VIDEOS: True Stories of Pearl Harbor Veterans
Explore the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor through the eyes of the people who were there. Interviewees include the oldest living survivor of Pearl Harbor and the oldest living African-American survivor.
A Harlem Hellfighter's Searing Tales from the WWI Trenches
Like many veterans of the killing fields of World War I, Horace Pippin had a tough time shaking off the memories. So in the decade after the war he captured them, and tamed them, inside sketch-filled journals. He had no dearth of stories to tell. There was the terrified young ...read more
What Happened When WWI Paused for Christmas
On Christmas Eve 1914, in the dank, muddy trenches on the Western Front of the first world war, a remarkable thing happened. It came to be called the Christmas Truce. And it remains one of the most storied and strangest moments of the Great War—or of any war in history. British ...read more
How Two Japanese-Americans Fought Nazis Abroad—and Prejudice at Home
Like most Americans, Don Seki and Frank Mitoshi Wada remember the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii as a dark day. For these two “Nisei” (American-born children of Japanese immigrants), December 7th, 1941 was darker than for most, since it led to their ...read more
Watch the Emotional Reunion of a Concentration Camp Survivor and One of His Liberators
The first time Joshua Kaufman met Daniel Gillespie was April 29, 1945, when American liberators marched into the notorious Dachau concentration camp 12 miles outside Munich, Germany and smashed in the prison doors. Gillespie, a gunner with the 42nd Rainbow Division, was deeply ...read more
The Most Harrowing Battle of the Korean War
For Robert Whited and Jean White, there was never a question that they would serve in the military. And they never doubted the merit of the war they were sent to fight in Korea. It was this unbending faith in their service as U.S. Marines that carried both men through America’s ...read more
John McCain in the Military: From Navy Brat to POW
When John McCain made his first bid for public office in 1982, running for a House seat in Arizona, critics blasted him as a carpetbagger, pointing out that he’d only lived in the state for 18 months. “Listen, pal, I spent 22 years in the Navy,” the exasperated candidate ...read more
The Death-Defying Challenges of Military Logistics in Iraq
The first time A.J. Luna escaped death while serving in Iraq, it was thanks to a Marlboro menthol. It was a blisteringly hot day, and his unit was headed from Baghdad toward LSA Anaconda, an Iraqi air force base about 40 miles north. As part of a mile-long convoy of moving ...read more
Why This Pioneering Hopi Soldier Has a Mountain Named After Her
Since U.S. Army Private Lori Ann Piestewa died in a Humvee ambush in Iraq in 2003, her name—and her legacy—have spread throughout the three mesas of Hopi land in northeastern Arizona. The first American Indian woman to die serving the U.S. Armed Forces, in the first war that ...read more
The Surprising Interrogations That Led to Saddam Hussein’s Capture
After coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 and toppled its government, the U.S. military launched an intensive manhunt. The target? The nation’s deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein, who escaped Baghdad when the capital fell. Nine months later, in an operation code-named ...read more
Travel the Globe to 10 Key WWI Battle Sites on Google Earth
From the Western and Eastern European front lines to East Africa and China, see how a complex web of alliances led to one of history’s first, truly global wars.
Stories
Haunting Photos from the Trenches of the First World War
The Battle of the Somme, fought in northern France near the Somme River, was one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the First World War. Starting July 1, 1916, the British and French Armies went head-to-head against Germany for a grueling four months. There was a staggering one million casualties, with the British alone facing 57,470 casualties just on the first day. These haunting photographs provide a glimpse into one of the bloodiest military battles in history.
Going to Summer Camp in 1913 Meant Practicing for World War I
In the years leading up to World War I, audiences flocked to silent movie theaters and danced to ragtime. But an affluent young man was just as likely to spend his summer vacation preparing for war as learning the Turkey Trot or the tango. Beginning in 1913, thousands of American ...read more
Innovative Cosmetic Surgery Restored WWI Vets' Ravaged Faces—And Lives
The blue benches outside London’s Queen’s Hospital were reserved for men with shattered faces and smashed dreams. The colorful paint job warned the locals that they might want to avert their eyes, shielding them from coming face-to-face with the awful reality of the war and ...read more
6 Famous WWI Fighter Aces
1. Manfred von Richthofen The British called him the “Red Knight”; the French, the “Diable Rouge” (the “Red Devil”); but German pilot Manfred von Richthofen is best remembered by the immortal sobriquet the “Red Baron.” Born into a family of Prussian nobles in 1892, Richthofen ...read more
8 Battlefield Poets of World War I
1. Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen only published five poems during his lifetime, but his harrowing descriptions of combat have since made him into one of the towering figures of World War I literature. Just 21 years old when the war broke out, he enlisted in the British army in 1915 ...read more
26 Photos of Dogs Being Heroes in WWI
On February 5, 1918, the U.S. 102nd Infantry reached the front lines of France at Chemin des Dames, north of Soissons. Heavy artillery gunfire and grenade assaults from the Central Powers soon followed. After days and nights of shelling, the exhausted U.S. ...read more
The Last Official Death of WWI Was a Man Who Sought Redemption
Shortly after 5 a.m. on November 11, 1918, German, British and French officials gathered inside a railroad dining car in a dark forest north of Paris and signed an armistice to end World War I. Rejecting German calls to immediately halt hostilities, Allied commander Ferdinand ...read more