“Designating operations by their objectives or points on a map didn’t offer much in the way of security.” HAD IT NOT been for the direct intervention of Winston Churchill, the 1944 invasion…
Year: 2014
Military History in 100 Objects – Seven Famous War Horses Preserved for the Ages
While history’s most illustrious commanders have long since shaken off this mortal coil, a surprising number of their horses are still with us to this day… at least in body. Check out…
The St. Albans Raid – The Confederate ‘Invasion’ of Vermont
In the fall of 1864, Vermont seemed far removed from the bloody battlefields of the American Civil War. Although as many as a tenth of the state’s 300,000 residents were in uniform,…
Fighting First Families — Meet the Relatives of WW2’s Most Famous Leaders
RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, son of the Britain’s legendary prime minister, could easily have opted out of dangerous wartime duty by using his top drawer family connections, but he didn’t. In fact the 28-year-old Churchill,…
Military History in 100 Objects – A Farewell to Arms (and Legs)
For our second installment of Military History in 100 Objects, we’re going out on a limb… literally. Here are a few of the most famous prosthetic appendages from the annals of wartime….
Gooney Birds – 12 Experimental Aircraft That Were Too Weird for Use in WW2
“A number of these experimental aircraft featured designs so innovative and outlandish they call out for recognition even now, more than 70 years later.” MORE AIRPLANES rolled off assembly lines during World War…
Hitler’s Holdouts – Meet the Last German Troops to Surrender in WW2
“Small pockets German troops refused to give up and in some cases fought on for days, even weeks, before finally calling it quits.” IT WAS JUST after 2:30 a.m. on May 7, 1945 when Generaloberst Alfred Jodl,…
Yellow Fever, Greek Fire and Poison Gas — Secret Weapons of the U.S. Civil War
By Jeffrey B. Roth The American Civil War was a conflict that sat astride two phases in military history: It began with generals on both sides employing timeworn Napoleonic-era strategies and ended…