Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on 7 December 1941, had severely damaged the United States Pacific Fleet but had not destroyed it, for the fleet’s aircraft carrier force had be

The fate of the free world hung in the balance. Stalin’s Soviet Union sought to drive the Western democracies from Germany to continue the communist advance across Europe. The first step in Stalin’s

The ‘miracle’ of Dunkirk is one of the most inspiring stories of all time. The British Expeditionary Force had been all but surrounded, and, with the French armies collapsing on all sides, it appeare

This volume of U.S. Navy reports offers an authoritatively detailed, refreshingly immediate perspective on the major battles of WWII in the Pacific. Scores of historians have chronicled the naval

Having all but swept the Japanese Imperial Navy from the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the Allied forces stood on the brink of invading the Japanese Home Islands. The launching pad for the invas

As dawn was breaking on the morning of 19 August 1942, Allied troops leapt ashore to the east and west of the French port of Dieppe. These were British commandoes accompanied by U.S. Rangers, tasked