Forming the 551st “GOYAs”

By Donald Roberts II

By summer’s end 1944 Adolf Hitler, along with much of his staff, began to realize that Germany was in serious danger of losing the war. Read more

German

Against the Odds: Jeanette Rankin

By Martin K.A. Morgan

An Associated Press report described “a chorus of hisses and boos” that echoed through the chamber when the Congresswoman from Montana cast her vote. Read more

German

Operation Aphrodite

By Mason B. Webb

When it came to advanced military technology in World War II, arguably no one was better at it than Nazi Germany, whose scientists Adolf Hitler keep busy trying to invent the ultimate “super weapon” capable of defeating his enemies. Read more

German

Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon

By Glenn Barnette and André Bernole

Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more

German

HBO Working on “Band of Brothers In The Sky”

Thirteen years after completing “Band of Brothers” and four years after its companion series, “The Pacific,” Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are teaming up again for a new World War II HBO series: “Masters of the Air.” Read more

German

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

By Cleve C. Barkley

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

German

The Lee-Enfield Rifle and its Effectiveness in World War II

By Arnold Blumberg

By 1901, the Small Arms Committee—the body within the War Office tasked with arming the British Army with weapons—sought to replace their then-standard issue rifle: the Magazine Lee-Metford Rifle Mark II. Read more

German

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

By Michael P. Slater

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

German

Sherman Tanks vs. Tiger Tanks: Which Was Best at the Bulge?

by Michael D. Hull

When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more

German

German Military’s Emissary for Peace

By Jon Diamond

Many accounts have been written about the peace mission flight of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess and his parachute landing in a farm field in Scotland in May 1941 to discuss with the Duke of Hamilton a proposal to end hostilities. Read more

German

The Hawker Typhoon 1A & 1B: Worst RAF Fighters in WWII?

by Arnold Blumberg

In 1934 the British War office accepted a new aircraft design eventually designated the Hawker Hurricane Mark 1. Read more

German

A Masterful German Defense at the Battle of Seelow Heights

By William E. Welsh

The officers huddled in a candlelit cellar in an abandoned farmhouse midway between the Oder River and Berlin. Read more

German

Engineering Excellence, Political Dysfunction: Mercedes-Benz in WWII

by Albert Mroz

Few would argue that Daimler-Benz is one of the most prominent and highly regarded motor vehicle manufacturers in automotive history. Read more

German

The Goth Sack of Rome: Barbarians at the Gate in 410 AD

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

The tattered banners of Hercules fluttered in the howling wind along the Frigidus River in western Italy, hard athwart the Adriatic Sea, on the afternoon of September 6, 394 ad. Read more

German

P-47 Thunderbolts at the Battle of the Bulge

By Robert F. Dorr & Thomas D. Jones

The captured German pilot was cocky and boastful. He had just parachuted into the American airfield, now lit up by the fires of burning Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a sprinkling of bright torches amid the gray January gloom and the dirty white snow. Read more

German

Dream of the Polish Eagle

By Blaine Taylor

”The subject of Poland is by far the most complex of all the problems to be considered,” the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles was told in 1919, as it was preparing to sort out the incredible mess in European affairs following the end of World War I. Read more