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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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British Commandos
Commandos are actually used by the British before Dunkirk. Looking into unconventional warfare for the Military Intelligence Research department, researchers…
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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…
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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…
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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…
Werwolf: SS Stay-Behind Organization
The idea of creating some kind of behind the lines German resistance organization originated with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The original concept was something akin to Otto Skorzeny’s commandos, highly trained and well-armed uniform formations rather than Nazi partisans. Heinrich Himmler taking target practice with a Luger P08 pistol Himmler chose…
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…
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…
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…
German Bf-109 Spares a Heavily Damaged American B-17 Bomber
It’s December the 20th, 1943 and in the freezing air high above Germany, 2nd Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown is at the controls of his B-17 F, Ye Olde Pub. Nearly the entire 8th Air Force’s Bomb Group are headed towards Bremen to take out the Focke-Wulf plant on the outskirts…
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…
