BATTLES & CAMPAIGNS

One year later to the day, another daring mission unfolded in the skies over the Pacific. On April 18th, 1943, United States forces executed a carefully planned interception of the aircraft carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Guided by intelligence that revealed his inspection tour schedule, a handpicked group of long-range P-38 Lightning fighters flew at low altitude across open ocean to reach the rendezvous point in time.

On the night of November 13th, 1942, American and Japanese surface forces slammed into each other in the dark waters near Guadalcanal in one of the Pacific War’s most chaotic clashes.

A story of scattered night jumps, improvised small-unit fights, and how chaos still helped open the door into Fortress Europe.

A story of small ships on lonely stations, taking the worst hits so the Okinawa invasion could hold together under fire.

A story of a nearly lost beach, scattered initiative, and how small groups clawed back the chance to win a war.

A story of Green Berets on horseback, precision airpower overhead, and how a fragile alliance helped topple a regime in weeks.

In the wooded hills of north Georgia, the Western Theater saw its own grim test when Union and Confederate armies collided along Chickamauga Creek.

On the far side of the world, the same date saw the United States First Army launch a long-awaited breakout from the Normandy hedgerows. After weeks of slow, attritional fighting among the bocage lanes, Operation Cobra aimed to shatter German defenses west of Saint-Lô with a massive aerial bombardment followed by concentrated armored and infantry thrusts.

On December 18th, 1972, United States bombers and supporting aircraft began a concentrated air offensive often known as the “Christmas bombing” of North Vietnam.

Two days after the Peleliu landings, American paratroopers were jumping over the Netherlands as part of an ambitious Allied plan to seize a route across major rivers into Germany.

On November 8th, 1942, the United States undertook its first major offensive in the European–North African theater of the Second World War.

In the Iraq War, the second battle for the city of Fallujah became one of the most intense urban fights American forces had seen in generations.

Before dawn on Leyte, the world was reduced to shadows, muzzle flashes, and the flat crack of Japanese rifles. Company A of the 382nd Infantry had clawed its way to the edge of the enemy‑held Buri airstrip, then stalled. Out in front, less than a hundred yards away, Japanese soldiers were dug into bomb craters and a drainage ditch, their machine guns perfectly sighted on every patch of open ground. Anyone who tried to move was met with bursts of fire that snapped past at chest height.

Jumping forward to the American Civil War, September 22nd, 1862, marked a profound shift in the Union’s war aims when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

A story of a shrinking beachhead, exhausted troops, and how their stand kept South Korea from collapsing in 1950.

A story of small ships on lonely stations, taking the worst hits so the Okinawa invasion could hold together under fire.

In the bitter winter of 1944, the Belgian town of Bastogne became a focal point of the last major German offensive in the West.

In June 1918, United States Marines and soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces were committed to stopping a German drive toward Paris near a patch of forest called Belleau Wood. On June 11th, 1918, Marine units launched renewed assaults into the dense, shell-torn woods after earlier attacks had been thrown back with heavy losses.

Two years later, American forces carried that growing momentum back to the Philippines.

A 22-year-old heavy machine gunner who held back a German attack in the Battle of the Bulge

A story of exposed convoys, hidden fighters, and the soldiers and medics who kept moving through an urban kill zone.

A story of block-by-block urban fighting and the hard decision to take back a city at any cost.

Along the Gulf Coast, Union planners sought to open a route into Texas by sending a naval expedition and troop transports toward Sabine Pass at the border with Louisiana.

One year after Valcour Island, American forces under General Horatio Gates and field leaders like Benedict Arnold clashed with General John Burgoyne’s army near Bemis Heights, south of Saratoga.