WWII

Seeking cover from incoming German artillery shells on June 6, 1944, men of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division run for the chapel in the town of Ste-Mère-Église.

WWII

Getting Goosebumps

This year I feel deeply honored to have been chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to lead three 70th anniversary D-Day trips to England and France (one took place in May; the other two are scheduled to take place in September and October). Read more

Behind their sand-bag reinforced foxhole, three U.S. Marines point their rifles in the direction of a suspected Japanese attack on Edson’s Ridge.

WWII

Serendipity … and the Rest of the Story

We recently received several interesting communiqués from our readers. I’ll share three of them with you.

From Dan Paschen: “There I was, thumbing through your magazine (Fall 2013) at Barnes & Noble … and on page 6 was a photo of my uncle, Lt. Read more

A picture taken by the ROV of the driver’s position on the DUKW. The instrument gauges are still visible although a portion of the dashboard has fallen off. The rubber-coated steering wheel is still largely intact.

WWII

The Lost DUKW of Lake Garda

By Jeff Patton, Colonel, USAF (Ret.)

The editorial in the Summer 2013 issue of WWII Quarterly concerned the search for an amphibious DUKW that sank with 25 men aboard on April 30, 1945, in Lake Garda, northern Italy’s largest lake. Read more

De Gaulle, now a colonel in command of the 507th Tank Regiment, watches military maneuvers in eastern France in 1938.

WWII

In Desperation And Triumph

By Michael E. Haskew

Paris was in tumult. The French 2nd Armored Division had rolled into the City of Light on August 25, 1944, ending four years of harsh Nazi occupation. Read more

WWII

Director Frank Capra

By Herb Kugel

In his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title, prestigious Hollywood film director Frank Capra claimed that on Monday morning, December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, two U.S. Read more

Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch, far left, with Hermann Goring, Adolf Hitler, and SA Stabschef Viktor Lutze. Milch, who otherwise would have been considered a “half-Jew” or Mischlinge, was “aryanized” by Hitler, who claimed the power to change an individual’s ethnicity.

WWII

Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers

By Bryan Mark Rigg

On September 15, 1944, as Allied armies squeezed Germany from east and west, and the Third Reich needed all the experienced, able-bodied soldiers it could find, a strange but far from unusual letter was being written. Read more

Aviation cadets, 150 strong, salute the flag during Retreat on the parade ground at Beloit College. The school’s first building, known as Middle College, is in the background.

WWII

An American College Goes To War

By Patricia Overman

The sacrifices made by American men and women in uniform during World War WII are legion. The contribution made by the workforce of our nation’s industries, exemplified by the image of “Rosie the Riveter” with riveting gun in hand, is also well known by most Americans. Read more

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

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    WWII

    Paul Tibbets: The Man Who Piloted the Enola Gay
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