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The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the biggest and most multifaceted naval battle in history. It involved hundreds of ships, nearly 200,000 participants, and spanned more than 100,000 square miles. Some of the largest and most powerful ships ever built were sunk, and thousands of men went to the bottom of the sea with them. Every facet of naval warfare—air, surface, subsurface, and amphibious—was involved in this great struggle, and the weapons used included bombs of every type, guns of every caliber, torpedoes, mines, rockets, and even a forerunner of the modern guided missile. But more than mere size...

If Mike Barnicle were around at the beginning of WWII, perhaps he would have written "we better not fight back. It might make Hitler mad." On today's Morning Joe, the cringing former Boston Globe columnist, second-guessing a united front against terrorism, worried "wouldn't . . . creating a NATO force just add fuel to the recruiting fever that ISIS employs within Europe?" Maybe Mike should start referring to ISIS as Borg. After all, he apparently believes that resistance is futile. View the video here.

SAN ANTONIO — Norman Kleiss lives in a modest apartment in San Antonio. When I first reached him on the telephone, I almost started to shake. It was like going back in time. I could hear the engines roar over the Pacific Ocean; the tide of World War II was about to change. “So you want to talk about the Battle of Midway?” Kleiss asked. Boy, did I. It’s incredible that still living among us is this amazing American war hero. Norman Jack “Dusty” Kleiss is 99 years old. What did he do in the war? With fuel running low,...

If you were on Google earlier this week -- and let's face it, you were -- you may have spotted a Google Doodle which celebrates the life of one of Hollywood's most iconic actresses. Hedy Lamarr, an actress of the golden age of cinema, would have been 101 years old this week, although simply calling her an actress might be something of a misnomer. As well as appearing in films, Lamarr also applied her incredible intellect to a series of scientific and technological endeavors, which eventually earned her a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and practically...

In the summer months, a parade of icebergs break way from the Arctic and make their way south drifting through the region called Iceberg Alley. Divers visiting the Bell Island shipwrecks often divert to make a dive on these floating giants. (All photos: Jill Heinerth)Few people know that Bell Island, in Newfoundland, Canada, was directly attacked during World War II. In 1942, German U-boats twice raided the island in an attempt to disrupt the flow of iron ore being transported from mines on the island. This high-grade ore was used to supply steel critical to the war effort.Germans knew that if...

The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition often eluded them because so few came through to testify to the valor of the many. The infantryman confronted the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted by...

The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition often eluded them because so few came through to testify to the valor of the many. The infantryman confronted the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted by...

“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.” Ecclesiasticus 44:14 They are around us every day. We may not know who they are, or what they did, or when they did it, but, they are with us in body and in spirit. They are the old man with a cane who struggles to cross a street, but who once stormed the ash-laden hills of Iwo Jima. They are the janitor with a distant stare who won a Bronze Star at a place called Hue. They are the mailman who fought the Republican Guard and the salesman...

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany on Sunday honored a group of Nazi-era officers who tried to kill Adolf Hitler 70 years ago. The plot - portrayed in films such as the 2008 Hollywood movie "Valkyrie" - helped establish a principle under which German soldiers today are encouraged to defy orders if they would result in a crime or violate human dignity. In a somber ceremony, President Joachim Gauck called the July 20, 1944, bombing of Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Eastern Prussia a "significant day in German history" for showing the world that there were Germans who opposed the Nazi regime....

The organizers of an anti-Nazi event in Sweden face controversy Monday, after declining to invite the Jewish community to the event. "Umeå against Nazism" will run in the city of Umeå on Tuesday and Wednesday, commemorating Kirstallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," the massive 1938 pogrom against Austrian and German Jews which is seen as marking the start of the holocaust. But, absurdly, Jews will not be invited. The organizers claim that inviting the Jewish community presents a security risk, nt.se reports, citing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel protests present at past events.

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, declassified in the 1970s. (Photo: Joe Loong/Flickr)When you think of Allied espionage, you might imagine disguised explosives, wiretaps, bat bombs, or other dramatic inventions. But declassified documents reveal that World War II was won in part by more everyday saboteurs–purposefully clumsy factory workers, annoying train conductors, and bad middle managers, all trained by the U.S.'s Simple Sabotage Field Manual.In 1944, World War II was in its final throes. Though the Allies were holding their own against the Axis, they were in need of more troops and more local cooperation. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor...

They were called Bob, Harry, Red, Leo, Dick and Mary. They trudged through the jungle on Guadalcanal, waded through mounds of volcanic ash on Iwo Jima, shivered miserably at a place called the Bulge and gave a dying GI life-saving plasma at a hospital in Italy. Some worked in the factories that churned out tanks and planes and fuel barrels 24/7, while others waged war with slide rules and chemistry beakers. They never complained because they knew the task at hand was so important that the future of the world rested in their hands. As Winston Churchill so eloquently put...

NewsChannel 21's Lauren Martinez reports on an explsosion inside a World War II tank , killing two people, Deschutes County Sheriff Deputies said.

BEND, Ore. – Authorities say two people have died in an explosion inside a World War II-era tank at a firing range in Oregon.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (wiki) in 1415, when the English under King Henry V defeated the French on St. Crispin's Day (25 October) of that year. Henry (1387-1422) followed his father King Henry IV to the throne in 1413 and two years later announced his claim to the French throne and rekindled the Hundred Years War by invading Normandy. This is also the anniversary of the "the charge of the Light Brigade" (wiki) at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Although of relatively little importance in the larger context of the Crimean War,...

Hero Ships: Season 1, Episode 3 USS Samuel B. Roberts TV Episode, Documentary, History, WWII

He arguably did more than any other artist to raise morale during the dark days of the Second World War. But Noel Coward secretly longed for Nazi bombers to attack Hollywood because he was furious at the failure of fellow British stars in Los Angeles to rally to the country’s aid during the Blitz. In an angry letter to the novelist and dramatist Clemence Dane, which is among a cache of papers being sold at auction, the playwright and composer said longed for the ‘happy and beautiful’ bombing raid.

Battle 360 Episode 9 -"Battle of Leyte Gulf"

The Battle of Leyte Gulf from the deck of the USS Johnston. Photographed onboard the USS Kidd DD661 in Baton Rouge, LA

Battle off Samar near the island of Leyte in the Philippines, during World War 2. Shows the Battle off Samar which was the central action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. It took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island near the island of Leyte in the Philippines on October 25th 1944. US air forces launch a counterattack on the enemy's ground forces. Animated map shows heavy battle between Allied naval-air forces and Japanese naval-air forces. Allied AA guns fire at Japanese kamikaze suicide dive bombers. One of the dive bombers strikes an Allied destroyer and sinks it. The...