In January 1945, during the chaotic American withdrawal near Bastogne in the Ardennes, a medic named Daniel Strickland was taken prisoner. German troops overran the aid station where he was working before the lines stabilized. He was held for three days in a farmhouse cellar behind German lines. During that time, a Wehrmacht intelligence officer, … Read more
The auction began at 9 a.m. on a Saturday in late October. By 9:40, the property had sold to a man nobody in town recognized. He paid $6,400 with a cashier's check drawn on a bank two states away. He signed the deed with a hand so steady it looked printed. He asked no questions. … Read more
Newly resurfaced testimony from one of Easy Company’s most decorated officers has cast a harsh light on a figure long treated with affection by historians and television audiences alike, revealing that Lieutenant Lynn “Buck” Compton regarded Captain Lewis Nixon as, in his own blunt words, “a prick.” The remarks, captured in a 2007 interview and … Read more
On the morning of March 23, 1945, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery received confirmation at 6 a.m. at his 21st Army Group headquarters in Venlo, Holland. American troops had crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim the previous night, using assault boats and suffering only light casualties. Patton's Third Army was already on the eastern bank of the … Read more
In the isolated hollows of eastern Kentucky, where fog clings to ancient hills, there existed families whose bloodlines never wandered beyond the ridges that surrounded them. By 1923, the Fugit family of Troublesome Creek had become something the outside world could barely comprehend. Their skin was blue — not metaphorically, not slightly tinted, but genuinely … Read more
The life of Margot Frank is often remembered only through the diary of her younger sister, Anne. Yet Margot was a bright, modest, and determined young woman whose own story ended in the horrors of Bergen-Belsen. She was born on February 16, 1926, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto and Edith Frank. Her sister Anne was … Read more
Pamela Beryl Digby was born on March 20, 1920, at Farnborough in Hampshire, the eldest daughter of a family whose blood was old and whose money was thin. Her father, Edward Kenelm Digby, was the 11th Baron Digby, master of Minterne, a handsome house set in the green folds of Dorset. It was the picture … Read more
On a wet October morning in 1892, the doors of Cindermoor Chapel opened from the inside for the last time. Twenty-seven women walked out into the cold, wearing identical gray habits, every one of them barefoot. The village blacksmith, Ephraim Hollis, saw them cross the bridge at the edge of the moor. He said later … Read more
The story of General George S. Patton slamming a revolver onto a desk and threatening to personally shoot an SS general where he stood is one of the most repeated anecdotes of World War II. It has been viewed millions of times across dozens of history channels and retold at countless dinner tables. There is … Read more
Hélène Cordet was born into a world that was already collapsing. Her family were Greek royalists, displaced when the monarchy fell, and they raised their children inside a small emigre circle that clung to the manners and connections of a court that no longer existed. In that same circle moved a boy named Philip, a … Read more