WWII Archives

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

On September 6, 1940, the destroyer USS Buchanan exits Boston Harbor en route to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and new Lend-Lease duties with the British Royal Navy. Buchanan was renamed HMS Campbeltown and gained everlasting fame during the commando raid on St. Nazaire in 1942.

WWII

Trade of 50 American Destroyers for British Bases in World War II

By William H. Langenberg

In early September 1940, the world was in turmoil. The battle of Britain was nearing its climax, and elsewhere global tensions ran high. Read more

Grenades and small arms at the ready, Italian partisans discuss an operation against the Germans. The various resistance factions later fought among themselves.

WWII

The Mysterious Death of Major William Holohan

By Peter Kross

In the latter part of 1944, the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, mounted a plan called Operation Chrysler in Italy to “act as a liaison with partisan commanders, attempt to guide and control developments in northern Italy, and create a unified partisan command under the direction of the supreme allied commander.” Read more

WWII

World War II’s Deadly Rapido River Crossing

By Richard A. Beranty

The attempted crossing of the Rapido River in Italy by two infantry regiments of the U.S. 36th Division in January 1944 was one of the costliest failed attacks made by American forces during World War II. Read more

WWII

U.S. Marine legend Lewis ‘Chesty’ Puller

By Michael D. Hull

Crouched in their foxholes along Edson’s Ridge on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the Marines formed a critical but thin defense line between strategic Henderson Field and seasoned Japanese infantry lurking in the jungle. Read more

German panzergrenadiers move past an idled Ferdinand self-propelled assault gun on a roadside near the Italian town of Nettuno in March 1944.

WWII

Ferdinand Porsche’s ‘Elefant’ Tank Destroyer Could Have Excelled

By Jonathan F. Keiler

World War II tanks usually had aggressive- or ferocious-sounding names, such as Hellcat, Panther, or Tiger. Yet the tendency was not universal, as with British Cruisers or the American M-3 Honey. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

Peter Ortiz: OSS Operative, Undercover Hero

Death Ride of the Shermans

Benito Mussolini Ousted: Behind His Fall From Power

The Stealth Thrills of Sniper Elite V2 Return in Remastered Form