ASL - Magazines

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ASL - Magazines

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First Matanikau
After Lt. Col. Goettge's small reconnaissance patrol was wiped out near Matanikau on August 12, General Vandefrift ordered a strike against the Japanese concentration in the area. Given the overriding need to protect Henderson Field, it was a week…
1942-08-19

The Sand Spit
The leading elements of the elite 2nd "Sendai" Division had arrived on Guadalcanal with same orders as their predecessors -- eliminate the Marine beachhead. With ample manpower, Japanese commanders planned to attack the perimeter from the west and…
1942-10-23

Bailey's Demise
The Marine Raiders were looking to cross the Matanikau River to the west bank to complete an encirclement. Unbeknownst to the Marines, the IJA had crossed the river and was …
1942-09-26

Ghosts in the Rubble
The last ferry-landing across the Volga was under German machinegun fire and the Russians were barely holding their positions in the rubble around Krasny Oktyabr and the Barrikady. Rather than waiting passively for the final blow, the Soviet “Army…
1942-10-31

In Sight of the Volga
Defense of Stalingrad’s central district and the all important main ferry landing lay largely in the hands of hastily mobilized militia composed of factory workers and the NKVD garrison. These troops would have to hold the Wehrmacht at bay until the…
1942-09-14

Halha River Bridge
The summer of 1939 saw a major border clash between Russian and Japanese forces over the line between the Mongolian People’s Republic and Manchukuo. Since the Japanese considered the Halha River the border, they felt a strong response was necessary…
1939-07-08

The Youth's First Blood
The spearhead of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division moved with the airfield at Carpiquet as its objective. The Stuart tanks of the recon unit advanced at the point, followed by Company C of the Highlanders. The main body followed behind mounted on…
1944-06-07

Jabo!
The long file of Kampfgruppe Peiper vehicles, many heavily camouflaged with pine boughs, filled the road north from Trois Ponts, through La Gleize, and on towards Cheneux where advance elements had discovered an intact, undefended bridge over the…
1944-12-18

Will To Fight...Eradicated
As the 23rd Panzer Regiment failed to take Pabiance, the Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler entered into the firestorm and made great gains. Other units, however, couldn’t keep up with the Leibstandarte, with the result being a salient. The Waffen SS attack…
1939-09-07

Auld Lang Syne
In the Ardennes sector, the U.S. 87th Division was given the assignment of taking Gerimont. The opening of the assault went well but while pausing to regroup in the outskirts of the town, the Americans were hit by a strong local counterattack. The…
1945-01-01

The Liberators
Following the collapse of Hitler's Awakening of Spring, on March 16th, Marshall Tolbuhkin's 3rd Ukrainian Front went over to the attack. The 6th Guards Tank Army was placed at his disposal to deal with the stiff resistance. On April 2nd, having…
1945-04-02

A Helping Hand
After landing on D-Day, the 2nd Infantry Division was immediately pressed into the attack despite their support weapons and equipment not having arrived. Almost a week later, the division was still fighting with rifles alone. On June 13th, the 1st…
1944-06-13

Vaagso Venture
In October of 1941, Lord Louis Mountbatten took command of the Special Service Brigade. In accordance with a directive from Churchill, Mountbatten was to begin a “programme of raids in ever increasing intensity”. The first, a raid on the Lofoten…
1941-12-27

Mountain Comes to Mohammed
During the Anglo-Soviet invasion of neutral Iran, British forces attempt to take a strongpoint in the desert held by a battalion of the elite Pahlavi Guards Regiment, devout Muslims pledged to defend the Shah, and armed with modern Czech weapons.
1941-08-25

Habbaniya Heights
After a German-backed coup d'état against the pro-British Emir, the Allies had worries. An Iraqi alliance with the Axis would threaten Middle-East oilfields, the tenuous Soviet supply line across restless Persia and British shipping to Egypt -- as…
1941-05-05

Cat's Kill
On June 8th, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Rudolf von Ribbentrop arrived in Normandy with his Panzer Abteilung as part of the ttempt to bolster the German defenses. Ribbentrop's troops were immediately ordered into a night assault to relieve the 1st Battalion…
1944-06-08

Camp Nibeiwa
Operation Compass, the codename for Wavell’s offensive against Italian-held Libya, was kicked off with several assaults on Italian frontier camps. These fortified camps were built to cover the approaches to the coastal road which the British advance…
1940-12-09

A Tough Nut to Crack
General MacArthur, furious at the perceived inability of his commanders to crack the Japanese fortified positions surrounding Buna, relieved his top field commanders and placed General Eichelberger in command. MacArthur’s last words to Eichelberger…
1943-01-01

GOYA
The 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion was a veteran airborne unit, whose distinctive patch was emblazoned with the acronym “GOYA” (for “Get Off Your Ass”). From the 21st of December through the 6th of January, the men of the battalion weathered “no…
1945-01-07

Hakkaa Paalle
With their victories in the north, Finnish reinforcements were dispatched to the Kuhmo sector to seal the fate of the Soviet’s 54th Rifle Division, whose own advance had stalled in the frozen marshland. To counter, Russia’s only trained ski troops,…
1940-01-12

The Akrotiri Peninsula
The German assault on the mountainous island of Crete called for airborne landings in four separate areas. One objective of the first wave was the quick capture of Canea, the capital city. To clear the way for the landing of the main regiment, a…
1941-05-20

Gambit
The New Zealanders had spent most of the daylight hours of 20th May pinned down by German fighter aircraft. Communications were a shambles, casualties were heavy, and their local counterattacks had failed. Colonel Andrew of the 5th New Zealand…
1941-05-21

Commando Raid at Dieppe
In a move to destroy German coastal batteries, the British No. 4 Commando unit, accompanied by a handful of American Rangers went against the Varengeville Battery. The attack was split into two groups. The first was to land directly below the battery…
1942-08-18

Alligator Creek
The landings on Guadalcanal on 7 August met with no opposition, and the 5th Marine Regiment quickly established a secure beachhead at Lunga Point. Based on erroneous reports, the Imperial Headquarters, still concentrating upon their own operations…
1942-08-21

The Whirlwind
On the night of 17th of April, elements of a recon troop of the American 26th Infantry Division occupied a tiny village on the outskirts of Aschaffenburg without opposition. Based on civilian reports of the presence by the enemy, the staff of the…
1945-04-18

Bone of Contention
After their epic 20-day stand at Hill 112 and the breakout from the Falaise pocket, the men of SS-Panzer Detachment 102 were afoot when they reached Rouen. The surviving crewmen and mechanics had abandoned their last Tigers on the banks of the Seine…
1944-08-31

Burzevo
Along the Minsk-Moscow highway, von Kluge’s Fourth Army made a last, desperate effort to dislodge the defending Russians b y an encircling attack from the south. The only real progress was made by the 258th Infantry Division which managed to capture…
1941-12-02

Tiger, Tiger
The Soviets had taken Krasny Bor. The 4th SS-Polizei Division, to the right of the hapless Spanish 250th Azul Division, managed to withstand the attack and blocked the highway for the time being. Nevertheless, a large number of Russian tanks bypassed…
1943-02-11

A View from the Top
It was vital that “Riva Ridge”, a series of four peaks dominating Route 64 between Vergati and the city of Bologna, be cleared. Following successes on Mount Belvedere and Mount Gorgolesco, taken by coup-de-main on the 18th and 19th, the U.S. 10th…
1945-02-23

Aachen's Pall
The American hand had closed about Aachen. But the city fell slowly. Street by street, then house by house, the GIs squeezed out the Germans. Finally, the Wehrmacht headquarters in the Hotel Quellenhof was in sight. The massive hotel structure proved…
1944-10-15

Avalanche!
For almost three months the German 1st Mountain and the Russian 318th Mountain Rifle divisions were locked together in combat on the slopes of Mount Elbrus. February 6th was a typical day, as simultaneous attacks on two ridges separated by a shallow…
1943-02-06

Pegasus Bridge
In the opening hours of Operation Overlord, of critical importance were two bridges that crossed the Orne and the canal between Benouville and Ranvlle. To take these, a special group drawn from the 6th Air-Landing Brigade was organized. At 0015…
1944-06-06

Grab at Gribovo
In late December, while the battles for Moscow were still boiling cauldrons, STAVKA ordered four Soviet armies to attack and destroy the German 4th Army. To assist in the action, a tactical airdrop by Soviet Paratroopers was planned to disrupt German…
1942-01-03

The Road to Wiltz
The German Bulge Offensive had surprised the Americans both in its size and intensity. The Germans had to be delayed or stopped as they drove along the roads to Bastogne. In the early hours, elements of the 44th Combat Engineers, supported by…
1944-12-18

The St. Goar Assault
Germany’s army was beaten. The Rhine River had been crossed at Remagen and elsewhere. As more and more of the Allied forces closed in on the Rhine, there was a growing tendency to simply take it “on the run” rather than shift to an existing…
1945-03-24

Soldiers of Destruction
The men of the SS Totenkopf Division had stalled the advance of the Fifth Guards Tank Army in late September. Then, silence. No fighting had occurred for the past three weeks. It was too good, too unreal. A feeling of unease pervaded the encampment.…
1944-10-10

Sunday of the Dead
The 5th South African Infantry Brigade was preparing to assault Point 178 just to its north, when the 15th Panzer Division, moving southwesterly, unexpectedly (from both sides’ point of view) smashed into its southern end, scattering most of its…
1941-11-23

Recon in Force
As the Allied beachhead in Sicily expanded, the impatient General George Patton demanded better facilities for supplying his troops. Under orders not to launch an offensive, Patton hit upon the subterfuge of calling his advance a “reconnaissance in…
1943-07-16

Bring up the Guns
The German 1st Cavalry Division had taken up positions along the frontier of eastern Holland. The regimental commander, Lt.-Col. Wachsen, was determined to crack through the 20-kilometer deep Dutch defensive belt at Coevorden, an important frontier…
1940-05-10

The Cannes Strongpoint
Generally, the American advance through Southern France was so swift that it was rare when the Germans stayed and fought. However, the swiftness of the advance often caused German elements to be cut off and faced with the decision to either fight on…
1944-08-23

Six Came Back
The big push to break out of the Anzio beachhead was on, and Darby’s Rangers were to lead the way for the Americans. At 0100, the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions, with the 4th following, infiltrated the mobile defensive positions of the Hermann Goering…
1944-01-30

First Action
In the early morning hours of a gray day, the 761st Tank Battalion faced the enemy in combat for the first time. The whole Third Army was going over to the attack and the initial objective assigned to the untested Black Panthers was the capture of a…
1944-11-08

The Forgotten Front
The 66th Infantry Division was typical of many raised from draftees in preparation for the invasion of Europe. Yet when the “Panthermen” arrived, they found themselves relegated to a relative backwater – containing the isolated German pockets around…
1945-02-09

Timoshenko's Attack
German armored spearheads were advancing on Smolensk. In a desperate bid to save the city, Timoshenko gathered together a mixed force of twenty divisions and launched a flanking attack. The thin screen of infantry-men of the Germans 10th Motorized…
1941-07-12

West of the Vire
Expecting a German counterattack before long to drive a wedge between the American beachheads at Omaha and Utah, high command tasked the 29th Infantry Division with conducting a reconnaissance-in-force west of its lines to capture two important…
1944-06-12

Stretched Thin at Altaville
After the conquest of Sicily and the ouster of Mussolini, the Allies invaded Italy proper at Salerno to begin their long slog up "the boot". Needing to expand the beachhead and deny the Germans good artillery observation points, the Americans secured…
1943-09-13

Purple Heart Hill
None.
1944-06-18

White Russians
None.
1944-06-06

Nothing Left to Lose
As the vast Soviet forces encircled Berlin, 1st Belorussian Front under Marshal Zhukov was given the “honor” of capturing the Nazi capital. 8th Guards Army and 5th Shock Army jockeyed for positions as they drove through Neukolln towards Tempelhof…
1945-04-26

Reaper's Harvest
The position held by SS-Panzer-Division 12 “Hitlerjugend” in the village of Rots threatened the deep flank of the 3rd Canadian’s advance against Caen. To remove this threat, the Canadians ordered the 46th Royal Marine Commandos, supported by the 10th…
1944-06-11
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