Modern | War History

The Only Marine to be Awarded a Medal of Honor for Actions as a POW, Donald Cook Was Truly Unbreakable in the Face of the Enemy

Jeff Edwards

To be clear, there have been multiple Marines who displayed inexplicable gallantry in combat warranting a Medal of Honor before they were subsequently captured.  However,…

Badly Wounded, Marine Used His Spade To Knock Grenades Back At The Enemy

Jeff Edwards

Hector Cafferatta would describe himself as the world’s worst baseball player, but that didn’t stop him from whacking over a dozen grenades out of the…

FUSAG: Patton’s D-Day Army That Didn’t Exist

An army can help win a war without even existing. Strange as that may seem, this is exactly what happened in the case of the First United…

MoH: Private Towle of the 82nd Airborne Stopped a German Armored Counterattack in Holland with a Bazooka

Jeff Edwards

Many might hold the common assumption that in the battle of man versus tank, heavy armor is sure to win.  However, students of the history…

This Diminutive Welshman VC Captured 100 Germans and 500 yards of German Trenches

Jeff Edwards

If the history of war proves one thing it is that the physical stature of a man has little to do with the gallantry they…

Admiral Yamamoto, The Pearl Harbor Planner Who Believed Japan Would Lose

The man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, was an unusual and contradictory figure. A man with peaceful international connections around…

A Japanese grenade was headed straight for the hatch & meant certain death for the crew. Without regard for his own life, he covered the hatch with his body. The grenade exploded on Sgt. Timmerman’s chest

Jeff Edwards

By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Grant Timmerman had already served a 4-year enlistment in the Marine Corps.  However, Timmerman was…

Four Past & Present Battlefield Histories And Pictorial Guides from Casemate – Review by Mark Barnes

I’ve had a few books awaiting my attention while I dealt with one someone else will have to review when it eventually appears. We’ve never…

Five Very Different Experiences On Five Very Different Beaches : Making History At The Legendary D-Day Landings

The experiences of Allied troops landing on D-Day were very different. The paratroopers scattered by poor weather across hundreds of miles of countryside faced different…

Loyal To His Country – Missouri farmer served as munitions handler in Europe during WWII

War History online proudly presents this Guest Piece from Jeremy P. Ämick, who is a military historian and writes on behalf of the Silver Star Families…

Not Just Tanks: WWI had more vehicles than we tend to think

Tanks came into their own in WWI and eventually developed into a host of modern fighting vehicles. However, tanks were not the only motorized vehicles…

The Battle for Lake Tanganyika was one of the Strangest Battles of World War One

Gabe Christy

Lake Tanganyika is the longest freshwater lake in the world, and a natural wonder but one of the strangest battles of WWI took place on…