German defence minister Boris Pistorius plans to introduce a voluntary conscription model that would initially see about 5,000 18-year-olds drafted into the military each year.

By the end of the battle the better organised RAF had defeated the Luftwaffe and downed 1,887 German planes. The RAF lost 1,023 planes. The tide of the war started to turn.

A 1983 routine cleaning at Boerne High School in Texas yielded a rare and precious find: a thick, ornate Bible wrapped in cloth and written in low German. Now it will soon be seen online.

"On the way back, they encountered about 50 to 75 German Luftwaffe and went into a dogfight," said Linda Smock, Miller's niece. "This plane went down on Dec. 23, 1944, during kind of the tail end ...