WWII

WWII

Wildcats Ashore!

By Nathan N. Prefer

On maps of the Pacific, it’s barely visible––a mere, seemingly insignificant speck in a vast ocean. Its name––unlike Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa––is virtually unknown today. Read more

WWII

Digging Up History

Not long ago I was watching one of my all-time favorite war movies—The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, and many others. Read more

With cattle, children, and all the possessions they could cram into their wagons, civilians escape from the approaching German invaders near Leningrad, July 1941. Over 16 million Soviet citizens became refugees—probably the largest mass migration in history.

WWII

Escape To Tashkent

By Rebecca Manley

In the fall of 1941, the Polish writer Aleksander Wat, recently released from confinement in a Soviet prison, made his way east across the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. Read more

WWII

Discovery in the depths of Lake Garda.

Sixty-seven years after it sank in the depths of Lake Garda in northeastern Italy on the stormy night of April 30, 1945, an American amphibious vehicle, a 2.5-ton DUKW, has likely been located sitting upright in 905 feet of water. Read more

Tokyo night raid, May 26, 1945. The United States hoped that such massive destruction would compel the Japanese to surrender.

WWII

Death & Destruction

The aerial photos of the aftermath were stunning. Miles and miles of destroyed homes, apartments, businesses. Fires burning out of control. Read more

WWII

Battle Against an Ally

By Michael D. Hull

When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. Read more

WWII

Marine Air In The Philippines

By Eric Hammel

Backstory: In the first installment, after heroically performing close air support missions for their Marine infantry brethren during several island invasions in 1944, U.S. Read more

Lieutenant WIlliam Wilson chats with a medic. Note the jeep windshield frame that says it belongs to the Army Pictorial Service.

WWII

The Magnificent Jeep

Rifle Company Casualties

Dear Sir,

As a World War II veteran of C Company, 134th Infantry, 35th Division, I certainly enjoyed Don Haines’s article on the Bedford Boys in the May 2012 issue of WWII History. Read more

WWII

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Remember when you were a kid and the first assignment your teacher invariably gave you on the first day back at school was to write an essay on the topic of “What I Did On My Summer Vacation”? Read more

WWII

The Saga of the USS Phoenix

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Phoenix lay at anchor southeast of Ford Island in the supposed safety of Pearl Harbor. Read more

The Tirpitz constituted a “fleet in being” that tied up British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force resources delegated to countering the threat of the battleship sortieing from her Norwegian lair.

WWII

Battle of the Battleships

Dear Editor:

I enjoyed Richard Rule’s “David and Goliath” story of the midget submarine attack on the German battleship Tirpitz (May 2012 issue). Read more