How Norwegian Commandos Sabotaged Germany’s Atomic Bomb Research
As the Second World War dragged on, both the Allied and Axis powers invested heavily in research that would create the first atomic weapons. The…
Gold Dust Twins: The Two Coast Guardsmen Who Saved Chesty Puller’s Marines on Guadalcanal
The Guadalcanal campaign – also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal – is among the most well-known engagements to occur in the Pacific Theater during…
A Lone KV-1 Tank Held Off German Advances During the Battle of Raseiniai
On June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the World War II invasion of the Soviet Union. Despite signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939,…
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Body and a False Identity Helped the Allied Invasion of Sicily
In the years since the Second World War, many documents have been released, detailing the covert operations undertaken by the UK’s Special Operations Executive (SOE),…
Patrick Fleming: The Flying Ace Who Shot Down 19 Japanese Aircraft In Just Six Sorties
Patrick Dawson Fleming was born an Army “brat” on January 17, 1918. He took an interest in flying at an early age and became the…
Clarence L. Tinker: The First Native American to Be Promoted to Major General in US Army History
They don’t make soldiers like Clarence L. Tinker anymore. Born on a Native American reservation in 1887, Tinker was inspired to serve the United States…
All Five of the Second World War’s Triple Aces in a Day Flew for the German Luftwaffe
The Second World War saw thousands of air battles between pilots. Germany, which started the conflict in 1939 with its invasion of Poland, held a…
MoH Recipient Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington was Among the Most Famous Pilots of WWII
During World War II, ace fighter pilots became household names, and few were more famous than Gregory “Pappy” Boyington. The star swimmer and wrestler joined…
Horizontal Collaboration: How the French Dealt with Traitorous Women After the Germans Left
When France was liberated in 1944, foreign photographers and press were there to document the event. Among the photos taken were thousands of images of…
Panjandrum: Britain’s Failed WWII-Era Rocket-Propelled Explosive
By 1943, the Germans had heavily fortified the European coast against an Allied invasion. This defense system, known as the Atlantic Wall, spanned along the…
Mass Graves of 8,000 Concentration Camp Victims Discovered in Polish Forest
Investigators with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) have discovered what they claim are two mass graves containing the ashes of at least 8,000…
Men Were Too Scared to Fly B-29 Superfortresses – Until Two Women Did
In the lead up to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Paul Tibbets was tasked with training a group of pilots on the newly-produced Boeing…