Glow worms, bats, and sea lions, oh my. Here are some of some of the strangest uses of animals in warfare. When you talk about animals in war, most people immediately think of military working dogs, who continue to serve with U.S. troops in support of the Global War on Terror. However, horses, camels, elephants,…
Category: World War II History
Military History: Armies Used to Hate Snipers
A brief history of armed conflict’s most controversial job Snipers play a key role in the world’s armies. They’re excellent scouts and can target commanders on the opposing side with an outsize impact. Working by themselves, they can pin down a group, creating fear and confusion. Thanks to movies such as Enemy at the Gates and…
“Mind Shattering” WW2 Vet Recalls Terrifying Din of Battle
“That shrill sound is something I’ve never heard duplicated. It’s just mind-shattering.” BATTLEFIELDS are loud places – deafeningly loud. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, hearing damage is by far the most common disability reported by soldiers in combat. In fact, more than 400,000 Americans who served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan since…
World War Two History: 10 Nazi Spies and Their Espionage Plots in America
Even before U.S. involvement in World War Two, Nazi strategists—including Abwehr, the German intelligence agency—began inserting operatives into American cities or turning German-American citizens to the Nazi cause. The practice continued throughout the war. While there were some notable successes, especially prior to American involvement in the war, there were also some spectacular failures. Here…
Military Weapons from the Past: The ‘Hotchkiss Type Universal’ was a TINY Submachine Gun
The odd-looking Hotchkiss Type Universal represented an extraordinary attempt at creating an extremely compact submachine gun. The need was obvious. In World War II, soldiers found themselves getting in and out of vehicles, jumping from planes and fighting in close quarters. They needed a weapon that wouldn’t get in the way. Submachine guns had become…
World War Two Non-Fiction Book Review: The Winter Fortress by Neil Bascomb
As both a student of World War Two and of the SOE and OSS, this book marks one of the high points of the SOE’s plan to “Set Europe Ablaze”. There was no other operation as important as this one in stopping Hiters War Machine from getting The Atomic Bomb in the early years of…
World War Two History: Los Aliados – The Latin Americans Who Helped Defeat the Axis
“While their contributions to the final victory may seem miniscule when compared to those of other world powers, their participation is nonetheless noteworthy.” THE NATIONS OF LATIN AMERICA are not often counted among the foremost contributors to the Second World War. Countries like Chile and Uruguay largely stayed on the sidelines until the war’s final…
Cold War Non-Fiction Book Review: Special Tasks – The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness – A Soviet Spymaster
Published in 1994 by Little Brown and Co.; 509 pp My Administration for Special Tasks,” Sudoplatov begins, “was responsible for sabotage, kidnapping and assassination of our enemies beyond the country’s borders.” The administration to which he refers was one of the key divisions in Stalin’s security police, an agency he headed from the summer of…
Espionage Non-Fiction Book Review: The Rice Paddy Navy
Osprey Publishing; November 2012; 316 pp. Before Navy SEALs stormed mansions in Pakistan, the notion of sailors waging war on land sounded ludicrous to many. So when Gen. George C. Marshall learned that Navy captain Milton Miles intended to train an army of Chinese guerillas to disrupt Japanese army operations in China and create a…
World War II History: Legacies, Short Audio Clips of the Second World War
Recently a close friend told me about this website Audioburst that features short audio clips of Veterans recounting memories of their experiences in World War Two. I urge you to visit this website and take some time listening to some of these stories. They are all very short, most of them under 2 or 3 minutes,…