While military maneuvers train and test a force’s capabilities, they can also seem like an “alternate history” at times. Consider these fascinating front pages from September 1941, reprinted here courtesy of The Shreveport Times, describing the US Army’s big Louisiana Maneuvers. 

Senior Historian Robert M. Citino, PhD, on Christopher Nolan’s WWII epic: “Nolan is particularly good at weaving together war’s three domains: on land, at sea, and in the air. The air battles, often a weak and confusing bore in war films, are as well-presented as any I’ve ever seen, and the German Stuka attacks, especially, are terrifying. No war film is truly realistic, but Dunkirk is as good as it gets.”  
 

"By the war’s conclusion, nearly 16 million men and a half million women would provide military service for their country. Where would the opportunities to create better lives for themselves come from for these men and women who had seen, experienced, and sacrificed so much during the war years?" 

In European prisoner of war camps, boredom became as fearsome an enemy as the Nazis themselves. These Americans fought it with inspiring creativity.

After more than 70 years away, a unique identifier is restored.

BLITZED: Drugs in the Third Reich
By Norman Ohler

Learn how this unique field modification came to be.

Two years after the renowned historian began planning a war museum and eight years before The National D-Day Museum opened, Ambrose delivered a lecture, “New Orleans in the Second World War.” 

On July 10, 1943, the Allies launched Operation Husky before sunrise, a massive amphibious assault on the southern shores of the island.

A dozen years after the opening of the institution that would become The National WWII Museum, President and CEO Nick Mueller spoke to a Junior Achievement Hall of Fame banquet on “The American Spirit: What Does It Mean?”

Americans like to think of World War II as a “great crusade,” but if it was, the country certainly didn’t seem all that fervent about rushing into it. Think of it: by the usual reckoning, World War II lasted six years, from the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to Japan’s surrender on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. US participation spanned less than four years of that total, a little over half the war. Of seven campaigning seasons, the United States missed the first three and was active only in the final four.

In January of 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined a vision of the future in which people the world over could enjoy four essential freedoms. This vision persisted throughout World War II and came to symbolize the ideals behind the rights of humanity and the pursuit of peace in a postwar world.