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Captured Weapons of the Reich: A Photo Essay

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Heinrich Himmler: The Rise and Fall of Hitler’s Third Reichsführer-SS

On the evening of May 23, 1945, in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, five men in a British Army jeep were driving down a dark road. Read more

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General Omar Bradley: Dwight D Eisenhower’s Indispensible Lieutenant

Great commanders need great subordinates. In the campaigns in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of World War II, General Dwight D. Read more

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The Gallic Wars: To Northern Gaul

The gray skies of winter still shrouded the town of Vesontio on the Dubis River. To the south, when not obscured by mist and rain, rose the Jura Mountains, and beyond that the lofty peaks of the Alps and the nearest Roman Province, Gallia Cisalpina. Read more

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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

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Philippolis: Roman Disaster on the Western Border

It was early spring, ad 235, on the Rhine frontier. In the imperial tent of a Roman encampment, 26-year-old Emperor Severus Alexander wept at his mother’s side. Read more

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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

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The Battle of Sedan: Napoleon III’s Empire in the Balance

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew and namesake of the great Napoleon, once said, “March at the head of the ideas of your century, and these ideas follow you and support you. Read more

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Louis XIV: the Sun King of France

Louis XIV of France is remembered as the Sun King, the most resplendent figure of his age, the man who snatched dominance of Europe from the Spanish and built France into the preeminent power of the second half of the 17th century. Read more

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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

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Hitler’s Experience in the Trenches of the Great War

In the months before the outbreak of World War I, 25-year-old Adolf Hitler was living the starving artist’s life in the Bavarian city of Munich, selling his paintings door-to-door and in the city’s numerous beer halls. Read more

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The Battle of Chalons: Attila’s Stinging Defeat

In AD 451, Attila the Hun, by then known to terrified Western Christians as the “scourge of God,” crossed the Rhine River in command of a multi-ethnic army. Read more

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Drusus the Elder: Hero of Rome

On a sultry summer night in 9 BC, 29-year-old commander of Augustus Caesar ’s army in Germania bolted upright in his cot, dripping with sweat. Read more

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A Photographer in the Ninth Air Force

When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific. Read more

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Tank Destroyers in Action! Photos of the 809th on the Front

The 809th Tank Destroyer Battalion was an independently attached unit of the U.S. Army. The battalion was activated on March 18, 1942, at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and remained in the United States through most of the war. Read more

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Operation Market Garden: The American Airborne’s Audacious Role

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

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Hard Road to the Rhine

January 1945—with World War II in its sixth year—found the Allied armies going on the offensive after the Battle of the Bulge, but they were still west of the Rhine and six weeks behind schedule in their advance toward Germany. Read more

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Herrlisheim: What Became of the 12th Armored Division’s Lost Battalion

On January 17, 1945, as Allied forces prepared to descend on Germany itself and put an end to the war in Europe, an American tank battalion disappeared. Read more

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Cracking the Geilenkirchen Salient

Geilenkirchen had been a thorn in the side of the Allies ever since the first penetration of the Siegfried Line had been made just to the south. Read more

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The U.S. Ninth Army’s Breakout: Crossing the Roer and the Rhine

After the Battle of the Bulge delayed their advance by six critical weeks, the British, U.S., and Canadian armies went on the offensive in mid-January 1945 and pushed toward the German frontier. Read more