Tory Archives

A panther tank and panzer grenadiers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking help to break the encirclement of the Russian town of Kowel in the strategically important area of the Pripet Marshes.

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Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

In their first major battles of World War I, American Expeditionary Force troops helped blunt multiple offensives launched by the German Army in the spring of 1918.

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World War I Doughboys’ Bloody Baptism

As the fateful day drew to a close, the exhausted World War I soldiers of the German 25th and 82nd Reserve Divisions huddled in their trenches. Read more

Crispus Attucks has always been thought to be the leader and main instigator of the Boston Massacre, but debate continues regarding his involvement and his portrayal in the history books.

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African American Revolutionary War Heroes: Crispus Attucks

There were many African Americans in the Revolutionary War, and although some of them fought for the Colonists and others for the British, freedom was usually their motivation. Read more

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A Murderous Order at Culp’s Hill

By Joshua Sheperd

Although Union Colonel Silas Colgrove had previously led his men through some of the most horrific fighting in the eastern theater of the Civil War, the order he received on the morning of July 3, 1863, in the woods near Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg, was the most unnerving he had ever received. Read more

Bob Max fought with the 9th Armored Infantry Battalion until he became one of few Battle of the Bulge POWs who would live to tell their tale.

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Battle of the Bulge POWs: One Man’s Story of Capture

By David H. Lippman

Nobody knew it in the 6th Armored Divisions 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, but the tide of the Battle of the Bulge had turned by the time the outfit moved into snow-covered fields and forests near Bastogne. Read more

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U.S. Army Heritage Museum

By Mason B. Webb

In the heart of Pennsylvania, not far from the Civil War battlefields of Gettysburg, stands the U.S. Read more

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The Scholarly Spies

By Tim Miller

Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more

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Innovative Soviet Fighter Ace

By Christopher J. Chlon

According to contemporary Soviet news sources, fighter Ace Alexander Pokryshkin was the most famous pilot in the Red Air Force during World War II. Read more

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B-29 Production

Written by: Joe Kirby

By Joe Kirby

When Maj. Gen. Curtis Lemay, the hard-driving commander of the Twentieth U.S. Air Force based in Guam, decided to change tactics in early 1945 to boost the effectiveness of the B-29 Superfortress, it was the Bell Aircraft plant in Marietta, Georgia, that ultimately provided him with the stripped-down bombers that played such a key role in ending the war in the Pacific. Read more

Against the odds, Detroit defied reality to help win World War II.

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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

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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

At the Pearl Harbor Attack and other locations, the Japanese would often employ kesshi, or 'dare to die tactics.'

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Japanese Suicide Attacks at Pearl Harbor and Beyond

by David Alan Johnson

The deliberate crashing into enemy targets by Japanese aviators did not begin at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. Read more

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest rose from the ranks to become a daring and audacious cavalry commander during the American Civil War.

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Legendary Cavalry Commander Nathan Bedford Forrest

By Mike Haskew

Prior to the American Civil War, Nathan Bedford Forrest amassed a fortune in real estate, agriculture, and the slave trade. Read more

In addition to the Founding Fathers, there were numerous female Revolutionary War heroes who contributed substantially to the fight for independence, like Martha Washington.

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Female Revolutionary War Heroes: the Front Lines and at Home

by Mike Haskew Martha Custis Washington: General’s Wife and First Lady

Martha Custis Washington, wife of General George Washington, came to the winter quarters of her husband’s army each winter of the Revolutionary War. Read more

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Union General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea

By Mike Haskew

Union General William T. Sherman was a friend and trusted subordinate of General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of all Union armies in the field during the Civil War. Read more

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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

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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

In August 1944, the Allies followed up the massive Normandy Invasion with another in southern France known as Operation Dragoon.

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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

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Battle of Chickamauga: Death in the Deep Woods

By Cowan Brew

It was nearly 11 on the morning of September 20, 1863, and the woods around slow-moving Chickamauga Creek in northwest Georgia were ominously quiet. Read more

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Attack on the USS Panay

By Chuck Lyons

For some Americans, World War II started early. In December 1937, four years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into the war, Japanese planes attacked an American gunboat, the USS Panay, on China’s Yangtze River, strafing and bombing the boat, sinking it, killing three American crew members, and the wounding 45 others. Read more

From Around the Network

Bushwhackers, Jayhawks, and Red Legs: Missouri’s Guerrilla War

Recreating David Bushnell’s Turtle, the World’s First Submarine

Guns at Bear Paw

Special Forces units fought a difficult and bitter secret war in-country during the Korean War.