Dennis Anderson reflects on his father’s job during World War II, processing and editing thousands of combat photographs. “What did you do in the war, daddy?” It was a question we Baby Boomers often asked our fathers — all of the millions of us whose fathers served during World War II, history’s greatest conflict, and…
Category: Historical Study
Cold War Files: 10 Sinister Groups Behind the Cold War’s Craziest Conspiracy
In 1972, a fascist named Vincenzo Vinciguerra detonated a car bomb in the Italian town of Peteano. As Vinciguerra had planned, the attack was initially blamed on left-wing extremists. Years later, Vinciguerra explained his motives: “Our movement is pledged to target . . . ordinary people, to create conditions of anarchy. The resulting state of fear will mobilize public…
Military History: The Waterloo They Remembered
By Bernard Cornwell Two hundred years ago, in a shallow valley south of Brussels, three armies fought the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon had returned from exile on Elba to face a coalition of European enemies, who were now determined to oust him a second time. The closest opponents were the Prussian and British-Dutch armies to…
Military History: The MacArthur Revival
America’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region has had many consequences, including a revival of interest in, and appreciation for, the career and worldview of General Douglas MacArthur, whose military exploits spanned fifty years and three continents, and whose reputation for good or ill rests mostly on his campaigns in the Southwest Pacific and the Philippines,…
Military History: 8 Unbelievable Stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah
Veterans from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines share their incredible stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah. This time of year marks the anniversary of one of the most storied battles in recent Marine Corps history: the Second Battle of Fallujah. The city became the scene of brutal urban combat when American, Iraqi, and British forces…
World War II History: Could Long-Lost Amber Room Be Stashed in a Nazi Bunker in Poland?
There is perhaps no lost-treasure mystery more seductive than that of the priceless Amber Room of Peter the Great, which disappeared in the chaotic closing hours of World War II. Now Bartlomiej Plebanczyk, an unassuming historian and museum director in northeastern Poland, believes he has found it. Elderly villagers told Mr. Plebanczyk that they had…
Cold War Files: The Best Attack Subs of the Cold War
Putting 20th century ship killers to the test History’s three great submarine campaigns include the First Battle of the Atlantic, the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and the U.S. Navy’s war against Japanese commerce in World War II. The contestants fought these campaigns through asymmetrical means, with submarines doing battle against aircraft and surface escorts….
World War II History: We Almost Used Chemical Weapons on Japan in 1945
In May, President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima reignited discussions of whether the United States actually needed to drop atomic bombs to force Japan to surrender at the end of World War II. What these debates didn’t touch on was that the U.S. military prepared to use other horrifying tactics, including starvation induced by…
History of Terrorism: How British Intelligence Infiltrated the IRA
This is an article from The Atlantic in 2006 but I thought it a great read on the History of the IRA from the British perspective.-SF I first met the man now called Kevin Fulton in London, on Platform 13 at Victoria Station. We almost missed each other in the crowd; he didn’t look at…
World War II History: Separating Fact from Fiction About the Polish Air Force
When the 1950s T.V. documentary series Air Power got around to covering the opening battles of World War II, it unfortunately reinforced a popular, and entirely incorrect, notion. “The Polish air force is caught on the ground,” narrator Walter Cronkite grumbled over images of German bombers pummeling Polish installations. “The Polish air force is destroyed…