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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Mar 12 2012 - 9:12pm

Austria, nestled between Germany and Italy, possessed a long history as a dominant European power. However, after the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been dissolved with Austria remaining as a small, central European state; a shadow of its former imposing Imperial greatness. Austria therefore represented a ripe target for a predator such as Hitler.

In February 1938, Hitler coerced Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg into placing Nazi sympathizers in important government

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Mar 7 2012 - 12:39am

The Center For Strategic and Budgetary Assessments(CSBA) gave a presentation on Tuesday detailing major trends in ground combat that will impact ground vehicle modernization. Buried in the slides was an interesting info-graphic on the accelerated cost of force protection - meaning the price paid to equip the average combat rifleman in the U.S. Military. These costs have risen dramatically. According to the CSBA the average cost of clothing and equipping:

A WWII era G.I.
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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Mar 4 2012 - 8:39pm

Holocaust survivor Ernie Gross, age 83, and U.S. Army WWII veteran Don Greenbaum, age 87, were able to meet late last year in Philadelphia some 66 years after they unwittingly shared a day at a place and time in history that few people would ever want to be; Dachau concentration camp in April of 1945.

On April 29, 1945 Greenbaum was a G.I. in U.S. General George S. Patton's Third Army when the Third Army reached Dachau and its surviving victims.

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Mar 1 2012 - 2:08am

Though the Panzer V "Panther" is often lauded as one of the Second World War's top tanks there is a serious question as to whether the immense resources put into developing and fielding this tank was worth it. Though a new tank design when it first appeared in the Wehrmacht's ranks during the summer of 1943, the Panzer V owed much to the superb T-34 that had spurred the Panther's development.

Review Type: AFV, Armor, Panther, Panzer V, WWII
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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 27 2012 - 10:48pm

A hidden stash of Hitler's private art collection has been found. What's more, and rather uniquely, this time it appears the seven discovered paintings may have included items he might have actually bought. Normally, Hitler and his cronies were more likely to have stolen whatever it is they acquired.

Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 23 2012 - 7:48pm

As most of you by now probably know, I normally don't write anything about the book in the blog. That said, I thought everybody would like to see some of the coverage it has been getting. Anyway, here are two direct links to news articles (both are really more about me and the writing process rather than the book's content):

Attorney's Book Challenges Traditional View of WWII

Book Details How Germany Came Close to Winning War

In addition, the wire services picked up the second article so

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 23 2012 - 7:25pm

On February 23, 1945 Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press took perhaps one of the most remembered pictures of World War II: the raising of the US Flag over Iwo Jima's most dominating physical feature - Mount Suribachi. Rosenthal's image was actually of the second flag raising. The first had been done earlier in the morning by men of the 5th Marine Division, but this second raising would be of a larger flag.  

All told five U.S. Marines and one U.S.

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 20 2012 - 9:34pm

On February 19, 1942 the President of the United States issued Executive Order 9066 - the order that set in motion the process whereby 120,000 mostly US citizens of Japanese descent were interned in camps for the remainder of the Second World War. The majority of those interned were natural born US citizens. In addition a significant minority were resident aliens or naturalized citizens. Finally, a small minority were German-American and Italian-American. 

Following his arrest U.S.

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 17 2012 - 3:29pm

Early in 1943 the Red Army had launched a series of massive offensives across the breadth of the German Eastern Front. In particular, and as the German Sixth Army fought to its destruction at Stalingrad, multiple Soviet fronts, spearheaded by General N.F. Vatutin's Southwestern Front, surged across southern Russia.

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Submitted by
Steve Mercatante
on: Feb 13 2012 - 11:50pm

The Battle for Kasserine Pass began on February 14, 1943 and to this day ranks as one of the worst American military performances in the twentieth century. That said, as bad as the Battle for Kasserine Pass went it could have been a lot worse.

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