World War 2: Stories, Combatants & Facts

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 – The Butcher Bird

When the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 first saw combat in 1941, it was an instant success and inflicted heavy casualties upon its opponents, particularly RAF Spitfires. During a career that lasted for a period of four years, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 served in every German theater of war from the cold…

Fall of Tobruk 1942

In June of 1942, the German forces under the command of General Erwin Rommel were on the run from the British 8th Army. The Allies had recently liberated Tobruk from a famous eight-month siege in which the heroic actions of the 9th Australian maintained the port in Allied hands against…

Horrific Experiments of Unit 731

Unit 731 was the brainchild of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was a biological and chemical warfare research unit that conducted experiments on prisoners with the aim of developing deadly weapons. It’s written that at its base in China – remember the Japanese were at war…

5 Most Brilliant High Commanders of World War 2

Sun Tzu, one of the world’s most legendary military strategists, wrote: "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” The most brilliant commanders put both into practice to achieve devastating victories. This was as true in ancient China as it was…

Battle of Aachen – First German City to Fall in WW2

Following D-Day and the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944. The German Army in the West collapsed and retreated towards the defenses of the Westwall, known more popularly in the West as the Siegfried Line. Westwall – Siegfried Line The Allied armies followed hot on their heels, hoping…

Kurt Knispel – The Ace of Panzer Aces

Kurt Knispel is according to the books, the best tank ace with the most so-called kills, yet he is also the most forgotten Panzer Ace of them all. In this article, we will take a closer look at the actions of this forgotten yet incredible Panzer Ace. What is astonishing…

Vasily Zaitsev – Sniper Hero of Stalingrad

“Shoot with a steady aim and look your prey in the eye. You’re not a boy anymore.” Those are the words his grandfather had said to Vasily when he turned 12 in 1927. Zaitsev came from a family of hunters, living on the bank of the river Saram-Sakal, in the…

Virginia Hall – The most feared allied spy in World War 2

The most feared allied spy in World War 2 was a woman. She was an American named Virginia Hall who worked as an undercover agent. But her career almost never happened. At just 27, Hall lost her leg in a hunting accident. Undeterred, Hall spent a year learning to walk…

The man who refused to salute Hitler

If you frequent the internet and especially websites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit, you have undoubtedly seen the following picture. Initially, there’s nothing too special about it except that it shows what appears to be a crowd of fanatical Nazis giving the Hitler salute. And it wasn’t until the…

The KV-2 that single-handedly held up the entire 6th Panzer Division for a day

The Eastern Blitzkrieg After the annexation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and ultimately Poland, the United Kingdom and France decided to go to war to prevent Germany from becoming a world power once again. While this happened, Adolf Hitler had signed a secret peace treaty with Stalin. Both nations took over half…

Rommel’s Kampfstaffel

Erwin Rommel was rightly called the “Desert Fox” for his brilliant handling of the German Afrika Korps for the series of seesaw battles against British Commonwealth forces in the Western Desert in North Africa. Erwin Rommel, Fritz Bayerlein, and other German and Italian officers in North Africa, 22 June 1942…

Flak-Bait – The Bomber Plane that Survived a Total of 207 Missions

The most impressive thing about the twin-engine bomber is the amount of flak it absorbed while still somehow staying in the sky. As it conducted flights across Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands the aircraft was shot over a thousand times, twice the plane managed to return to base with…

SAS Raid on Sidi Haneish

By early 1942, the tide was starting to turn for the British in North Africa. As over 70% of supplies going to General Rommel’s Afrika Korps and his Italian allies were being sunk crossing the Mediterranean. As a result, the Germans employed more Luftwaffe aircraft to move supplies and these…

Battle of Kursk – The Largest Tank Battle of World War 2

Preparing the Offensive The Fuhrer and the military command believed that during the first months of Operation Barbarossa, the city of Moscow would fall to the unstoppable German forces. But they quickly discovered that they had underestimated the Soviet population. Despite successfully encircling and crushing multiple Soviet Armies that surpassed…

Stopping the Nazi Atomic Bomb

The Plan Due to its relative inaccessibility, means of infiltrating the plant were limited and dangerous. The bridge across the valley below the plant was heavily guarded and the mountains above had been rigged with landmines. Bombing the plant was out of the question, both due to risk of civilian…

Nazi Germany’s Master Interrogator Hanns Scharff

Imagine that you’re in the middle of the Second World War and a Prisoner of War is brought to you. You know he has knowledge of an imminent bombing raid, and your superiors task you with the interrogation and making sure that the prisoner spills the beans. How do you…

Ghost Plane of the Libyan Desert: Lady Be Good

Following years of fighting across the harsh terrain of North Africa, in May 1943, the German and Italian forces which still remained there surrendered to the Allies. A month earlier the 514th Squadron of the 9th Air Force was stationed at the Soluch Air Base near the town of Benghazi…

Unmanned Suicide Vehicle: Goliath

Goliath tracked mine was originally modeled from a French prototype. The early models were developed to hold a capacity of 50 kilograms of explosives. The vehicle was steered remotely via a joystick control box. The control box was then attached to the Goliath by a triple-stranded cable connected to the…

OSS: The Forerunner of the CIA

In 1940, the British set up an organization known as the Special Operations Executive or SOE. This was responsible for intelligence gathering and secretive operations throughout Europe. Come 1942 after some training from the British in the previous year, the Office of Strategic Services or OSS was created in the…

Operation Tidal Wave – Blowing Up Hitler’s Gas Station

Before entering World War II, the U.S Army Air Corps, which in 1941 became the Army Air Forces, developed and perfected a particular attack method. It consisted of high-altitude, daylight mass precision bombings of enemy military and industrial structures. This doctrine combined with the British Royal Air Force’s specialty on…

War Dogs of World War 2

Sicily, July 1943. American soldiers are pinned down by heavy fire from an Italian pillbox. Time to bring forward their top weapon. What will it be? A bazooka? A flamethrower? How about a Sherman tank? No. This weapon has four legs, sharp teeth, and answers to the name Chips.

M3-M3A1 “Grease Gun”

In 1941, the US military began looking for an alternative for the Thompson submachine guns. In December of 1942, they adopted a new submachine gun, the M3. Built from an all-steel construction using mainly stamped parts, it fired from an open bolt and had simple controls. At first, soldiers were…

Operation Barbarossa Begins

June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa begins. This Operation is the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and they are invading with the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In the early morning of the 21st, a submarine commander in the Soviet Red Navy reports the sighting of a…

Operation Haudegen – The last German soldiers to surrender after World War 2

On the 7th of May 1945, German General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany at the Allied headquarters in Reims, France. It meant the Second World War had come to an end, at least, in the European theater of war. But… the war didn’t end for a…

Dietrich von Choltitz – General who refused to burn Paris to the ground

Hitler's Third Reich was rapidly crumbling before his very eyes; the vast empire that had once spanned from Tripoli to Rome to Kyiv was now shrinking, drawing ever so close to Berlin. Also, Paris was still under Nazi control, but not for long. By the summer of 1944, Allied forces…

World’s First ATV – The Kettenkrad

First developed in 1939 the Sd.Kfz. 2 known as the Kettenkraftrad was a light tracked vehicle, known for short as the Kettenkrad. It is clearly a very different-looking vehicle. Unlike many other tracked vehicles of its time like Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track, the Kettenkrad’s front steering ability utilized a single motorcycle…

American Traitors – The Incredible Story of Martin James Monti

American citizens serving in Germany’s notorious SS, fact or fiction. Well, a little bit of both actually. During the war the Germans particularly the SS recruited vary widely and from all of the occupied territories they conquered. They also recruited from amongst their enemies and it’s well known that the…

The Soviet Cook Who Captured a German Tank with an Ax

It’s the 2nd of July 1941. At a field kitchen in a forest near Dünaburg, Latvia. Ivan Pavlovich Sereda calmly peels potatoes for the evening soup. Graduate from culinary college, Sereda is assigned to the 91st Tank Regiment, 46th Tank Division of the 21st Mechanized Corps as a cook. It’s…

Operation Vengeance – Killing Admiral Yamamoto

Isoroku Yamamoto Isoroku Yamamoto was one of the most notable leaders of the Japanese Empire, and he is credited with planning and executing the attack on Pearl Harbor, a preemptive strike against a neutral country that was judged a war crime at the Tokyo Trials once the war was over.…

Battle of Peleliu – Bitterest Fight for the Marines in World War 2

When US forces approached the tiny island of Peleliu inside the Japanese National Defense Zone in late-1944, the Imperial Japanese high command was determined to defend the small landmass at any cost. By then, the Empire was strictly on the defensive, as their forces had suffered blow after blow while…

Schwerer Gustav – The Largest Gun Ever Built

Schwerer Gustav, or the “Heavy Gustav,” was the largest and most powerful gun used in World War II. It was initially commissioned by Hitler to destroy the French Maginot Line; however, it was actually only used extensively in the siege of Sevastopol on the Eastern Front. Dismantled by the Germans…

Operation Greif – Nazi in Disguise

Ardennes Counteroffensive Even though the Normandy landings in June of 1994 allowed the Allies to establish a foothold in Northern France, Belgium, and its immediate surroundings, the situation in the rest of Europe was still far from secure. Supply lines opened up through the channel at Normandy, but the further…