WWII Archives

Young Hans Pogel (center) carries a flag during a procession to open Camp Siegfried in the summer of 1939. Numerous offshoots of the German-American Bund sponsored camps for the indoctrination of young people.

WWII

The German American Bund: Confessions of a Nazi Spy

by Kathleen Karr

CONFIDENTIAL TO LEADERS

It is a well-known fact, of course, that any movement needs something to dramatize it, to appeal to the public’s sense of sensationalism. Read more

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated who is 'American enough' during the Cold War.

WWII

The HUAC Files

Kevin M. Hymel

The records of the House Unamerican Activities Committee are kept in the National Archives in Washington, DC. The collection of “Unamericans” is stored in pull-out drawers, filling an entire wall in the building’s Legislative Archives. Read more

WWII

The Sinking of Scharnhorst

By Robert Barr Smith

She was a beautiful ship, long and sleek and very fast. She was christened Scharnhorst,named for Prussian General Gerhard Scharnhorst,one of the revered founders of the Prussian Army. Read more

WWII

General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell

By Kevin M. Hymel

General Joseph Stilwell was one of the United States’ best military commanders, yet in the course of America’s involvement in World War II he never led U.S. Read more

Shortly after his rescue by elite German troops, Mussolini prepares to board a Fieseler Storch for a flight to safety.

WWII

The Fieseler Storch Fi 156

by Blaine Taylor

On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more

Sergeant Jacob Vouza was one of many native heroes of Guadalcanal.

WWII

Jacob Vouza’s Defiant Stand During the Guadalcanal Campaign

By Al Hemingway

A few days after the Marines had established a toehold on the island of Guadalcanal, a trio of natives appeared at the mouth of the Tenaru River. Read more

WWII

William Nolan: Remembering the Bataan Death March

By John Wukovits

Staff Sergeant William Nolan dared not raise his hopes this August day in 1945, but something unusual was unfolding. Read more

WWII

Sara Hauptman: Resistance Fighter And Holocaust Survivor

by Sue A. Oliver

When the Nazis paraded in triumph down the Champs Elysees on June 14, 1940, Sara Hauptman shook her fist at them from the crowded Parisian sidewalk. Read more

Fire from the guns of the Australian cruiser HMAS Perth splits the darkness in the opening moments of the Battle of Sunda Strait on February 25, 1942. The Australian vessel and the American cruiser Houston were lost in action against the Japanese.

WWII

USS Houston And HMAS Perth Stood Tall At the Battle Of Sunda Strait

By John Wukovits

The haggard American sailors aboard the limping cruiser hoped that the journey upon which they had just embarked was the long-expected voyage back to the United States. Read more

WWII

The Fall Of Shanghai: Prelude To The Rape Of Nanking & WWII

By Eric Niderost

In the 1930s Shanghai was in its heyday, a teeming metropolis of some 3.5 million people. The great city was a fascinating blend of cultures, its very existence refuting Rudyard Kipling’s famous aphorism. Read more

WWII

Jacqueline Cochran: Blazing A Trail For Women In Aviation Service

By Michael D. Hull

On September 28, 1939, the day after Warsaw fell to the German Army, American aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran sat down and wrote a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Read more

Tenth in the line of British-built U-class submarines, HMS Upholder is seen riding outboard of HMS Urge at Lazaretto. In one of only two authenticated photos of Upholder, the submarine's high bow is prominent compared to the flush bow of HMS Urge.

WWII

HMS Upholder Fought In Mediterranean To Defeat Rommel In North Africa

By Robert Barr Smith

She was a tiny vessel, not really designed for the dangers and hardships of war in far places and deep waters. Read more

Mutually supportive, an American tank and surrounding infantrymen attempt to silence a German machine-gun nest whose fire harassed their advance near Coudry, France, on August 8, 1944.

WWII

Battle of Mortain: The Big Red One’s Square-Off with German Panzers

By Al Hemingway

At the start of the Battle of Mortain, Field Marshal Gunther Von Kluge was in an optimistic mood. Read more

WWII

Operation Silver Fox: An Opportunity Lost at Murmansk

By Pat McTaggart

As Adolf Hitler began to formulate his grandiose plans for the conquest of the Soviet Union, he considered the far northern operation area little more than a sideshow. Read more

In the Falaise Packet during the Battle For France, retreating Germans were decimated by Polish and Canadian forces.

WWII

The Falaise Pocket: Sight Of Fanatical German Resistance

by Al Hemingway

While the 30th Infantry Division was fighting for its life at Mortain, a plan was devised to cut off the retreating German Army in an area known as the Falaise Pocket. Read more

WWII

Bringing Them Home: Operation Magic Carpet

by Michael Haskew

When World War II in Europe came to an end, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, published a victory message to the troops. Read more

WWII

A Dangerous Mission for General Maxwell Taylor of 82nd Airborne

By Eric Niderost

At 8:30 on the evening of September 7, 1943, an Italian military ambulance entered Rome carrying two American prisoners of war. Read more

WWII

Guerrilla War on Luzon During World War II

By Sam McGowan

If there is a group of men whose mention evokes thoughts of heroism, it is those who were surrendered to the Japanese on Bataan and subsequently became part of the “Death March” up that peninsula in the Philippines to POW camps in central Luzon. Read more

Flying high above sun-tinged clouds, a formation of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses streaks away from a target in Germany after dropping its cargo of destruction. The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombed German cities by day, while the British Royal Air Force kept up the round-the-clock air offensive at night.

WWII

390th Bomb Group’s Risky Run Over Merseburg

By Milton J. Elliott III

When the call came that morning, it was not unlike the 25 times previously when they had flown, or all those other times when weather intervened and postponement was ordered. Read more

Controversial 'Bomber' Harris shaped the British strategic air offensive against Nazi Germany as head of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command.

WWII

“Bomber” Harris and His Royal Air Force Bomber Command

By Michael D. Hull

Racing his Bentley at breakneck speed between his High Wycombe headquarters and the Air Ministry during World War II, Air Marshal Arthur Travers Harris was the bane of motorcycle policemen on the London road. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

The Citizen-Soldier: Militia in Early America

Laurence Rees’ ‘Horror in the East’

Felice Benuzzi’s Extraordinary Climb of Mount Kenya

The Soviet Dunkirk: The Tallinn Offensive