Nazi Germany

Patton’s Last Command

The October light was beginning to fade as the U.S. Army limousine sped along the autobahn in the American Zone of Occupied Germany. Read more

Nazi Germany

A Scout in Patton’s Third Army

The Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter plane dove out of the sky with machine guns firing. The pilot’s target—a pontoon bridge being stretched across Germany’s Werra River by American engineers. Read more

Nazi Germany

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

Nazi Germany

Daylight Bombing Gamble: The Schweinfurt–Regensburg Mission

In early 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England firmly entrenched in the belief that continuous and accurate daylight precision bombing was the only way to decisively crush German industrial capacity. Read more

Nazi Germany

The Forgotten American Airborne of Operation Market-Garden

“In the years to come everyone will remember Arnhem, but no one will remember that two American divisions fought their hearts out in the Dutch canal country,” wrote U.S. Read more

Nazi Germany

WWII Weapons Systems: The German Sturmgewehr

With the conflict in Iraq, combat photography is once again prevalent in the media, and it would be impossible to miss images of U.S. Read more

Nazi Germany

Hell in a Small Place: the Canadian Paratroopers of Operation Varsity

In the hut no one spoke, no one joked. The assembled British and Canadian paratroop commanders awaited the briefing from their brigade commander on their next major operation. Read more

Nazi Germany

WWII Fighter Aces: Ralph K. ‘Kid’ Hofer

He could be described as reckless, impulsive, undisciplined, lucky, fearless, and also as one of the most successful fighter pilots in the history of the U.S. Read more

Nazi Germany

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

Nazi Germany

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

Nazi Germany

WWII Heroes: Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Panic and confusion reigned across France as the bright, warm spring of 1940 turned into summer.

Blitzkrieg, a brutal new mode of warfare, was on the loose in Western Europe. Read more

Nazi Germany

WWII Spies: Oreste Pinto

Two men were seated on either side of a paper-strewn table inside an office of MI5, the British intelligence service, in the Royal Victoria Patriotic School at Clapham, London, shortly after the fall of France in the spring of 1940. Read more

Nazi Germany

General Mark Clark’s Secret Mission to North Africa

Rain battered the shore and the seas were rough on the night of October 21, 1942. Under the surface of the water, a submarine carried the Allies’ best hope for turning the tide of war in 1942. Read more

Nazi Germany

The Murmansk Run: Running the Gauntlet of WWII’s Arctic Convoys

It was unbelievably dull and uncomfortable duty, often interspersed with moments of sheer terror and the possibility of sudden and violent death. Read more

Nazi Germany

Prague Uprising in the Spring of 1945

­­The first days of May 1945 found the German war machine in absolute chaos. Berlin had fallen, and entire German armies were surrendering en masse. Read more

Nazi Germany

Walter Koehler & J. Edgar Hoover

Throughout his lifetime, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover always boasted that no enemy agent, either spy or saboteur, ever operated at large in the United States during World War II. Read more

Nazi Germany

German U-Boats: Scapa Flow Shock

World War II had been in progress for six weeks when on the evening of October 12, 1939, the German submarine U-47 surfaced off the Orkney Islands at the northern tip of Scotland. Read more

Nazi Germany

Heilbronn: Fighting House to House in World War II

Following its swift advance to the Rhine, the American 100th (Century) Infantry Division resumed its pursuit of retreating German forces. Read more

Nazi Germany

Franz von Papen: Vice Chancellor of Nazi Germany

On May 31, 1932, Franz von Papen achieved the pinnacle of a long career serving his country when, in a surprising move, the aging President Paul von Hindenburg named him Chancellor of Germany. Read more

Nazi Germany

Red Air Force Heroines: The Night Witches

Ignoring a nonaggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, an invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Read more