At 11:47 a.m. on May 29th, 1943, Captain James Hartwell climbed into the cockpit of his B7 at RAF Alenbury, watching the ground crew load the last belt of 50 caliber ammunition into the modified bombers’s 17th gun position. 26 years old, 42 combat missions, zero experience in what he was about to fly. The…
The doorbell rang on a Thursday morning. I opened it to find a young woman I’d never seen before. I’m Sophia, she said. I’m Daniel’s daughter. I hadn’t heard my son’s name spoken out loud in 25 years. Not since the morning I found my husband on the floor, the safe behind him hanging open,…
At 11:14 a.m. on January 11th, 1944, Major James Howard circled his P-51B Mustang four miles above Osher Slaben, Germany, watching 30 German fighters dive towards 60 unprotected B7s below. The 33-year-old Howard had flown 86 combat missions in China with the Flying Tigers, but today marked only his 37th day flying the controversial new…
At 0742 on May 27th, 1940, Captain Jack Churchill crouched behind a crumbling stone wall near the French village of Lepinet, watching five German soldiers advanced through the morning mist toward his position. 33 years old, 14 years since Sandhurst, zero confirmed kills in combat. The Vermacht had already crushed Poland in 36 days. Now…
The door opened and a homeless teenager walked into my bookstore. 16 years old, dirty clothes, worn backpack. She asked if I was hiring. I should have said no, but when I looked at her face, I froze. She looked exactly like someone I knew, someone I hadn’t spoken to in 2 years. And when…
At 0900 on February 19th, 1945, Corporal Tony Stein crouched behind a shallow depression in the black volcanic sand of Ewima, gripping a weapon his sergeant had called a stupid idea 3 months earlier. 23 years old, six combat missions, zero conventional kills. The Japanese had fortified every meter of this 8 square mile rock…
A secret facility hidden in the English countryside. British engineers stood around a workbench covered in lumps of coal. Except these were not lumps of coal. They were bombs. Weapons designed to look so perfectly ordinary that German soldiers would shovel them directly into locomotive fireboxes without a second thought. The moment that fake coal…
December 7th, 1943, General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, received word from President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington. Roosevelt had just returned from the Tehran Conference where he had met with Churchill and Stalin. The message was clear. Roosevelt had made his decision about who would command the invasion of France. The choice would…
Now, if I ask you what you first think about when I mention hand weapons in World War II, you probably think of the trusty rifle and bayonet. Regular viewers of this channel might immediately think of the Girka cookery. But if I specifically mention the Commandos, then you’ll probably immediately think of the Fairburn…
At 0742 on March 6th, 1945, Corporal Clarence Smooyer crouched inside the turret of an M26 Persing tank in the rubble choked streets of Cologne, watching a German Panther crew rotate their 75mm gun toward the intersection where two American Shermans had just stopped. 21 years old, 7 months in combat across France and Germany,…