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On the Saturday following Thanksgiving 2013, Ms. Karen, my 94-year-old father, Bill Gressinger, and I were visiting Pima Air and Space Museum. We were in Hanger #4 to view the beautifully restored B-29, when I happened to take notice of a P-51 Mustang near the big bomber. It’s name … “Bad Angel”. P-51 Mustang "Bad Angel" in Hanger #4 at the Pima Air and Space Museum. P-51 Mustang "Bad Angel" in Hanger #4 at the Pima Air and Space Museum. I was admiring its aerodynamic lines and recalled enough history to know that until the Mustangs came into service, the...

The wide tracks of Soviet T-34S and colossal KV-1S crunched through the snow. Night had fallen west of Belgorod on March 15, 1943. The Soviet tank column was headed toward a village, looking for shelter for the night. Although the village appeared deserted, the Soviet commander was wary. For days now there had been heavy fighting, with the Nazis trying to recapture Kharkov from the Soviets. The T-34s fired incendiary shells, setting ablaze a few peasant huts. When nothing moved, the tanks rumbled into the village. The commander’s tank came to halt, unaware that the muzzle of a Tiger tank...

Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative icon, well known and respected; a prolific author of twenty-plus books and current occupant of a chair of historical, military, and agrarian classical studies; a Ph.D. from Stanford; and the founder of classical studies at University of California at Fresno. ;Now he occupies a chair at the Hoover Foundation of Stanford University. I first came to know him reading The Western Way of War (1989), which explained the reason for the lethality and effectiveness of Western armies throughout history. ;This past year, he wrote one of his best books: The Second World Wars: How...

An expedition in the South Pacific ocean funded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen has discovered the wreckage of a famous US warship that was attacked by the Japanese during the second world war, claiming more than 600 lives. The billionaire’s personal search team located the remains of the USS Juneau off the coast of the Solomon Islands on St Patrick’s Day. The Juneau was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in November 1942, claiming the lives of 687 men, including five brothers known as the Sullivans from Waterloo, Iowa. The men became navy heroes and had a destroyer named after...

Difficult as it is to fathom, given most people's conception of dictatorship, most Germans appear to have led happy, productive, even normal lives in the Third Reich. This indicates that a dictatorship can enjoy widespread popularity among the majority even while committing unspeakable crimes against minorities and others. The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still present some of the most disturbing questions in modern history: Why did Hitler’s party appeal to millions of Germans, and how entrenched was anti- Semitism among the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that the genocide of Europe’s Jews was...

Of the 108,000 soldiers of the Sixth German Army capitulating in the winter of 1943 at Stalingrad, only 6,000 returned home in 1955. What has led to such incredible losses? he attitude of the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front was unequivocal: "Russians do not take prisoners", they believed. This fear of captivity was the result of Nazi propaganda, which was constantly subjected to soldiers - mostly young people. But maybe it was not just this? The facts are as follows: from the Wehrmacht soldiers captured in the Soviet captivity, their number is estimated at a minimum of...

Lying on the floor of the Coral Sea some 500 miles (800 kilometers) off the eastern coast of Australia, the wreckage from the USS Lexington, a U.S. aircraft carrier used in WWII, appears frozen in time, covered in the detritus of the sea. An expedition aboard the research vessel Petrel — funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's company, Vulcan Inc. — discovered the huge wreck about 2 miles (3,000 meters) below the sea surface. It had been lying there for 76 years. "Lexington was on our priority list because she was one of the capital ships that was lost during...

The wreckage of a United States aircraft carrier, named USS Lexington that was sunk by the Japanese during World War II, was found on the floor of the Coral Sea more than 500 miles off the eastern coast of Australia. The carrier was discovered by a team of explorers led by billionaire Paul Allen, the U.S. Navy confirmed Monday. The ship, which was part of the Battle of the Coral Sea from May 4-8, 1942, was found in a remarkably well-preserved condition. Microsoft co-founder Allen released a statement Monday along with photos and a video of the carrier. ​

Billionaire Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder and Seattle Seahawks owner, has made another huge nautical find: the USS Lexington, which was lost at the Battle of Coral Sea 76 years ago. The fleet aircraft carrier, the first to be sunk by opposing carrier aircraft in World War II, was found near Australia below Coral Sea in a remarkably well-preserved condition, news.com.au reported.

March 5th is the anniversary of Winston Churchill's epoch-making "iron curtain" speech in 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri - the most famous acknowledgement of the existence of a "Cold War" between Russia and the West, which put an end to the alliance that defeated the Nazis in World War II. The Cold War, which would often became quite hot in places like Korea and Vietnam - and damn near led to a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 - continued for 45 years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. "From Stettin in...

WARSAW, Poland — A Polish official said Friday that Germany could owe his country $850 billion (690 billion euros) for the damage it inflicted during World War II. Arkadiusz Mularczyk is leading a team in the parliament that is assessing potential reparations to Poland. Germany killed 6 million Polish citizens and caused great material losses during its nearly six-year occupation of Poland. “We are talking about very large, but justified amounts of compensation for war crimes, for destroyed cities, villages and the lost demographic potential of our country,” Mularczyk said on Polsat News, a private broadcaster. Last year, Poland’s ruling...

THIS IS a solemn but a glorious hour. I only wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day. General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe. For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity. Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band. Let us not forget, my...

Photographer Joe Rosenthal admitted that when he took a shot of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima’s Mt. Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, he had no idea that he had captured something extraordinary. He was setting up for a different shot when he spotted the group of men planting the flag and quickly took a snap without even looking through the viewfinder. The chance photo would become iconic overnight and go on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

The Colt Model 1911 has a really long lifespan. I can remember when I first qualified on the 1911 while in the military. This may sound cheesy, but it was a huge accomplishment for myself with no pistol shooting experience at the time. What I also love was seeing those old WWII training footage back in the day. You'll notice this footage is very similar to the FBI pistol training and utilizing Col. Rex Applegate combat shooting methods for close quarter combat. Maybe I’m just old school but I like the tradition that these bad boys 1911 have gone through....

Teaching history has never been easy in Russia, where archives are closed and transparent discussions about the country’s Soviet past are met with hostility. Even then, teaching World War II is more difficult: with every year that Putin is in power, Russia fails to confront its role in the war head on. In September 2016, three history textbooks were sanctioned by the Ministry of Education, all of which gloss over Stalin’s crimes and his initial alliance with Nazi Germany. “My main issue with the textbooks is that they do not reveal the whole truth,” says historian and teacher Leonid Katsva....

Seventy three years ago today the United States Marine Corps sent waves of teenaged men onto the black foreboding beaches on a Japanese held island called Iwo Jima. Capturing Iwo Jima was essential to the American war against Japan as it offered a place for battered bombers to safely land which would save the lives of hundreds of airmen returning from sorties over Japan in barely flyable planes. The average age of these men was just under nineteen. They knew what was at stake and charged up Iwo’s beaches sometimes straight into enemy machine gun fire that would have stopped...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - The second oldest known Pearl Harbor survivor and original member of The Navigators passed away on Tuesday. Lt. James Downing passed away at the age of 104. His heart function declined following surgery in recent weeks, and he was unable to rally. Lt. Downing was a gunner's mate 1st class and postmaster on the USS West Virginia. "December 7th, my job was to do what I could after the attack," Lt. Downing told Dianne Derby in a previous interview. "Monday I had a new job, so I concentrated on that." Downing spent 24 years serving...

Bellevue, NE The ceremony for Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Gail Farrell,93, may be overdue. But his brave and courageous service to his country will never be overlooked. "He flies 21 combat missions over Germany and France. He sees some of the most intensive fighting of the last few months of the war," Colonel Mike Manion, 55th Wing Commander said. 73 years after his tour of duty as a B17 tail gunner with the Mighty Eighth Air Force, 379th Bomb Group, 624th Squadron, Farrell finally receives several medals. "A true American hero," Col. Manion said. Manion awarded Farrell with the...

Contrary to other European countries, such as France or Norway, Poland was directly controlled by Nazi Germany. There was no puppet regime in Poland to assist the Germans, like the Vichy or Quisling governments, and the Nazis annexed parts of the country, while putting the rest under the control of a German governor, Hans Frank. Frank subjected Poland to a terror "much fiercer and more protracted [...] than anywhere in Europe," scholar Norman Davies says, as cited by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This terror included capital punishment for offering any help to Jews. While it’s true that Poles aided,...

Fascinating pictures of America's famous WW2 Black Sheep Squadron whose efforts helped win the war in the Pacific have been released in vibrant color. The series shows the squadron's commanding officer, Colonel Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington who received the Medal of Honour and the Navy Cross, briefing his men on strategy and tactics before the 17 October 1943 attack on Kahili airdrome at Bougainville island, Papua New Guinea. In this raid 'Pappy' and 24 fighters circled the field where 60 enemy aircraft were based to goad them into sending a large force. In the ensuing air battle, 20 enemy aircraft were...