Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill’s Two Battles

During the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill was fighting a two-front war. The first was against Adolf Hitler and his war machine, particularly his Luftwaffe. Read more

Winston Churchill

Operation Biting: the Bruneval Raid to Capture German Radar

Through the long, lovely days of the summer of 1940, almost two years before Operation Biting or the “Bruneval Raid,” Royal Air Force Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes turned back the might of the Luftwaffe over southern and southeastern Britain. Read more

Winston Churchill

That Great Bitter Battle of Kohima

The two regiments from the county of Kent, down in southeastern England, are of both ancient and honorable lineage. Read more

Winston Churchill

Famous Military Commanders: Admiral Philip Vian

By the time the British Pacific Fleet began staging air strikes against the Japanese in the spring of 1945, its aircraft carrier commander had already seen plenty of naval action since the beginning of World War II. Read more

Winston Churchill

The Invention of Radar vs. The Luftwaffe

Near the end of World War II, Hitler boasted he was about to unleash Vergeltungswaffen, or “vengeance weapons.” Read more

Winston Churchill

WWII Nazi Spies: ‘Cicero’

On the evening of October 29, 1943, a middle-aged man, innocuous in appearance but for his deep-set, penetrating eyes, appeared at the German embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Read more

Winston Churchill

Frederic John Walker & the German U-Boat

On this writer’s desk sits a small, pewter mug, dented and somewhat bat-tered. It is neatly engraved, and the lettering reads: “Wardroom H.M.S. Read more

Winston Churchill

Hit & Run: British Commandos Striking the Atlantic Wall in Norway

Following the forced evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk in June 1940, British leaders viewed a dim future. Read more

Winston Churchill

General Mark Clark’s Secret Mission to North Africa

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

Winston Churchill

Franklin Roosevelt’s Pre-Pearl Harbor Intervention Plans

This is a story of what might have been. If Japan had chosen to attack far-off British Malaya on December 7, 1941, instead of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, President Franklin Roosevelt was prepared to go before Congress and ask—for the first time in American history—for a declaration of war against a nation that had not fired the first shot against us. Read more

Winston Churchill

First Deadly Round at The Battle of Monte Cassino

By December 1943, the phrase “sunny Italy” had evolved from being a travel agent’s selling point to becoming an ugly joke for the British and American troops of the Allied Fifth Army, advancing north from Naples to Rome. Read more

Winston Churchill

The British Prosper Spy Network: Destroyed to Protect D-Day?

On June 6, 1944, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops, planes, and ships departed from their bases in England bound for the shores of France in what was to be the greatest invasion of all time. Read more

Winston Churchill

The Invasion of Crete: Descent Into The Inferno

By May 1941, the German Luftwaffe’s fortunes had risen to great heights and plummeted to equally startling depths in the course of a single year of blitzkrieg warfare in Western Europe. Read more

Winston Churchill

Fleming, Ian Fleming

Some accounts of Ian Fleming’s life make it seem that only at the age of 44, as an antidote to the shock of finally agreeing to get married, did he suddenly commit himself to the unplanned task of creating his James Bond novels. Read more

Winston Churchill

Duel in the Desert: Operation Crusader’s Battle of Bardia

The desert sky lit up like a summer lightning storm on the night of December 31, 1941. The distant thunder of hundreds of guns rolled across the sandy, stony ground. Read more

Winston Churchill

British Blunder in the Dodecanese Islands

Major George Jellicoe, head of Britain’s Special Boat Squadron, made a last-minute check on his parachute harness to see if all was ready. Read more

Winston Churchill

How Winston Churchill Prolonged the Defense of Antwerp in World War I

Joseph Mary Nagle Jefferies, a correspondent for Britain’s Daily Mail, was assigned to cover the opening phases of World War I in Belgium in October 1914. Read more

Winston Churchill

Dutch Debacle

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

When world war engulfed Europe for the second time in a generation, the Netherlands placed its faith in the diplomatic delusion that it could remain neutral like it had during World War I. Read more

Winston Churchill

Horatio Nelson: Bravery in Battle

Days before the impending Battle of Trafalgar, a sailor on Horatio Nelson’s flagship Victory was so busy ensuring that each man’s letters home were secured for dispatch on a vessel bound for England that he forgot until after the ship had sailed that he hadn’t included his own. Read more

Winston Churchill

Prime Minister Winston Churchill Led his Nation During World War II

Born November 30, 1874, to British politician Lord Randolph Churchill and Jenny Jerome, an American socialite, Winston Churchill rose to serve in Parliament and as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955. Read more