memoir

Flying For the Luftwaffe

By Jack Hildebrandt wih M.M. Harris

It was November 1, 1944. I, Feldwebel (Technical Sergeant) Gustav Jack Lothar Carl Herbert Julius Hans Jergen Hildebrandt von Lengerke (aka “Jack” Hildebrandt), had just completed a successful strafing run against British General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery’s advancing army along the southern end of the Dutch-Belgian border. Read more

memoir

Coming of Age at Tarawa

By Nick Cariello

It was with great anticipation that I sprang up the snowy steps of a Milwaukee building in January 1942 and entered the Marine Corps Recruitment Center. Read more

memoir

Last of the Gilbert Islands Coastwatchers

By Bruce M. Petty & Peter McQuarrie

The coastwatching system that operated throughout the South Pacific islands during World War II was introduced to gather and report early information about the movement of enemy ships and aircraft. Read more

memoir

Joseph Bale: Naval Ensign at Iwo Jima

By Matt Broggie

“There’s no greater feeling in the world than seeing Old Glory in a winning position.” Twenty-one-year-old U.S. Navy Ensign Joseph Bale watched the American flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi from aboard the attack transport USS Dickens County Texas. Read more

A teenager runs off to sea in 1864 and discovers Union Navy life during the American Civil War.

memoir

The Memoirs of Herbert Carlton

By A.B. Feuer

Editor’s note: Noted military writer Bud Feuer especially enjoys discovering first-person accounts and diaries. He found the following in “a junk shop” written in pencil on brown wrapping paper. Read more

Shooting up a German airfield with their eight .50-caliber wing-mounted machine guns, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes of the 84th Squadron, 78th Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force roar past a flaming German fighter.

memoir

P-47 Thunderbolts at the Battle of the Bulge

By Robert F. Dorr & Thomas D. Jones

The captured German pilot was cocky and boastful. He had just parachuted into the American airfield, now lit up by the fires of burning Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, a sprinkling of bright torches amid the gray January gloom and the dirty white snow. Read more

memoir

Joe Rosenthal: Flag-Raising Photographer

By Gene Beley

The “Raising of the Flag” photo taken by 33-year-old Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on the fifth day of the Iwo Jima battle provided the world with a much-needed uplifting symbol in February 1945. Read more

memoir

Airborne Close Encounter

By Chris Blenheim

At midnight, the jumpers of 2nd Battalion, 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, as well as the 596th Parachute Combat Engineer Company, still dripping from the paint-spray line, shuffled across Ombrone Airfield to the waiting C-47s of Serial 6 and climbed aboard. Read more