English shipbuilder Sir John Thornycroft, credited as a pioneer in the torpedo-boat industry, initially created the Miranda series of mahogany fast boats culminating in the Miranda IV, launched in 1910. This boat could reach speeds of up to 35 knots with a single 120hp petrol engine.

• Naval
• WWII

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The first armed action by the Kriegsmarine was its intervention in the Spanish Civil War (17 July 1936–1 Apr 1939), in support of the Nationalist Gen Francisco Franco’s forces against those of the Spanish Republic. In Nov 1936 the German Navy sent a first 13-man advisory group; the subsequent North Sea Group (Gruppe Nordsee), with 34 instructors, remained with the Nationalist Navy until Mar 1939.

• WWII
• Navy

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One of the more glamourous aspects of the Pacific War was the idealized picture of United States Navy (USN) PT Boats racing under fire to attack Japanese surface ships many times their size. Using their bravery and torpedoes, PT Boats were devastatingly effective, at least according to wartime propaganda. The reality of PT operations was much different but was still a compelling story.

• Naval
• WWII

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British determination to face down the Nazi juggernaut after the Allied collapse in Western Europe in the early summer of 1940 has to some extent become the stuff of legend, propagated early on by Churchill himself.

• WWII

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The situation on the Eastern Front in early 1944 was pretty grim for the German Ostheer (Army in the East). The Soviet Red Army was across the Dnepr River in force, had liberated Kiev, isolated one German–Romanian army in the Crimea and had just won a significant victory in the Battle of the Korsun Pocket.

• WWII

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It is quite common to attribute specific value to military events with the benefit of hindsight, without taking into account the actual situation at the time it took place and the views of the commanders involved. A clear example of this attitude is Hitler’s ‘halt order’ in May 1940 in front of Dunkirk, which is typically considered a mistake because it allowed the British forces to evacuate from the continent.

• WWII

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Oil. Romania’s entire contribution to the Nazi war effort during World War II is often reduced to that one word. Indeed, the oil refineries around Ploeşti produced approximately 30 per cent of total oil products in Nazi-dominated Europe, which made Romania a strategically important country. Yet the part Romania played in the Axis coalition was so much more than just that of providing oil, petroleum and lubricants.

• WWII

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‘Only the USSR exploited the genius of American tank designer Walter Christie, whose inventions underwrote World War II’s best tank, the Soviet T-34.’

• WWII
• Tank

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The Battle of Peleliu, fought 80 years ago, was going to be “rough but quick,” lasting four days, confidently predicted General William Rupertus, the 1st Marine Division commander. But the aptly code-named Operation Stalemate ground on for 74 miserable days as the Marines met Japan’s new attritional defense for the first time.

• WWII

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