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The morning of Feb. 19, 1942, dawned hot and humid in Australia's Northern Territory. Some 50 miles north across Beagle Gulf from Darwin--the region's sparsely populated seaside capital--Roman Catholic Father [...]

A fine rifle has the same superbly machined beauty, purity and proportionate lines as does a complicated chronograph or a Ferrari V-12. Every detail is sharp and cleanly sculpted, and [...]

Blame Ernest Hemingway. Ever since he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), the popular image of the wartime partisan has been one of T-handles shoved down into detonator boxes, [...]

World War I saw the first widespread use of four game-changing weapons: aircraft, tanks, machine guns and submarines. Of the four, subs were by far the most advanced system for [...]

Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller was, during World War I and through the early 1930s, the British army's tank warfare go-to guy. He was the man who taught the [...]

Sophisticated carrier-based airplanes certainly shifted the odds in the 1940s, but as World War II loomed in the mid- to late 30s, combatant navies had to decide how they'd wage [...]

No city of 2.5 million people had ever been supplied wholly by air, until the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift. Food. Clothing. Bedding. Coal. Gasoline. Medicine. Even candy and toys. Everything that [...]

What happened on the night of Aug. 4, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin--a large body of water pinched between North Vietnam and China--changed the course of military history. The [...]

It was a nasty fight with grandiose operational names (Desert Shield and Desert Storm), but the 1990-91 Gulf War was America's post-Vietnam catharsis--the first large-scale conflict the nation had won [...]

Crossing the Rhine: Breaking into Nazi Germany, 1944 and 1945--the Greatest Airborne Battles in History, by Lloyd Clark, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2008, $25. The Battle of Arnhem--Operation Market [...]

A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight, by Robert J. Mrazek, Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2008, $27.99. Say 'Torpedo Eight' to any Pacific War [...]

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn, by James Donovan, Little, Brown, New York, 2008, $26.99. At a time when (as this goes to print) it's at least possible [...]

Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It, by Julia Keller, Penguin, New York, 2008, $25.95. Buy this book to learn all [...]

War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, by Max Boot, Gotham Books, New York, 2006, $35. Warfare in the 21st century has been turned [...]

Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders & the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941-1945, by Evan Thomas, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2006, $27. The largest naval battle ever fought, the Battle [...]

The epitaph for the disastrous April 17-19, 1961, attempt to overthrow communist dictator Fidel Castro by invading Cuba with 1,500 amateur soldiers and a handful of piston-engined B-26 ground-attack bombers [...]

The February 1943 Battle of the Kasserine Pass marked the first serious confrontation between America's amateur army and Germany's professional Wehrmacht--specifically the elite Afrika Korps--so it should come as no [...]

It was a brief but violent war that baffled Americans, drove Britons to an ecstasy of patriotism and totally blindsided the Argentines. For 150 years Argentina and Great Britain had [...]

Conventional wisdom holds that the Spanish Civil War was the dress rehearsal for World War II, yet a far more important, earlier and lesser-known conflict (it had no Picasso to [...]

The article focuses on the Toussaint Rouge or the Red All Saints' Day in France. It notes that the celebration is in commemoration of the deliberately timed, well-orchestrated bombings of police stations, utilities, fuel depots and public buildings across urban northern Algeria on November 1, 1954. It provides information of the battle between France and Algeria which is defined as a conflict between a large, mechanized, professional army.

The nine-day Suez Crisis of 1956 was sparked by a series of what in hindsight seem playground-worthy disputes, though they could have led to global Armageddon. That year Egypt switched [...]

Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, Harmony Books, New York, 2010, $25.99 Forget the Battle of Britain, forget Enigma and El Alamein. Read this fascinating book and you'll probably agree that [...]

Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006, $35. Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's book could just as well have been titled The Roads to Dunkirk, [...]

The article describes the attack of Japanese Navy on the Darwin port in the Northern Territory of Australia on February 19, 1942. Topics discussed include Darwin port as supply base for the Allied defense of the Dutch East Indies that was the cause of the attacks on it, the attack on the hospital ship Manunda with Japanese dive-bombers killing 12 people and the death toll in the attacks which is known in Australia as the Great Darwin Raid.

The article offers information on Shaka Zulu, most influential monarchs of the Zulu Kingdom of Africa. It states that Zulu has been mentioned as the black Napoléon. It further presents the statement of professor Charles Thomas, an African military expert, concerning myth behind Shaka, the black Napoléon. It further discusses Shaka's erratic behaviour and suffering.

The article focuses on the AK-47, which is the considered one of the deadliest, most prevalent and most game-changing individually wielded weapon in the history. AK-47 comes from a big family of guns, which includes the three similar yet distinct generations produced by Soviet arsenals. The rifle, depending on the version, can be field-stripped and reassembled even by an illiterate Ugandan 8 year old, which is why it is also referred as soldier-proof.

The article focuses on the French Resistance to Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist government of Vichy. It considers the representation of the French Resistance in Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The actions taken by France's population to fight against the Nazi occupation are explored, including the shooting of German naval adjutant Alfons Moser. The author concludes that the French Resistance was effective in some places, but argues that claims about its value were exaggerated.

The article presents a history of the Liberty ship used by the U.S. military during World War II. The Liberty ship was a utilitarian vessel, built to maximize cargo capacity while reducing drag. Upon reviewing its plans, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt uncharitably referred to the ship as a real ugly duckling. It proved its worth during World War II, delivering troops and cargo worldwide.

The article presents several worst battlefield blunders in the history of warfare. They include the poor military strategy adopted by British General Sir Ian Hamilton during the 1915 invasion of Gallipoli, Turkey. Another was the defeat of Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside during the Battle of Fredericksburg. The defeat of French forces under commander Henri Navarre at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam by forces commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap is also included in the list of war blunders.

The article provides information on Jan Zizka, a Czech general who led a band of peasants during the Hussite War against the Catholic Church and King of Bohemia, Czech Republic. It highlights the experience of Zizka as a mercenary against Prussian Teutonic knights, most notably at the Battle of Tannenberg. It also describes the tactics and the weapons used by the army of Zizka.

The article presents a discussion of the 1943 Battle of the Kasserine Pass. It details the battle scenario at the time of war including the so called Operation Satin that was planned by the Allies to destabilize the Afrika Korps in Tunisia. The article also provides a list of the lessons from the Kasserine Pass battle including the mistake committed by then Major General Lloyd Fredendall of allowing his men to fight from a distance.

The article discusses the war between Great Britain and Argentina in the Falkland Islands and insights gained. The war occurred from May 1 to June 14, 1982, where the British forces and the Royal Navy defeated the Argentine forces to obtain the sovereignty of the islands. Various lessons were gained from the war including superiority of professional troops over conscripts, racism as a vital factor in combat, and reading instructions for using weapons.