U.S. Army

Before the Battle of the Bulge: Forming the 551st “GOYAs”

By Donald Roberts II

By summer’s end 1944 Adolf Hitler, along with much of his staff, began to realize that Germany was in serious danger of losing the war. Read more

U.S. Army

The History of Mobile Artillery

By Arnold Blumberg

“It is with artillery that one makes war.” So declared Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the Great Captains of military history and a born gunner himself. Read more

U.S. Army

The Fight Near Hill 250: K Company at the Battle of Bougainville

By John Kennedy Ohl

In an article in the Pittsburgh Courier on April 15, 1944, correspondent Billy Rowe, who was covering the activities of the 93d U.S. Read more

U.S. Army

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

By Bernd Horn

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

U.S. Army

Continental Army Captain Nathan Hale

By Kevin Seabrooke

On the night of September 16, 1776, young Nathan Hale, a captain in the Continental Army, set out across Long Island Sound from his native Connecticut on the armed sloop Schuyler. Read more

U.S. Army

A List of American Commanders in WWII Who Lost Their Lives

By Thomas R. Cagley

General George S. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” Read more

U.S. Army

WWII Planes: The Bell P-39 Airacobra “Peashooter”

by Sam McGowan

If there is an American combat airplane that has achieved an ill-deserved reputation, no doubt it would be the much-maligned Bell P-39 Airacobra, a tricycle landing gear single-engine fighter whose reputation was greatly overshadowed by the more famous, and of more recent design, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and North American P-51 Mustang. Read more

U.S. Army

Discharged: George Faulkner’s Odyssey from Soldier to Civilian

By Kevin M. Hymel

Every man in uniform dreamed of taking that big boat home, but stepping foot on American soil was just part of the journey. Read more

U.S. Army

Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen

By Peter Kross

By 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more

U.S. Army

Military Weapons: The Davy Crockett Mobile Missile Launcher

By Peter A. Goetz

Design work for a minimum-size atomic warhead called the XW-51 began at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in the mid 1950s. Read more

U.S. Army

The Korean War’s Counterfire Platoons

By Richard E. Ecker

In March 1953, a battle-scarred United Nations outpost called “Old Baldy” was attacked by elements of the Chinese Army and captured from the Colombian soldiers occupying it. Read more

U.S. Army

Saipan: A Crucial Foothold in the Marianas

By John Wukovits

On June 10, 1944, as his troop transport churned through the Pacific toward the Japanese-held island of Saipan, Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Stan Bowen wrote a letter to his sweetheart, Marge McCann. Read more

U.S. Army

The Rockets’ Red Glare: The Story of Fort McHenry

By Blaine Taylor

By the late summer of 1814, the invading British Army had routed the entire American Army—both federal and state troops—on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Read more

U.S. Army

Closing the Falaise Pocket

By Mike Phifer

After almost two months of bloody and desperate fighting, the Allies had failed to break through the German defenses that had been limiting their hold on Normandy since D-Day. Read more

U.S. Army

Bloody Fight for Hill 351: Skirmish in the Colmar Pocket

By Dan Champagne

On a cold, dark December morning in 1944, B Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Regiment began the slow ascent up Hill 351. Read more

U.S. Army

The French 75 Gun: The Secret Cannon Used for Over Half a Century

By Christopher Miskimon

A regiment of Bavarian infantry advanced quietly in the dark, rising from its own trenches and moving toward the French lines across the desolate no-man’s-land in between. Read more

U.S. Army

To Field an Army: A Short History of the Draft

By Mike Haskew

The call of a nation on its civilian population either to create a military force or to augment a standing army is virtually as old as civilization itself. Read more

U.S. Army

Luxembourg’s Hoffman Museum

By Raymond E. Bell, Jr.

You won’t find the familiar little triangular signs, “Warnung Minen!” hanging on barbed wire today in Western Europe, with one exception. Read more

U.S. Army

The Krag Jorgensen Rifle: How it Defined the Future of American Warfare

By Christopher Miskimon

During the era in which the Krag Jorgensen rifle came into its own, an arms race was in effect among the nations of Europe. Read more

U.S. Army

Avoiding the Nameless Grave—Civil War ID Tags

By Don Troiani

The American Civil War may well have been the first major conflict in which soldiers felt the need to wear some sort of a personal identification badge in the event that they were killed or wounded in battle. Read more