Operation Torch
Today’s Navy SEALs (for Sea, Air, and Land special warfare experts) have a history shrouded in secrecy. Commissioned in 1962, they are the most elite shore-area Special Forces in the world, concentrating on very select and often-clandestine intelligence gathering and precision strike missions. Read more
Operation Torch
Superficially, Phil Cochran personified the WWII fighter pilot, a combat daredevil, nonchalant about the niceties of rank and zealous in pursuit of what he called “chicks.” Read more
Operation Torch
Less than a year after the sudden and devastating Japanese attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the American military was about to embark on a large-scale offensive operation against German and Italian forces in North Africa. Read more
Operation Torch
In November 1941, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet weighed anchor in Shanghai, China, for the last time. Alarmed by the growing hostility and aggressiveness of the Japanese, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the outnumbered and outgunned American vessels moved to the relative safety of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Read more
Operation Torch
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
Operation Torch
In most popular spy thrillers, secret agents are tall, handsome, virile, and irresistible to women. Whether their name is Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, or James Bond, all are hard-drinking, well-tailored ladies’ men. Read more
Operation Torch
Great commanders need great subordinates. In the campaigns in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of World War II, General Dwight D. Read more
Operation Torch
One day shortly after the Battle of El Guettar in central Tunisia in March 1943, Colonel William O. Read more
Operation Torch
On November 17, 1915, Major Smedley Butler and a small force of U.S. Marines approached the old French bastion of Fort Riviere in Haiti. Read more
Operation Torch
With his troops in a bitter fight with German forces in northern France in the late summer of 1944, General Omar Bradley, commander of the Allied 12th Army Group, could not believe his ears. Read more
Operation Torch
Coming after a series of bitter defeats from France to Norway to Crete, news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II was one of the early high points of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s leadership years. Read more
Operation Torch
Lucian Truscott needed a cigarette. The 47-year-old brigadier general was having the worst night of his life. Read more
Operation Torch
It was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more
Operation Torch
On August 7, 1942, Petty Officer 1st Class Saburo Sakai was piloting his Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero” fighter in the skies over Sealark Channel in the Solomon Islands. Read more
Operation Torch
Many associate Massachusetts with the Kennedy family, and its influence is evident at Battleship Cove. The World War II record of the Kennedys is a distinguished one. Read more
Operation Torch
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
Operation Torch
On a June morning in 1942, a battalion of American soldiers stepped down from a train at Fort William in the northern highlands of Scotland. Read more
Operation Torch
On Sunday December 7, 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a luncheon for 31 people at the White House. Read more
Operation Torch
The director flicked his finger, and General Charles de Gaulle began reading his address into the British Broadcasting Corporation’s microphone, speaking from London to his defeated countrymen across the English Channel, calling upon them to continue resistance in the face of overwhelming German supremacy. Read more
Operation Torch
In an August 14, 1944, General Bernard L. Montgomery was facing a manpower crisis, unable to drive the Germans out of Caen. Read more
