World War 2: Stories, Combatants & Facts

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…

Heinrich Severloh: The Beast of Omaha

Heinrich Severloh was born into a farming family in northern Germany. At the age of 19, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in July 1942. He would initially serve in the 19th Light Artillery Replacement Division before being transferred to the 321st Artillery Regiment, he would train for a few…

Yugoslav Resistance – Partisans and Chetniks

After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the kingdom is carved up by the four antagonists: Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria. What was one country is now divided into nine different territories. Large parts are occupied or annexed, such as Slovenia by Germany and Italy, parts of Serbia by…

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.

The Women Who Flew For Hitler

Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were the only two women to serve the Nazi Third Reich as test pilots during the Second World War. These women were in many ways similar. They were both brilliant pilots, they had a very strong sense of honor and duty for their nation,…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

Simo Häyhä – The World’s Most Successful Sniper in History

The invading Soviet soldiers grew to be straight-up terrified of Häyhä. Having to patrol the blanched Finnish wilderness with the knowledge that Häyhä could be out there waiting dipping them with a spectacular long distant shot earned him the nickname Belaya Smert, which is Russian for White Death. However, Häyhä’s…

Top 5 American Tanks of World War 2

Before World War II, the United States Army thought the mission of the tank was to support infantry. The job of fighting other tanks was assigned to the tank-destroyer class of vehicles. These vehicles were fast and had powerful guns but sacrificed a lot of armor to achieve such a…

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…

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 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…

The Heroic Stand of Audie Murphy at Holtzwihr

It’s January 26th, 1945. Just after 2:00 PM. The newly appointed company commander, Audie Murphy, and more than three dozen American GIs lay down on the snow-covered ground near the town of Holtzwihr in Alsace, France. In the distance, thundering booms from the German artillery are followed by eerie hissing…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp

On the 25th of April 1945, Germany had been cut in two when American and Soviet troops linked up at the town of Torgau on the Elbe River. The following day U.S. Forces had crossed the Danube, Neuburg, Ingolstadt and Kelheim. Dachau concentration camp was severely overcrowded due to the…

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…

British Commandos

Commandos are actually used by the British before Dunkirk. Looking into unconventional warfare for the Military Intelligence Research department, researchers were interested in a different type of soldier. By the spring of 1940, they have approval to recruit 10 new ‘guerrilla companies’ from other army units. British troops lined up…

The Ghost Army Who Fooled the Germans

Created in early 1944 with the impending invasion of Europe in mind, a special unit was formed, officially called the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and nicknamed the Ghost Army. It would become the first mobile multimedia tactical deception unit in the U.S. Army. This unique and top-secret unit used visual,…

The Goebbels Family – The Story of Hans Goebbels

The story of Dr. Goebbels’ brother Hans is the story of Nazi nepotism. Relatives of the Nazi party leadership, rose to positions of great power and influence on the coattails of their more famous siblings, and many like Hans Goebbels ended up paying the price for that association at the…

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…

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…

MG 42 – Hitler’s Buzzsaw

The design of the MG 42 began in 1937 by Mauserwork to substitute the MG 34. Although it possessed a reasonable rate of fire, the MG 34 had several fundamental drawbacks such as sensitivity to extreme weather conditions, dirt, and mud, and the high-quality metal alloys resulted in skilled labor…

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…