“What we went through” – James Belshe, WWII Veteran Earns Purple Heart for Injury Sustained in the Philippines
War History Online proudly presents this Guest Article by military historian Jeremy P. Amick. “Seventy-something years ago,” described Eldon, Mo., veteran James Belshe, a “wide-eyed…
Invading Okinawa, The Biggest Amphibious Invasion In The Pacific
Codenamed Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of the Second World War which started on April…
En Route To North Africa, FDR Was Almost Killed By A Torpedo Fired By A US Navy Destroyer
There is truly no way to quantify who might be the worst crew in US Naval History, but the men of the USS William D.…
Hitler’s Vision Of Germania Still Casts Its Long Shadow Over Berlin
In the south of Berlin, there is a massive pillar; one of the few remnants of the Nazis’ attempts to make Berlin the capital of…
How to Lose the War in 100 Days – Give The Eastern Front to Himmler
The headline may come to a surprise to many. Wasn’t Heinrich Himmler the person behind the SS and the Holocaust? Surely he wasn’t in command…
Jimmy Doolittle Led The First Mission To Bomb Japan – Against All the Odds
Often, war is no different than your average street fight regardless of how crude that might seem. When a man is punched in the nose,…
By Sacrificing Himself Coastguard Douglas Munro Saved 500 Marines From Being Slaughtered
The United States Coast Guard was founded on a tradition of taking small boats into dangerous conditions to save lives. This skill made Coast Guard…
Sinking the Tirpitz, Sister to the Bismarck and the Heaviest European Battleship Ever
The story of the World War II German battleship Bismarck is legendary. The massive warship was destroyed by British ships and planes and then scuttled…
Bringing Home The 8 Million Boys After WWII; Operation Magic Carpet
Victory in Europe – what happens next? After victory had been declared in Europe and the Second World War had come to an end with…
Heinz Guderian, The Father Of The Blitzkrieg – The Officer Who Defied Hitler
The military genius of Heinz Guderian remains admirable even today, for it was his tactics that brought Germany its swift victory over Europe in the…
“Lucky” Yamaguchi: The Man Who Survived Both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombs
Atomic bombs exploded into chaotic destruction just two times in history: first on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima and again on August 9 of that…
When Allies Fight: Operation Torch and the Taking of North Africa
North Africa was one of the great battlegrounds of the Second World War. From early on, British and Commonwealth forces faced German and Italian troops…