Bomber Command Pathfinder
By Bruce PettyAlan George was born in 1918 and was fourth-generation New Zealander. His great grandparents arrived in New Plymouth in 1841 from Cornwall, England, aboard the 506-ton ship Oriental. Read more
Alan George was born in 1918 and was fourth-generation New Zealander. His great grandparents arrived in New Plymouth in 1841 from Cornwall, England, aboard the 506-ton ship Oriental. Read more
On September 14, 1939, Igor Sikorsky attained stability and control with the initial flight of an open cockpit test bed known as the VS-300. Read more
On December 1, 1942, Lance Corporal Kiyoshi Koto wrote his last letter home. By that time, his unit’s command structure was decimated and the battle strength of his army and its supporting navy was ravaged. Read more
Former German President Horst Koehler once said that Auschwitz, the largest Nazi extermination camp, was home to the “worst crime in human history.” Read more
Of all the landmarks in Europe, few are as distinctive and instantly recognizable as the medieval fortress/ monastery of Mont Saint Michel, located on the French coast seven miles southwest of the city of Avranches. Read more
At 8 PM on the evening of Friday, July 13, 1934, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler stepped to the speaker’s lectern of the Reichstag in Berlin’s Kroll Opera House to explain his murderous conduct during the recent Nazi “Blood Purge” against the top leadership cadre of the brownshirted SA Stormtroopers during the weekend of June 30-July 2, 1934. Read more
The tennis-shoed soldiers emerged from the darkness on July 6, 1953, like a “moving carpet of yelling, howling men [with] whistles and bugles blowing, their officers screaming, driving their men” against the Americans as they swept up Pork Chop Hill (Hill 255), recalled Private Angelo Palermo. Read more
BACKSTORY: The final months of World War II in the European Theater were a harrowing and desperate time for the soldiers who fought there. Read more
“Finally at Corregidor there was only a little crowd of American soldiers and Filipino soldiers and American nurses at the beaches, with nothing at their backs but the waters of the Pacific, and the flag came down. Read more
At the mention of the letters “SS,” an image springs to mind of ruthless German troops, the epitome of the Nazi/Aryan ideal: tall, strong, blond-haired, and blue-eyed, enthusiastically ready to fight and die for Germany and their beloved Führer, Adolf Hitler. Read more
At age 86, with a full and successful career behind him, General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley sat down to write his uncensored memoirs. Read more
Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower recalled, “The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest killing fields of any of the war areas. Read more
The date of November 10, 1942, is still vivid in the mind of Albert Wayne Boam. That was the day that he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, hoping to become a fighter pilot. Read more
Ralph Puhalovich was born on April 17, 1925, in Oakland, California, to Flora and Ivan Puhalovich. Read more
In October 1939, illuminated by the northern lights, the German submarine U-47 threaded its way through sunken barriers and slipped into the British anchorage at Scapa Flow, a 125.3-square-mile natural port off the northern coast of Scotland, in the Orkney Islands. Read more
After going on active service in May 1943, Robert W. Creamer was sent to take basic training at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Read more
Look at a map of Holland. At the extreme southwest corner, connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway, is a peninsula known as Walcheren Island jutting into the North Sea. Read more
Private First Class Irving Bromberg saw a huge puff of smoke erupt from the German tank’s cannon muzzle as it headed straight for his M4 Sherman tank. Read more
Pantelleria is a small volcanic island rising out of the Mediterranean Sea 37 miles east of the Tunisian coast and some 63 miles southwest of Sicily. Read more
BACKSTORY: Richard Statetzny was born on January 16, 1920, the youngest of five children, in Bieberswalde in the District of Osterode, East Prussia, Germany. Read more