The five days everyone knows weren’t the whole war — and the sources that prove it.
I check military records against the sources — official archives, combat reports, the accounts of allies, opponents, and the occupied — until the popular story either survives contact with them or doesn't. It starts in the Netherlands, and nobody has done this for the Dutch case at this depth before. The same method is built to grow outward, country by country.
Start reading How this is builtStories the popular version gets wrong
Each piece is sourced back to a specific document or archive — the tag tells you how solid the ground under it is.
The org chart said one regiment. The battlefield said four.
At the Grebbeberg, three verified combat reports show soldiers from three other regiments fighting alongside the defending company as the line collapsed — the paper plan and the real battle, side by side.
🟡 research scaffold Army · May 1940The battle that ended Hitler’s faith in paratroopers
The Hague was supposed to fall in hours. It didn't — the government was never captured, and German transport losses here were bad enough to plant the doubt that Crete would finish off a year later.
🟡 research scaffold Navy · February 1942The flagship, her sister, and the fate that split them
De Ruyter went down at the Java Sea, Doorman with the ship's company — though how cleanly is disputed. Her sister ship Sumatra never got the chance to fight at all — disarmed by engine trouble, she ended the war as a breakwater off Normandy.
The photographs behind the articles above
Four images tied directly to the pieces you just read — the full archive holds more, each traced to its own license and collection, searchable and enlargeable.
This isn’t just another WWII history site
I started this as a personal research exercise in building a verified, source-linked knowledge base for military history — checked against every side of every conflict, not just the version one country tells about itself. The Netherlands is where it starts: the Dutch Army, Navy, KNIL, and resistance, reconstructed from primary sources — combat reports, official archives, museum collections, contemporary press — with the same discipline applied evenhandedly to every side involved, including where the Dutch record itself is uncomfortable. The plan is to grow the same method outward, country by country, once the Dutch case has proven it end to end.
Every article I publish here links back to exactly where its claims come from. Where the historical record disagrees with itself — and it often does — I state that disagreement plainly rather than smoothing it into one tidy number.
- Traceable, not just cited. Every claim links to the specific source it came from, not a generic bibliography.
- Symmetric scrutiny. The same standard of evidence applies to every belligerent and every institution — no side gets the benefit of the doubt.
- Gaps stated, not hidden. When the record is genuinely disputed or incomplete, that's said outright — it's often the more interesting part.
- Tiered confidence. 🟢 verified extraction, 🟡 sourced research scaffold, 🟠 open dispute — so you always know how solid the ground is.