“By 8 a.m., the warship had turtled and Wykeham-Musgrave was in the drink yet again – his third plunge in fewer than 90 minutes.” Wenman Wykeham-Musgrave, a midshipman aboard HMS Aboukir at…
“We Have Ways of Making You Talk” — How One Nazi Used Kindness to Draw Secrets from POWs
“One German interrogator managed to draw crucial military secrets from more than 90 percent of Allied fliers he questioned. And he did so using some rather unconventional methods — namely kindness.” WHILE…
Beyond Red vs. White — Meet the Other Factions in Russia’s Civil War
Most remember the Russian Civil War as a fight between the Bolsheviks or Red Army and the anti-communist White Russian forces. While it’s true that these two opposing factions represented the largest…
The Sten Gun — Meet the $10 Automatic Weapon That Helped the Allies Win WW2
“Nearly 5 million Stens were manufactured before the end of 1945.” WITH A NAZI invasion of the United Kingdom all but certain in the summer of 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously vowed that Britons…
The Battle For James Wolfe – Canadian University Outbids U.K. Buyers in Fight for General’s Personal Papers
It took James Peter Wolfe less than 15 minutes to defeat the French at Quebec. And in that brief time, the 32-year old major general handed Britain her greatest victory of the…
The Forgotten Trench Diggers of the Western Front – Meet WW1’s Chinese Labour Corps
“Their efforts have been all but forgotten amid the wider narrative of the First World War.” BY LATE 1916, the Allied armies on the Western Front were being bled white. The British…
The Brief (and Bizarre) History of Flying Aircraft Carriers
“Planners foresaw even more massive airships equipped with top-mounted runway surfaces and cavernous hangars hidden within the hulls. Whole squadrons could be stored inside the airships and moved back and forth to…
Bad Calls – Online Magazine Lists Allies’ Worst Blunders of WW2
Hitler famously remarked at the outset of the Second World War that the victor of the coming contest would be the side that made the fewest mistakes. And he was correct — the…