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UPDATED at 10:37 a.m. 9/25/202: The Arsenal of Democracy Flyover scheduled for Friday morning over the National Mall has been canceled. “Well, we tried, but we never got the weather visibility we needed for the #ww2flyover so today’s flight is off. The weather was supposed to clear in time but it never cooperated with us so we will try again tomorrow at 11:30am EDT. Stay tuned for announcements in the morning,” a message on the group’s Facebook said.

Historian John Keegan words on World War II, was "the largest single event in human history," a conflict "fought across six of the world's seven continents and all its oceans. It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind or body and materially devastated much of the heartland of civilization." Much have been analyzed and explored from numerous angles in history books, films and art. Common figures and events are familiar to the average high school student who is buried in the history books. This era is filled with complex and endless fascinating stories...

In the murky waters of the Strait of Malacca, about 90 miles south of Phuket, Thailand, four divers discovered a World War II submarine that was scuttled 77 years ago, now teeming with marine life. The wreckage, believed to be the USS Grenadier, was located last October by divers Jean Luc Rivoire, Lance Horowitz, Benoit Laborie and Ben Reymenants, the team announced this month. Over the subsequent six months, the men — one of whom, Reymenants, assisted in the 2018 rescue of the boys’ soccer team that was trapped in a cave in northern Thailand — completed six carefully planned...

Today, September 2, 2020, marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the day Imperial Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

One of the many remarkable heroes who helped the Jewish people during World War II is also hardly known. Mordechai Schlein, known as “Motele”, was just a 12-year-old child when he became a hero of the resistance, fighting Nazis with incredible courage and resolve. In the 1930s Belarus was home to many vibrant Jewish communities. A heavily wooded country in Eastern Europe, Belarus today is a prosperous nation of nearly 10 million. Even today, Yiddish is one of the country’s recognized minority languages. Motele Schlein was born in 1930 in a small Belarussian town called Karmanovka. There were only two...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is furious at President Trump for his decision to reduce the number of US troops stationed in Germany by 12,000. "I find his assertion that it is time that Germany start defending itself rich with irony," Merkel said. "Not too long before the US occupation German troops were defending a large portion of the European continent from foreign invaders. The stability of that situation was disrupted by the violent intervention of the United States and its allies. The destruction of our army left us defenseless. As the chief architect of that disaster it is America's responsibility...

A municipality in Japan celebrated the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Jews by a local diplomat with a bake sale. The benefit, which began this week in Japan’s Gifu district, will continue until Sept. 10 and its proceeds will go toward commemorating Chiune Sugihara’s actions in Japan, Lithuania and beyond, Kyodo News reported Thursday. The district had planned to hold a benefit concert but had to switch to an online sale of cupcakes because of social distancing measures connected to the coronavirus. From July 18 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara, an intelligence officer and consul serving in Lithuania, issued...

Llewelyn Pritchard's collection of World War Two weapons earned him a knock on the door from the FBI when Barack Obama visited NewportWhen you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time. It was back in 2014, not long before Barack Obama flew into Newport as part of the Nato Wales summit, that Llewelyn Pritchard got a knock on the door. Men in dark suits...

On this date in 1978, a young Soviet girl’s desperate collaboration with the Wehrmacht caught up with a 55-year-old mother. A village girl and the first in her family to go to school, young Antonina Parfenova was dubbed “Makarova” (after her father, Makar) by a teacher when the girl forgot or was too shy to say her surname. This childhood switcheroo would follow her into adulthood and ultimately buy her half a lifetime and a family to mourn her. At 19, she had moved to Moscow when the German onslaught against the Soviet Union erupted, and like many young people...

A hundred years ago this week, a series of biggest battles that Europe were to witness between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 decided the fate of the continent as much as, if not more than, the Great War itself. In early August 1920, the newly resurrected, independent Poland saved the Eastern Europe, Germany and possibly the rest of the war-exhausted Europe from the triumphant Russian communism. As a result of a little known war in the distant corners of the continent, the status quo of the...

On August 6, 1945, 30-year-old U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. took to the sky in the Enola Gay, his Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber. His destination, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, was not an especially notable target. His payload, however, a single bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” would change the course of history. True watershed moments in history are rare — the agricultural revolution is one such example, as was the Battle of Salamis, the advent of Jesus Christ, and the fall of Western Rome. Yet in the last 1,500 years, no two distinct epochs of time...

It is August, 2020, now seventy-five years since the end of America's World War II hostilities with the nation then known as the Empire of Japan. August 6 and 9 are the historic anniversary dates of the first and only use of nuclear weapons in warfare. In the ensuing three quarters of a century, the attacks of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — their usefulness and their rectitude — have been the subject of vigorous debate over their military, scientific, political, historic, and moral significance. Schools of thought regarding yes-or-no justification generally break down as follows:...

A-Company, 116th Regiment, 29th Infantry Division was the first American Company to land on Omaha Beach, specifically the Dog Green Sector Of Omaha Beach, it's been the subject of many books and movies, including Saving Private Ryan and The Bedford Boys. Last year during the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, Russell Pickett was recognized by President Trump and Macron.... RIP sir for a job well done...a true piece of American History has passed away....

The South Pacific had many major battles during World War II: Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, Wake Island, Dec. 7-23, 1941, Doolittle Raid, April 18, 1942, Coral Sea, May 4-8, 1942, Midway, June 4-7, 1942, Guadalcanal campaign, Aug. 7, 1942-Feb. 9, 1943, Gilbert & Marshall Islands campaign, 1943–44: Makin Island, Aug. 17-18, 1942, Tarawa, Nov. 20, 1943, Makin, Nov. 20-23, 1943, Kwajalein, Feb. 14, 1944, Eniwetok, Feb. 17, 1944, Truk Island, Feb. 17-18, 1944,  Mariana & Palau Islands campaign 1944: Saipan, June 16, 1944, Philippine Sea, June 19-20, 1944, Guam, July 21, 1944, Tinian, July 24, 1944, Peleliu, Sept....

Congress has awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest honor, to surviving crew members of the USS Indianapolis, the ship that delivered key components of the first nuclear bomb and was later sunk by Japan during World War II. The ship, with 1,195 personnel aboard, delivered enriched uranium and other parts of the atomic bomb ‘’Little Boy” that was later dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. Four days after delivering its top secret cargo, the ship was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on July 30, 1945. Of nearly 900 men who went into the Philippine Sea, just 316 survived before...

A World War II veteran in Torrington, Connecticut, is giving lessons about patriotism to anyone who will listen. Ninety-five-year-old John Mastrocola takes his American flag and sits in a lawn chair on his sidewalk every morning at 8 a.m., according to Fox 61. “I am one of the very few World War II veterans left, so before I leave I want them to remember John ‘never surrender’ Mastrocola,'” he told the outlet.

On 6 June 1944, the Allies launched the greatest amphibious invasion in history. Codenamed “Overlord” but best known today as “D-Day”, the operation saw Allied forces landing on the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France in huge numbers. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a foothold on the French coastline. The statistics for the invasion force involved in the operation are staggering. By midnight on 6 June, 132,000 Allied forces had landed in France, while more than 2 million were eventually shipped there in total, comprising a total of 39 divisions. Thousands of vessels took part...

August 2020 will mark the 75th anniversary of VJ-Day preceded by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. The generations which made the grave decisions for that war have left us. The generations which endured the cruel tragedies required for carrying out those decisions are rapidly leaving us. Therefore, I find it hard to imagine that the left will allow this anniversary of VJ-Day to pass without attacking the decision of this country made to use the atomic bombs. I believe we will be regaled with the moral exhibitionism of revisionists who adhere to the...

Seventy-five years ago today, on a rainy morning in the Jornada del Muerto desert of New Mexico, the United States ushered in the nuclear age with the detonation of the world’s first nuclear explosive device—an event code-named “Trinity.”  This remarkable feat of engineering and scientific ingenuity was the culmination of the Manhattan Project, which helped end World War II and launch an unprecedented era of global stability, scientific innovation, and economic prosperity.After Trinity, nuclear testing conducted by the United States laid the groundwork to maintain our stockpile and further our ability to understand and prevent nuclear threats around the...

KUMAMOTO -- Eighteen photos of a deadly World War II air raid that took place in the final days of the conflict on the southwestern Japan city of Kumamoto, the capital of the prefecture of the same name, have been newly discovered.