News Archive

World War I, World War II, military history and militaria collecting in the news

Europe celebrates victory over Nazism
May 8, 2008, 12:05 GMT
Western Europe marks the victory over Nazi Germany on Thursday. On May 8, 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender on the outskirts of Berlin – the historic event which marks the end of World War Two. On that date, which was later called Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day), massive celebrations took place all over Europe. And nowadays people are commemorating war victims and paying tribute to those dead...

UK police find WW2 archive forgeries
May 6, 2008 10:46 PM GMT
British police have discovered forged documents were planted in the National Archives alleging top Nazi Heinrich Himmler was murdered on Winston Churchill's orders, the Public Record Office said. The investigation identified 29 forgeries that had been slipped into 12 files after 2000...

Great Patriotic War - the main front of World War II (Russian Information Agency Novosti)
Thu, 08 May 2008 09:40:47 GMT
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The approaching Victory Day always evokes disputes about the bloodiest war in human history.

Ceremony to honor World War II nurse (The News Journal)
Tue, 06 May 2008 07:46:39 GMT
One of the "Normandy Nightingales" -- 18 female nurses who tended to wounded Allied soldiers under fire on Omaha Beach during World War II -- will be honored Wednesday at the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover.

Military Prague (Radio Prague)
Thu, 08 May 2008 15:09:50 GMT
In today’s Special, we look at Military Prague: a few of the key moments in the city’s history, from the first Slavonic settlements, to the founding of Prague Castle and achievements later in the 20th century. Like any major city, Prague’s military history is impossible to separate from other historical developments: technological, economic, and cultural. As a site in the Czech lands it is of ...

Airman makes history after being awarded Military Cross (The Herald)
Wed, 07 May 2008 21:15:18 GMT
An RAF serviceman who ran through a hail of enemy gunfire to rescue a fatally wounded colleague became the first airman to be awarded the Military Cross yesterday.

World War II Vets Honored With Flight to Their Memorial (The Missourian)
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:06:32 GMT
The hot sun and over 700 miles didn't stop 32 veterans from visiting a memorial built to honor them and fallen comrades. The first trip to the World War II Memorial, sponsored solely by Franklin County Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., was Saturday April 26.

Former Doctor World’s Most Wanted WWII Nazi (CityNews)
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:28:03 GMT
A list of the top 10 surviving brutal criminals of World War II is lead by a despicable doctor and another man whose name is well known in Toronto.

Declassified NSA Document Reveals the Secret History of TEMPEST (Wired News)
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:01:49 GMT
The secret history of how the nation's spies discovered that their ace equipment was leaking data into the ether has never been told before. But now a declassified NSA document tells how a Bell Telephone engineer stumbled onto a problem that vexes the agency to this day.

Today in history (Gloucester Daily Times)
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:17:17 GMT
Today's Highlight in History: On April 30, 1945, as Russian troops approached his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler committed suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun.

Investments: medal detectors (Daily Telegraph)
Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:10:57 GMT
Military memorabilia, coins and Dinky toys are still highly collectible - and the best place to start looking is often family heirlooms. Emma Wall reports.

Debating Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The British military historian Max Hastings is best known for volumes that insist on recounting World War II from the bottom up. Hastings wants his readers to learn history from the perspective of the army grunts, sailors and airmen who endured the tedium and barbarity of war. His is military history as told from the foxhole -- or, in the case of this narrative of the last year of the Pacific war, as told from the decks of aircraft carriers.

Read more of this review or read Chapter One of Max Hastings' "Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45".

WWII Families for the Recovery of the Missing (WWRM)
There are more than 79,000 soldiers still Missing in Action (MIA) from World War II, even though it is estimated that 35,000 plus are recoverable and could be repatriated back to American soil. In addition, there are more than 10,000 buried as unknowns. There are thousands of families looking for information, crash sites, and burial sites of their loved ones. WWII Families for the Recovery of the Missing (WWRM) is a tax exempt, non-profit organization started by families who are seeking information about their lost family members. WWRM is the only WWII advocacy group that has ever organized to assist families of MIA's since the war ended in 1945.

On March 19 Rear Admiral Donna L. Crisp, the Commander of the US Defense Department’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) announced that JPAC will conduct on-site surveys of World War II crash sites in India beginning this year.

If there are others that know of crash sites in India could you please notify WWRM via their website at http://www.wwiimissing.com

Defense Focus: Weapons evolution -- Part 1
Charles Darwin was right -- at least for weapons systems: Principles of evolution and the struggle for survival of the fittest apply there all the time. Weapons systems have to keep evolving. And when they can't evolve any more -- they die. Sometimes weapons evolution moves phenomenally quickly -- as was the case with aircraft design in World War II...

Why Don't More Colleges Teach Military History? Despite its enduring public appeal, and a country at war, the subject gets little respect on campus. Five years into the war in Iraq, military history seems to be experiencing a golden age. Hollywood has been cranking out war movies. Publishers have been lining bookstore shelves with new battle tomes, which consumers are eagerly lapping up. Even the critics have been enjoying themselves. Two of the last five Pulitzer Prizes in history were awarded to books about the American military. Four of the five Oscar nominees for best documentary this year were about warfare. Business, for military historians, is good. Except, strangely enough, in academia....

Noted Novelist and Historian Hosts Military Video Website
The internet's largest military history video website, RealMilitaryFlix.com, welcomed retired US Army Colonel John Antal this week. The 30-year veteran will lend his expertise to guide visitors through the site. RealMilitaryFlix.com spotlights historical movies made by military organizations for documentation, training and even propaganda purposes. It also features new military videos from Iraq and Afghanistan and other collections such as the which were once classified as Top-Secret...

Ian Fleming's James Bond: what links WW2 with the character 007
He may be a fictional hero but a new show reveals how James Bond is rooted in wartime reality...

WW2 treasure mystery uncovered
One of the last mysteries of the WW2 may be about to be solved - the whereabouts of the Amber Room - treasure from Russia. The extraordinary treasure was looted by German troops during the war. A small village near the Czech border may soon give up its secret but it's more than just treasure which is being uncovered...

British WW2 spy who posed as saleswoman
The secrets of a female spy who posed as a cosmetics saleswoman during World War II and helped lead the resistance inside Nazi-occupied France have been unsealed. Pearl Cornioley outfoxed the Nazis by, among other tricks, concealing secret messages in the hem of her skirt and helping airmen escape to safety, according to records unsealed at Britain’s National Archives last week. The release follows Cornioley’s death on February 24...

Collector's Corner: 2008 Show of Shows for Militaria Collectors
Last year I wrote a review, of sorts, for the Collector's Corner regarding the world's largest militaria collector event - The Show of Shows (known to military collectors as simply the SOS), held each year in Louisville, Kentucky. Since I received quite a bit of interest from the 2007 article, I thought it would be appropriate to submit a round-up for the 2008 event held February 21 - 24. The SOS is by far the creme de le creme of events for the militaria enthusiast. There were nearly 2000 tables this year (http://www.sosovms.com/show_of_shows.htm)...

Project recording World War II veterans' memories before they're gone
Warren J. Poland was returning from a bombing mission in Strasbourg, France, when his B-24 plane was gripped by a snowstorm. The windows froze over, and the plane, punctured by anti-artillery fire, was dangerously low on fuel. "We were 80 miles out at sea and 300 miles north of our base," the World War II Army Air Corps veteran recalled. "We flew right on until we ran out of fuel...

Prized militaria goes to auction for Legacy
Australian and German militaria, dating from the World War 1 to the present day were taken out of their glass casings and velvet pouches today for an auction at Queensland's Legacy House. Lot number 17 was of particular interest to private collectors - a trio of Australian Light Horse medals, which belonged to an original ANZAC, Second Lieutenant O'Hara. They sold for $3000. Read the full story or view the Gallery of Militaria treasures.

Bulgaria to Auction WWII Nazi Tanks
In Bulgaria, the Ministry of Defense is preparing to auction off a piece of European military history, which has been lying forgotten and half-buried in the ground for decades. Collectors of vintage military vehicles are already lining up to bid on some of the more than 40 Nazi German tanks, which were once used to protect Bulgaria's southern border during the Cold War...

Veteran receives citations years after return from war
Roger Carlsen started his experience in World War II the same way he ended it: looking at miles and miles of planes and tanks...

Government Liquidation marks largest auction with Davis-Montham 'boneyard' planes
This scrap metal has a history. Government Liquidation LLC of Scottsdale is helping to clear space in the "boneyard" on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, creating the company's largest auction to date. Aircraft such as C-141 Starlifters, A-4 Skyhawks, S-3 Vikings, T-34 trainers and "Jolly Green Giant" helicopters will be sold for their base materials in the form of 27 million pounds of scrap metal beginning April 21...

WW2 and the Iraq War - History Repeats Itself
In many ways history is a cycle of repeating events and it can be instructive to look at WW2 and the Iraq War to see how they overlap and what lessons we should learn from it...

FEATURE-US to search for missing WW2 airmen in India
By Simon Denyer NEW DELHI, March 18 (Reuters)
In honour of the crouching, naked blonde painted on its nose, its pilot had named his bomber the "Hot as ...

Australia WW2 warship found and ends 66-year mystery
By Rob Taylor CANBERRA (Reuters)
Australia's greatest military mystery was solved on Monday with the discovery of a World War Two warship which went down ...

Report: Eichmann intervened to save 800 Jews in Berlin in WW2
By Haaretz Service
Adolf Eichmann was among a group of top Nazi officials who intervened in order to save the lives of 800 Jews in the heyday of World War II ...

Long lost 'Amber Room' may have been found (+video)
New Zealand Herald
German treasure hunters say they might have located the long-lost "Amber Room" in eastern Germany. The ornate Amber Room, made from amber panels decorated with gold leaf, was originally a gift from the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. During the Second World War it was dismantled by the Nazis and later disappeared, and since then archaeologists have searched for the room in over 100 places...