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

Deep Strike on Augsburg

In the spring of 1942, the Allies were hard pressed battling German U-boats in the Atlantic as Britain was struggling to feed its people. Read more

Nazi Germany

Surging Toward the Alps: Last Battles of the Italian Campaign

For the Allied armies in Italy, the final winter of World War II was one of planning, replenishment, and the continuing effort to make existence in a war-ravaged land in the midst of snow and ice as bearable as possible. Read more

Nazi Germany

Adolf Galland: Winged Knight of the Luftwaffe

On a bright spring day in 1944, a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf 190 fighter encountered a formation of U.S. Read more

Nazi Germany

The Birth of the Viet Minh: World War II’s Prelude to the Vietnam War

In the late 18th century, the French established Catholic missions in Indochina, and until the 1820s they enjoyed local protection, but after that persecution began and increased steadily, particularly under Emperor Tu-Duc, who reigned from 1847 to 1883 and wanted to stamp out Christianity. Read more

Nazi Germany

Battle at Bir el Gubi

February 1941 saw the fortunes of war favor the British in the North African wasteland of Cyrenaica (modern Libya). 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

The Katyn Forest Massacre: Cracks in the Allied Cause

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so an old saying goes. Perhaps it was the grandest exercise in political pragmatism and expediency that the world has ever known. Read more

Nazi Germany

The Malmédy Massacre and the Battle of the Bulge

Malmédy is an attractive and prosperous town situated in eastern Belgium, 15 miles from the German border. 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

Hanna Reitsch, the Reichenberg Project & Germany’s Kamikazes

By early 1944, the Luftwaffe was only a shadow of what it had been at the beginning of the war. Read more

Nazi Germany

Commando Paddy Mayne: Ireland’s Wolf of the Desert

The night of December 14, 1941, was bitterly cold in the North African desert. Midway between El Agheila and Tripoli, Libya, was the German and Italian air base outside the town of Tamet. Read more

Nazi Germany

WWII German Cavalry: Horses of the Blitz

By 1939 the German Reich possessed 3,800,000 horses to be used in WWII German cavalry while 885,000 were initially called to the Wehrmacht as saddle, draft, and pack animals. Read more

Nazi Germany

The WWII Sniper: Caught in the Crosshairs of Famous Sharpshooters

The art of sniping developed from the sharpshooting practiced during earlier conflicts. During the 19th century, the steadily improving technology of the rifle led to the use of sharpshooters during the American Civil War and the Boer War. Read more

Nazi Germany

The Battle of Kursk: Showdown at Prokhorovka and Oboian

With the German Sixth Army destroyed at Stalingrad, the Soviet juggernaut lunged west and southwest across the River Donets. Read more