U.S. Army

Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen

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

Saga of the Eggbeater

On September 14, 1939, Igor Sikorsky attained stability and control with the initial flight of an open cockpit test bed known as the VS-300. Read more

U.S. Army

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

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

The Scholarly Spies

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

U.S. Army

WWII Weapons: M3 37mm Antitank Gun

The men of Lieutenant Edwin K. Smith’s antitank platoon, 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division peered over the gun shields of their 37mm cannon at the column of Vichy French armored cars approaching their roadblock. Read more

U.S. Army

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

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

From Doughboy to GI Helmet

When the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more

U.S. Army

Captured Weapons of the Reich: A Photo Essay

U.S. Army

Military Weapons: The Davy Crockett Mobile Missile Launcher

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

M26 Pershing: Why America’s Heavy Tank Arrived Too Late for WWII

“We had been assured by our officers before we invaded France in 1944,” recorded Bill Harris, “that our Sherman tanks could take care of any Nazi armor we met there.” Read more

U.S. Army

Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel

Buried in the October 24, 1944, edition of the New York times was the headline: “German Ex-Officer Held as Nazi Spy: Captain in Kaiser’s Army, 62 and Foster Daughter Accused of Sending Ship Data Before U.S. Read more

U.S. Army

The P38 Can Opener: WWII’s “Other” P-38

Far down on the list of important inventions essential to victory in World War II is a modest gadget built of stamped metal called the GI Pocket Can Opener—commonly known as the P-38 can opener—which was used by American troops in the field to sever the lids off combat rations. Read more

U.S. Army

Avoiding the Nameless Grave—Civil War ID Tags

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

U.S. Army

The Norden Bombsight: Was it Truly Accurate Beyond Belief?

In a 1921 bombing test, U.S. Army Air Corps General Billy Mitchell’s airmen sank the former German battleship Ostfriesland. Read more

U.S. Army

The Costly Kyushu Invasion of Operation Olympic?

During the more than half a century since the end of World War II, there has been much speculation about what would have happened if President Harry Truman had not dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan had actually taken place. Read more

U.S. Army

Ernest Hemingway and the Ivy Leaguers in World War II

During the second week of July 1944 a young, sharp Lieutenant Goldstein of the 4th Infantry Division’s 22nd Infantry Regiment was told by his boss, Colonel Buck Lanhan, “Expect a special civilian, a big war correspondent is coming to visit us. Read more

U.S. Army

To Field an Army: A Short History of the Draft

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

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 U.S. Army Medical Corps: Caring for the Casualties in World War II

For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more

U.S. Army

Americans in Paris

Almost every soldier on western European battlefront wanted to get to Paris. Once it was liberated on August 25, 1944, it became a mecca for Allied soldiers on leave who filled the streets, bars, and historic buildings, enjoying a brief respite from the war. Read more