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The Second World War saw significant advances in tanks, and throughout the war, all of the major powers sought to build bigger, heavier, and more powerful tanks. Keeping in step with those efforts was another move to develop better weapons to then take out and destroy the enemy’s tanks. When the war began the Germans and British, as well as other nations such as Finland, employed oversized rifles, and these were largely antiquated against even the earliest tanks of the war. Soon new efforts were developed to counter the tanks. Here is our effort to lay out what we consider...

New standards proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education would banish lessons about World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Civil War, the American Revolution, communism, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Replacing those significant history topics will be "systemic racism," how democracy has "excluded certain groups," an "awareness" of "the LGBTQ+ community" and how the disenfranchisement of freed blacks during Reconstruction connects to "persistent discrimination and inequity" today.

Though not all the wartime military equipment made by Italy was top-notch, the Beretta Model 38 submachine gun was highly regarded by both the Axis and Allies. The Back Story Students of military history are no doubt familiar with the wide range of weaponry that made their combat debut during that conflict. Not only were new firearms seen for the first time, but new classes of firearms also proved their worth on austere, far-flung battlefields.

2020 was the 75th anniversary of the allied triumph over axis totalitarianism. Instead of celebrating freedom we endured a nightmare. Lest we forget. Donald Trump didn't forget. God Bless Him.

Two German WWII tombstones at a Texas veterans cemetery — each bearing Nazi swastikas — have been removed and replaced with new ones that do not use the symbol. The 1943 gravestones belonging to German prisoners of war Alfred Kafka and Georg Forst at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery featured an Iron Cross with a swastika in the middle, and the phrase, “He died far from his home for the Leader (Führer), people and fatherland.” Cemetary workers removed the stones on Wednesday.

The cartoonist who created the Peanuts gang and television specials like “A Charlie Brown Christmas" drew from some of his experiences as an Army staff sergeant during World War II to fashion the enduringly popular comic series. Charles Schulz, the cartoonist behind “Peanuts,” took part in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp and the occupation of Munich shortly before the end of the war. Biographies about Schulz, as well as his own essays, talk about the impact military service had on him and the characters he created. “The three years I spent in the army taught me all I...

During World War II this allied Freighter was attacked by a German Submarine and sank in the Tasman Sea.

Dr. Mark Felton is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers 'Zero Night' and 'Castle of the Eagles', both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries.

With the New Year quickly approaching, a new crop of wellness trends and resolutions will likely pop up. That being said, this WWII Air Force Veteran has an unlikely tip for living a long, healthy life: a daily can of Coors Light. Andrew E. Slavonic, the veteran who went viral in 2018 after connecting his longevity to the beer, turned 103 on Dec. 1. Two years ago, Slavonic first made news when Fox reported that he had enjoyed a Coors Light at 4 P.M. every day for over 20 years. According to his son Bob, Slavonic began drinking Coors in...

Published on Nov 4, 2011 This is the story of one platoon of 18 lightly armed men held off the spearhead of Kampfgruppe Peiper for 8 hours during the Battle of the Bulge on December 16, 1944. The ultimate David versus Goliath story of World War II.

It was December 20, 1943 and in the freezing air high above Germany, 2nd Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown struggled to keep the mortally damaged American bomber on course. Brown had been wounded in the shoulder, his tail gunner Sergeant Hugh “Ecky” Eckenrode was dead, and several other members of the crew were wounded, some severely. Their aircraft, B-17F Ye Olde Pub, had been hit twice by flak as it approached its target, the Focke-Wulf plant in the German city of Bremen, forcing the crew to shut down one of the engines and throttle back on another. This had left it...

THEY WERE THE Navy’s last chance. It was 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, June 4, 1942. Forty-seven U. S. Navy dive bombers had found what they were looking for. Far below, four Japanese aircraft carriers were launching the first planes of a massive strike that could decide the Battle of Midway. So far, two days of American air and submarine attacks had failed to damage a single ship of the peerless Japanese Aircraft Carrier Striking Force. The priceless intelligence advantage the U.S. had gained through years of backbreaking effort by Navy codebreakers was about to be squandered. The heroic sacrifice...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In honour of the crouching, naked blonde painted on its nose, its pilot had named his bomber the "Hot as Hell". But it was a freezing and stormy day as the American B-24 Liberator made its way across the Himalayas on Jan 25, 1944, flying what was known as "the Hump", perhaps the most dangerous route in air transport history. It was one of nine American planes that went down that day as they tried to resupply China's besieged army in the city of Kunming, desperately trying to hold out against the invading Japanese during World...

I accidently ran across this story and it brought tears of pride to my eyes. What a generation of men! A story told by when the news was reported by real journalist!

A photograph of a damaged Allied ship after the Luftwaffe raid of Bari Harbour, Italy, December 2, 1943. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Before the atomic bomb came along, chemical weapons were the ultimate red line – the boundary between supposedly civilised warfare and unrestrained barbarism. Even before their horrors were first unleashed on a large scale in World War I, nations had sought to ban the use of “poison weapons.” After approximately 90,000 were killed by gas warfare during World War I, the moral and legal revulsion intensified. Numerous solemn proclamations and protocols were created in which civilised nations pledged never...

Webinar, November 10, 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM Central Time on the National WWII Museum's Facebook page: Following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, nearly 20% of the Chinese American population signed up and served honorably in every branch of the US Armed Services and all four theaters of combat. During this panel discussion moderated by Tyler Bamford, the Sherry and Alan Leventhal Research Fellow in the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, we will delve into the lives and service of these soldiers with E. Samantha Cheng, author of Honor and Duty: The...

Oct. 26 falls on a Thursday this year. Ask the significance of the date, and you're likely to draw some puzzled looks — five more days to stock up for Halloween? It's a measure of men like Col. Mitchell Paige and Rear Adm. Willis A. "Ching Chong China" Lee that they wouldn't have had it any other way. What they did 58 years ago, they did precisely so their grandchildren could live in a land of peace and plenty. Whether we've properly safeguarded the freedoms they fought to leave us, may be a discussion best left for another day. Today...

World War II hero Jim Feezel from Alabama, who drove a tank through the front gate of Dachau in Nazi Germany to liberate prisoners at the infamous concentration camp, has died. James Martin Feezel died on Thursday, Oct. 15, according to Roselawn Funeral Home in Decatur. He was 95. In a video interview project by Gary Cosby Jr. with The Decatur Daily in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Feezel recalled the moment his commanding officer told him to break through the gate at Dachau on April 29, 1945. “We were facing the front gate at Dachau...

On November 23, 1944, a Royal Air Force antiaircraft unit stationed outside Cortonburg, Belgium observed a B-17 Flying Fortress flying towards them. The massive U.S. Army Air Forces bomber approached at high speed with its landing gears down. With no landing scheduled, the base personnel presumed it was an emergency landing situation and reacted accordingly. The Flying Fortress proceeded to execute that emergency landing by plowing into a nearby field. Having just barely avoided crashing into the unit’s guns, the aircraft’s landing was so fast and uncontrolled that the propellers snapped off and both wings slapped into the earth during...

Victor’s justice was never better served than this date in 1946, when the brass of Third Reich hung for crimes against humanity during the late World War II. The landmark legal proceeding* is covered well enough in many other sources for this humble venue to break new ground. Apart from trailblazing international law, the trial was notable for the gut-punching film of German atrocities; this relatively novel piece of evidence is available for perusal thanks to the magic of the Internet. Caution: Strong stuff. An hour’s worth of Nazi atrocities.The climactic hangings in the predawn hours this day in Nuremberg...