Military History

Just finished “The Korean War That Almost Was” [by Mike Coppock], in your May issue. I served with the 223rd Infantry Regiment, 40th Infantry Division, from early May 1953 to late April 1954 on Heartbreak Ridge when the cease-fire took effect. Our pl

The research vessel Petrel [paulallen.com/InDepth/Petrel], funded by the estate of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has pinpointed the wreck of the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier USS Hornet, noted for having launched the 1942 Doolittle Raid—the firs

Aníbal Milhais stood alone on a hill in the Portuguese sector of the Western Front in France in 1918. Before him two German divisions advanced across no-man’s-land. Behind him his battalion of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps and a Scottish regimen

On Dec. 31, 1877, amid the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, some 25,000 Russian soldiers under General Joseph Gourko advanced on the Bulgarian village of Tashkessen. Waiting for them from the vantage of three knolls were a few thousand bedraggled Ottoma

Crew: Two Wingspan: 88 feet Wing area: 1,104 square feet Length: 67 feet Cargo capacity: 6,344 pounds (up to 25 equipped troops; or two jeeps; or a jeep and trailer; or an Ordnance QF 6-pounder antitank gun; or one 75 mm M1A1 pack howitzer with ammun

On the afternoon of July 19, 1975, a patrol of the Rhodesian army’s reservist Territorial Force encountered a group of communist insurgents just inside the rogue nation’s northeast border with Mozambique. In a subsequent firefight the reservists kill

When the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, it set into motion events not considered by the nascent nation’s Founding Fathers. Among the unintended consequences was that in throwing off the British yoke, the Uni

Over the course of nearly a century the military moniker “Maginot Line” has become something of a punch line—a euphemism, according to Merriam-Webster, for any “defensive barrier or strategy that inspires a false sense of security.” A belief prevails

Though World War I hostilities came to a formal end on Nov. 11, 1918, the parting shots in that long and cataclysmic struggle did not come until seven months later. They did not sound on the former Western Front, whose trench-scarred fields had soake

By the latter half of the 19th century international trade had become increasingly important to the power and influence a nation was able to project. Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain were among the significant Western rivals,

Owain Glyndŵr is the preeminent national hero of Wales. From 1400 to 1415 he led a war of independence against the English under King Henry IV. The Welsh consider Glyndŵr the last true—that is, native-born—prince of Wales (tywysog Cymru—pronounced TO

Don’t judge a book by its cover, goes the old saying. Airborne in 1943 is a prime example, for while the narrative is excellent, the cover art and title are terribly misleading. British historian Kevin Wilson has a deserved reputation for quality and