On January 16, 2014 former Imperial Japanese Army Intelligence Officer Hiroo Onoda passed away in Tokyo at age 91. Onoda, a veteran of the Second World War, had an otherwise unremarkable wartime service record but for what he did after the Japanese September 1945 surrender to the Allies.
In December of 1944 Onoda had been ordered to Lubang Island in the Philippines (which the Japanese had taken from the U.S. in 1942). In October of 1944 U.S.
Though the Third Reich started it, the Allies ended it in spectacular fashion: with that "it" being WWII. As part of the comprehensive crushing of Germany required to defeat Hitler's regime the Allies dropped roughly 1.9 million tons of bombs on Germany during the war, with the vast majority of this destruction coming in the war's final year.
With the likely impending passage of the recent budget deal the Department of Defense continues to squeal about the inadequacy of a funding level of $572.6 Billion (of course this number does not include nuclear weapons costs allocated to the Department of Energy). This in spite of the fact that the Pentagon has enjoyed near record levels of funding for over a decade.
Regardless of your feelings about automatic rifles and their place in modern society, there is no denying the military utility of such weapons as brutally efficient killing machines. And of the innumerable automatic rifles created in the past seventy five years perhaps none had the impact of Mikhail Kalishnikov's reliable, simple, and effective AK-47 (and its modern variants).
On December 23, 2013 former peasant, World War II veteran, and eventual Lt. Gen. Mikhail T.
By Bryan J. Dickerson*
For naval enthusiasts and historians, there exists a unique opportunity on the Philadelphia / Camden waterfronts of the Delaware River. There one can physically walk through nearly a hundred years of naval history and technological development.
Berthed on the Pennsylvania side of the river are the cruiser USS Olympia and the submarine USS Becuna (see first picture). Just a couple hundred yards away on the New Jersey side sits the battleship USS New Jersey (see second,
By Bryan J Dickerson* and Steven D Mercatante*
On the morning of Sunday 23 October 1983, the city of Beirut, Lebanon was rocked by two powerful explosions. Suicide bombers sponsored by Iran and Syria detonated two massive truck bombs outside the barracks of U.S. Marine and French Army peacekeepers, killing 299 and wounding nearly a hundred. Thirty years later, we remember the incident that led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon .
In August 1982, troops
The Michigan War Studies Review (MiWSR) has just published my latest book review. This is my third review for MiWSR (a scholarly journal affiliated with the Michigan War Studies Group) and it is of David Stahel's Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Unlike the previous two work's I have reviewed for MiWSR this is unfortunately a book that I found quite lacking.
Though the book has some commendable qualities, it's overall impact is to further obscure just why and how the
The Prague Uprising (not to be confused with the Prague Spring of 1968), occurred from May 5 to May 8, 1945. With the Third Reich collapsing on all fronts the last significant German military grouping was that of Army Group Center, which early in May 1945 controlled, among other areas, the better part of Bohemia and Moravia - including the Czech capital of Prague.
When it comes to the Holocaust, and its attendant concentration and extermination camps, the names most commonly resonating in our minds are those such as; Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Dachau, or Treblinka.
That said, there were many other camps that played a crucial role in the mass murder of millions of human beings. Many times their role in the Nazi camp system is often overlooked, but they were no less important in terms of perpetrating one of history's greatest crimes against humanity.
The latest issue of Gun Mart Magzine is now available, and readers can find on its website a recommendation of Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe.
Gun Mart Magazine praises Why Germany Nearly Won: "There are plenty of books which postulate the opinion of ‘what if’ Germany had won the war, but this book is different. Firstly, the opinion of the title is based on solid research to present a sound argument.
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