Spring 2023

Military History

Military History Magazine presents land, naval & air warfare from ancient times to the late 20th century.

Military History1 min read
Military History
DAVID LAUTERBORN EDITOR JON GUTTMAN SENIOR EDITOR DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN BRIAN WALKER GROUP DESIGN DIRECTOR MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR ALEX GRIFFITH PHOTO EDITOR DANA B. SHOAF EDITOR IN CHIEF C
Military History3 min read
Letters
When it comes to infantry fighting against armor, we foot soldiers are certainly not “hapless,” as stated in the deck of “Armor vs. Grunts,” by Jon Guttman [Winter 2023]. It was Bill Mauldin’s Willie who famously opined to Joe as they watched a “hapl
Military History6 min read
Dispatches
Eighty years ago, on the night of Feb. 27–28, 1943, a team of 10 Norwegian commandos trained by the British Special Operations Executive achieved the seemingly impossible. Descending into a deep gorge in below-freezing temperatures, they forded an ic
Military History1 min read
War Record
In the opening clash of the 431–404 BC Peloponnesian War a Theban assault force fails to take the Athenian-allied citystate of Plataea. Spartan King Archidamus II ultimately succeeds where the Thebans failed with his follow-up 429–427 BC siege of Pla
Military History3 min read
Valor ‘Gatling Gun Parker’
He was famed among his U.S. Army colleagues and in the press as “Gatling Gun Parker.” John Henry Parker acquired that sobriquet during the Spanish-American War, when as a young first lieutenant he commanded a detachment of three Gatling guns that lai
Military History3 min readInternational Relations
The 1918–20 Polish-Soviet War
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine not only shocked the world but also evoked historical echoes of another conflict waged across some of the same ground a century ago. Fought primarily between the fledgling Republic of Poland and the recently procl
Military History1 min read
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Military History9 min read
Centenarian Ace of Aces
The 357th Fighter Group was the first in the U.S. Eighth Air Force to enter combat from the outset of World War II equipped with the North American P-51 Mustang. Credited with 595½ aerial victories—including a record 18½ Messerschmitt Me 262 jets—and
Military History2 min read
PL-37 Light Artillery Wagon
Specifications: Manufacturer: Krasny Profintern Plant, Bryansk Length: 48 feet 2 inches Width: 9 feet 9 inches Height: 14 feet 5 inches Chassis: 55-ton wagon on Diamond two-axle trucks Main armament: Two 7.62 mm M1902/30 field guns Secondary armament
Military History11 min readInternational Relations
The Breakup Of Yugoslavia
On May 4, 1980, 87-year-old Josip Broz died in Ljubljana, Slovenia, after a remarkable six-decade career as soldier, revolutionary and statesman. He also left behind a remarkable multicultural experiment in national unity. Yugoslavia (Slavic for “Lan
Military History2 min read
When All Fell to Pieces
Modern-era Yugoslavia might well have chosen as its motto E Unum Pluribus (“Out of One, Many”), for that is precisely what happened to the culturally, religiously and linguistically disparate nation in the wake of authoritarian president Josip Broz T
Military History2 min read
Balkans’ Complex History
The decline of the Roman empire left it divided between Rome in the west and Byzantium in the east, with a corresponding split in the Christian Church—Roman Catholicism in the west, Orthodox Christianity in the east. In the Balkans the dividing line
Military History13 min read
Killing Königsberg
In the 1976 war film Shout at the Devil, based on the best-selling 1968 novel by Wilbur Smith and starring Lee Marvin and Roger Moore, a pair of ivory poachers are induced to wage guerrilla warfare in German East Africa during World War I. The climax
Military History1 min readInternational Relations
Close Calls
From 1794, when French balloonists dropped messages from the basket of l’Entreprenant to report on Austrian troop movements to the first use of Morse code conveyed by electrical cables by Union aeronauts in 1861, armies developed means of coordinatin
Military History14 min read
The Day Combined Arms Prevailed
Fought on Sept. 17, 1631, the Battle of Breitenfeld was the first major Protestant victory of the Thirty Years’ War. The epic clash pitted the opposing factions’ most outstanding generals against one another. King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden comma
Military History12 min read
Practically Irreplaceable
British Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill’s funeral on Nov. 8, 1944, prompted a flood of tributes, an uncommon outpouring in wartime Washington D.C. Orchestrated by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, the observances included a memor
Military History10 min read
Death Within The Walls
The operation had not gone as planned. A strike force of some 300 Thebans had gained entrance to the walled city of Plataea under cover of darkness. The gates lay open, no guards had challenged them, and they soon occupied a strong position in the ag
Military History8 min read
Reviews
The 1991–99 violent dismemberment of the Yugoslavian state (see related story, P. 24) took most of the world by surprise. The seemingly peaceful and prosperous nation degenerated into the bloodiest conflict on the European continent since World War I
Military History2 min readInternational Relations
All Quiet on the Western Front
Directed by Edward Berger, Netflix, 147 minutes, 2022 The new German remake of All Quiet on the Western Front is an excellent film. The uniforms and equipment details are correct. The film accurately depicts the stark and brutal realities of life and
Military History3 min read
Saragarhi, British India
From the dawn of human warfare to the present few areas of the world have been as highly contested as the mountainous region straddling the border of presentday India and Pakistan. In 1897 the region was known as the North-West Frontier Province of B
Military History2 min read
War Games
Can you match each of the following German commerce raiders with the agency of its ultimate destruction? 1. Komet, 19422. Cap Trafalgar, 19143. Atlantis, 19414. Karlsruhe, 19145. Admiral Scheer, 19456. Emden, 19147. Michel, 19438. Stier, 19429. Dresd
Military History1 min read
Captured!
Among the scores of dilapidated, tide-washed relics of the Atlantic Wall dotting coastal France is this blockhouse on the beach in Reville, France. Rather than watch it continue to degrade or become a canvas for less inspiring graffiti, French street

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