The Lake Norman Brief
World War II
World War II history from The Lake Norman Brief, beginning with the Battle of the Bulge collection.
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The Coast and the Navy: Gdynia, Oksywie, Hel and the Escape of the Orzeł
How Poland’s small navy and its coast fought in September 1939: Operation Peking, the sinking of Wicher and Gryf at Hel, Col.…
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The Bzura and the Siege of Warsaw
From 8 to 29 September 1939: the government leaves Warsaw, the 4th Panzer Division is stopped at Ochota, Kutrzeba strikes on the…
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Wizna, Brest and the Narew: Holding the Northern Front
The northern front, 4-22 September 1939: how a few hundred men under Capt. Władysław Raginis held the Wizna crossings against Guderian’s corps,…
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The Air War: The Pursuit Brigade, the Bomber Brigade and the Kościuszko Squadron
The Polish Air Force was not destroyed on the ground on 1 September 1939. This chapter follows the Pursuit Brigade over Warsaw,…
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The Frontier Battles: Wieluń, Mokra, Mława, Krojanty and the Corridor
In six days, 1–6 September 1939, German armies broke Poland’s forward defenses: the bombing of Wieluń, the stands at Mokra, Mława and…
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Westerplatte and the Polish Post Office: The First Shots in Danzig
At dawn on 1 September 1939 the battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired on the Polish depot at Westerplatte, which held out for seven days,…
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The Road to September: Danzig, the Corridor, the Pact and the Enigma Breakers
How Poland reached 1 September 1939: Versailles, Danzig and the Corridor, the German demands, the British guarantee, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its…
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The Bridge Today: Memory, Museums and the Cost of the War
How the war that began at the Marco Polo Bridge ran its course from 1938 to the Japanese surrender at Nanjing in…
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America and the World: The Quarantine Speech, the Panay and the Road to Pearl Harbor
How the United States answered the war that began at the Marco Polo Bridge: the Quarantine Speech, the Brussels Conference, the sinking…
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Nanjing, December 1937: The Fall of the Capital and the Massacre
How China’s capital fell on 13 December 1937 after a four-day assault on its Ming walls and a disastrous retreat across the…