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World War II Magazine
A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945 Edited by Roger Chickering, Stig Förster and Bernd Greiner; Cambridge University Press, 2005, $70. This collection of articles is the latest in a series....
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World War II Magazine
No present-day company is more a product of military might than Volkswagen. On May 26, 1938, just outside the new town of Fallersleben in lower Saxony, Adolf Hitler spoke at a cornerstone dedication ceremony for a new factory. The factory,...
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World War II Magazine
The subsequent exploits of U.S. armored forces during World War II have overshadowed the first action involving American tankers. The United States’ first World War II tank versus tank engagement was no grand, dashing maneuver on the...
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World War II Magazine
DESIGNATION: First Belgian Independent Brigade ACTIVATION: January 21, 1944 CAMPAIGN: Northwest Europe Among the representatives of myriad exiled nations operating from England in 1944 were a handful of Belgians—most of whom had not seen...
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World War II Magazine
Living in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument, it is pretty hard to avoid an interest in the American Revolution. At one point in a program I recently watched, the narrator read a letter from Abigail Adams in which she admonished her...
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World War II Magazine
What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa by David E. Murphy; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2005, $30. Career CIA officer David E. Murphy endeavors to explain in What Stalin Knew, why, on the very eve of the launching of Operation...
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World War II Magazine
Helmut Wilberg was a Prussian officer and a gentleman. He radiated confidence, was built like a linebacker and had clear blue eyes that gazed out from his square face. Typical of his class, he was apolitical, a consummate professional and...
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World War II Magazine
As his company rose up and began to advance into the cornfield, Blitz veteran Richard G. Clements thought it looked like something from a B movie—then the SS Panzergrenadiers defending the Norman village of Maltot opened fire. By 1942...
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World War II Magazine
Jack Maas took to the skies with the ‘Cactus Air Force’ during some of the most desperate days of the Guadalcanal campaign. He went on to fight his way across the Pacific…and beyond. For some fighter aces, fame rests primarily or...
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World War II Magazine
Erwin Rommel’s decision to stop the Allied invasion of France at the water’s edge was contrary to the rule book and anathema to his more tradition-bound contemporaries. ROMMEL’S GLORY YEARS For Rommel, the first three years of the...
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World War II Magazine
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel— Germany’s vaunted “Desert Fox”—met his end not on the battlefield, but at the hands of henchmen sent by his own commander in chief. After more than 60 years, Rommel’s death remains a testament to the...
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World War II Magazine
On the morning of June 6, 1944, a detachment of 200 U.S. Army Rangers approached the coast of Normandy and prepared to carry out the unenviable mission of scaling a perpendicular cliff behind the beach and silencing a battery of 155mm...
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World War II Magazine
NAME: Gordon Jackson DATE ENTERED SERVICE: September 1939 DECORATIONS: Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, War Medal 1939-1945, 1939-1945 Star My decision to join the Canadian Permanent Force in September 1939 was easy. A couple of my...
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World War II Magazine
DESIGNATION: Polish 1st Armored Division ACTIVATION: November 25, 1942 CAMPAIGNS: Normandy, France, Holland The Polish 1st Armored Division descended directly from the 10th Cavalry Brigade, which was raised, along with the 10th Mounted...
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World War II Magazine
In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds; Random House, New York, 2005, $35. He was a giant of a man, a larger-than-life figure with an insatiable appetite for fine cognac (although...
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World War II Magazine
From the icy shoreline where he stood, a tall gaunt man took off his goggles and stared out into the rough seas. It was nearly impossible to see anything through the descending fog, and he was alone except for his dogs. He was on the...
