Military History

Bernard Montgomery, the outstanding British commander during WW II famous for his victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 and his role in allied campaigns leading to the German surrender, was born on November 17, 1887 in London’s district Kennington. He spent most of his early childhood in Tasmania, then still a British colony, wher...

Chester Nimitz, a US Fleet Admiral who commanded the Allied land and sea forces in the Pacific during WW II, was born on February 24, 1885 in Fredericksburg, Texas, US.

William Halsey Jr., a US naval commander who led many of the most important US naval campaigns in the Pacific during WW II, was born on October 30, 1882 in Elizabeth, New Jersey to US Navy Captain William F. Halsey Sr. and his wife Anne Masters Brewster. He attended the Pingry School in New Jersey and, while waiting to receive an appointment to ...

Ferdinand Foch, a military theorist, French General and the Commander of the Allied Forces at the end of WW I, was born on October 2, 1851 in Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrenees, France. He attended school in Tarbes and Rodez and college in St. Etienne. Being inspired and influenced from early childhood by the stories of campaigns his maternal grandfather, ...

John Pershing, a US Army general who commanded the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) during World War I, was born on September 13, 1860 on a farm near Laclede, Missouri, US.

Kōshaku (Marquess) Tōgō Heihachirō was born on January 27, 1848, in Kagoshima, Satsuma, Japan. He raised amidst the turmoil created by US commodore Oliver H. Perry's "opening up" of Japan to the West, Heihachiro Togo joined the Satsuma provincial navy in 1866. Four years later, he entered the new imperial Japanese navy as a cadet. From 1871 to 1...

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (Paul von Hindenburg), a German Generalfeldmarschall (general field marshal) during WW I and the German president during the Weimar Republic, was born on October 2, 1847 in Posen, Prussia (present-day Poznan, Poland), into an aristocratic family tracing back to the era of the Teutonic K...

Heinz Guderian, a German general during WWII, was the inventor and strong advocate of the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war) warfare and became famous for his successes as a leader of Panzer (tank) units in Poland, France and in the Soviet Union. Born in KuIm, Germany (present-day Chelmno, Poland) in 1888 to Friedrich Guderian and Clara (née Kirchoff)...