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In the early hours of May 12th, 1949, Soviet authorities lift the land and water blockade that has cut West Berlin off from surrounding territory for nearly a year. Since the previous summer, American and British aircrews have flown round-the-clock missions to deliver food, coal, and other essentials to the isolated city. The airlift becomes a massive logistical effort, with aircraft landing and taking off every few
In the early morning hours, Confederate batteries around Charleston harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter, a brick fortification held by a small United States Army garrison. The standoff over supplies and sovereignty that had simmered through the winter suddenly turned into open combat. For more than a day, shells and heated shot crashed into the fort’s walls and buildings, setting fires and forcing the defenders to husb
That same date, three years and an ocean away from Hampton Roads and decades after Veracruz, marked one of the most destructive air raids in history. On the night of March 9th, 1945, United States Army Air Forces B-29 bombers carried out a low-level incendiary attack against Tokyo, dropping a mix of bombs designed to ignite the city’s tightly packed, largely wooden neighborhoods.
During the opening weeks of the Iraq War, United States Army armored units pushed toward Baghdad in a series of rapid thrusts designed to shock and disorganize Iraqi defenses. One of the most important objectives was Baghdad International Airport, whose capture would provide a major logistical hub and symbolic foothold on the edge of the capital.
In the dead of winter during the Revolutionary War, Virginia officer George Rogers Clark led a small force of frontiersmen and French militia through flooded Illinois country to strike the British post at Vincennes, in what is now Indiana. After a grueling march through icy water and mud, his men surrounded Fort Sackville and convinced the British commander, Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton, that he faced a much la
A story of a shattered defensive line, a race against explosives, and the one intact bridge that cracked open the last barrier into Germany.
While Dutch Harbor burned, the decisive blows of that wider Japanese plan were being struck far to the south. On June 4th, 1942, United States Navy carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet launched waves of torpedo planes and dive bombers against a powerful Japanese carrier force near Midway Atoll. Early attacks by torpedo squadrons suffered terrible losses, but they drew enemy fighters and disrupted Japanese flight
The first explosions rolled across Pearl Harbor like distant thunder, then slammed into the harbor with terrifying clarity. On the repair ship USS Vestal, moored outboard of the battleship USS Arizona, Commander Cassin Young felt his ship shudder as bombs found their mark up and down the fleet. Men sprinted for their battle stations, the air already thick with smoke, the rising whine of diving aircraft cutting throug
The jungle ravine near Capoocan, on the island of Leyte, funneled sound like a drum. Machine guns hammered from the slopes, echoing off the trees. A thin stream cut the bottom of the gulch, its surface slapped into white splashes as bullets stitched across the water. Sergeant Charles E. Mower, just nineteen years old, stood in that stream with his squad of Company A, 34th Infantry Regiment, advancing into the teeth o
As the deadline for Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait approached in the winter of 1991, the United States confronted a crucial decision. On January 12th, 1991, after intense debate, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of military force to uphold United Nations demands and drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. The vote affirmed the president’s ability to lead a coalition into combat but also underscored the consti
Early in the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress desperately needed gunpowder, cannon, and naval stores to keep its rebellion alive. On March 3rd, 1776, a small American squadron under Esek Hopkins appeared off New Providence in the Bahamas, then a British-held island rich in military supplies. Continental Marines and sailors went ashore, captured the local forts, and hauled away barrels of powder and ordnanc
In the late summer of the Revolutionary War, General George Washington issued a general order at his headquarters in Newburgh, New York, establishing a new distinction for enlisted soldiers and noncommissioned officers. The Badge of Military Merit took the form of a heart made of purple cloth, to be worn over the left breast by those who had performed “any singularly meritorious action” in the service of the Continen
On this date, the Second Continental Congress voted to adopt the New England militia forces already besieging British-held Boston and to form them into a Continental Army. Before this decision, the men surrounding Boston answered primarily to their individual colonies, making coordination and supply uneven and uncertain.
On August 13th, 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers officially established the Manhattan Engineer District, better known by the shortened phrase that would later describe the atomic bomb project. The district’s creation gave the Army formal responsibility for coordinating a vast, secret effort that drew together physicists, chemists, industrial firms, and military planners.
As the demands of World War II grew, the United States Navy struggled to man new ships, bases, and shore commands. On July 30th, 1942, a law created Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, better known as WAVES, within the Naval Reserve. For the first time, women could serve as commissioned officers and enlisted sailors in the Navy in large numbers, though they were limited mainly to shore-based roles.
On July 2nd, 1926, the Air Corps Act transformed the Army’s air arm from the Air Service into the United States Army Air Corps, giving aviation a more formal place in the nation’s defense structure. The law did not create an independent air force overnight, but it acknowledged that aircraft had become essential for reconnaissance, bombing, and support of ground troops.
In the early twenty-first century, American defense planners adjusted organizational charts to match emerging challenges, including terrorism, fragile states, and competition for influence in new regions. On February 6th, 2007, the Department of Defense announced the creation of United States Africa Command, often abbreviated as AFRICOM, as a unified combatant command responsible for military relations with most nati
By early 1945, Allied forces in Western Europe had driven the Wehrmacht back to the Rhine, the last great natural barrier before the German heartland. Several crossings were already underway or planned, including the famous seizure of the Remagen bridge, but General George S. Patton’s Third Army sought its own foothold.