WWII

A Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber of the U.S. Army Air Forces disintegrates in a catastrophic explosion over Germany after a direct hit from flak batteries defending a target below. Senior American air commanders chose daylight bombing over the Royal Air Force’s preference for night raids, believing that accuracy would increase substantially. However, the tactic came at a tremendous cost.

WWII

An Airman’s Saga

By Allyn Vannoy

Howard Linn was a member of the 492nd Bombardment Group—the “Hard Luck” group of the Eighth Air Force. Read more

WWII

Saga of the Eggbeater

By Mark Albertson

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

WWII

U.S. Navy Captain Forrest Biard

By Hervie Haufler

“For several months after the outbreak of the war with Japan the very fate of our nation rested in the hands of a small group of very dedicated and highly devoted men working in the basement under the Administration Building in Pearl Harbor.” Read more

In this painting by Jack Fellows, P-39s flown by Major George Greene, Jr., (foreground) and “Buzz” Wagner take on Japanese Zeros over the Salamaua Peninsula.

WWII

WWII Planes: The Bell P-39 Airacobra “Peashooter”

by Sam McGowan

If there is an American combat airplane that has achieved an ill-deserved reputation, no doubt it would be the much-maligned Bell P-39 Airacobra, a tricycle landing gear single-engine fighter whose reputation was greatly overshadowed by the more famous, and of more recent design, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and North American P-51 Mustang. Read more

Marines watch as a flame-throwing amphibious tractor fires at caves in the mountainous areas used by the Japanese during the fight for the Pacific island of Peleliu. The lowlands and the airport were quickly captured, but the Umurbrogol massif—a series of limestone and choral ridges rising as high as 300 feet took much longer. A moonscape of sinkholes, canyons and cliffs further fortified by Japanese engineers, the “Umurbrogal Pocket,” and the island, was finally declared secure 73 days after the Marines had landed.

WWII

Savage Struggle for Peleliu

By Joshua Shepherd

Amphibious landing craft carrying U.S. Marines plunged through heavy surf toward the beaches of Peleliu Island, a formerly inconspicuous tropical paradise in the Palau Islands. Read more

A flight of Soviet IL-2 Stormoviks attack a German oil depot in the Crimea. Their mission: Protect the last Soviet stronghold at Sevastopol.

WWII

Dueling Aces in Sevastopol

By Christer Bergström and Andrey Mikhailov

In June 1942, the Black Sea port of Sevastopol on the Crimea was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II. Read more

WWII

Airborne! Learning to Fly and Land—Hard

Photo Essay by Kevin M. Hymel

Every American soldier who jumped into North Africa, Europe, the Philippines and other combat zones around the globe during WWII had to first learn his trade at Fort Benning, Georgia. Read more

WWII

The Browning Automatic Rifle

By William F. Floyd Jr.

By dawn on June 9, 1944, the men of the Company C, 1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, of the 82nd Airborne Division found themselves engaged in a fierce firefight with German troops at the village of Cauquigny just west of the Merderet River in Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula. Read more

WWII

OSS Spymaster Allen Dulles

By Peter Kross

During World War II, Switzerland was one of the few neutral countries to survive unscathed amid the death and destruction that was being heaped upon the rest of Europe. Read more

WWII

From Pilot to POW

By Allyn Vannoy

Six B-17G’s of the 416th Bombardment Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, led by Captain B.E. Read more

WWII

Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?

By Mark Carlson

With all it had going for it, how did Germany manage to lose World War II? There are many answers to this deceptively simple question, including the obvious one that the Allies had the technical and industrial advantage. Read more

WWII

The Fight of USS California

by John J. Domagalski

The first rays of sunlight on December 7, 1941, marked a typical Sunday morning for the sailors aboard the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. Read more

From Around the Network

  • Under the relentless onslaught of Japanese Mitsubishi A6 Zero fighter planes, the Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers of the USS Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron 8 are massacred as they attempt to attack Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in this dramatic painting by artist John Hamilton titled “Destruction of a Torpedo Bomber.”

    Book Reviews

    Martin Dugard’s ‘Taking Midway’
    Read More
  • Newly liberated Polish prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp at Hanover-Ahlem queue up to receive rations of soup from American soldiers.

    European Theater

    Henry Kissinger’s World War II
    Read More
  • A squad of French Resistance fighters, some sighting automatic weapons, anticipates action against the Nazis, August 1944.

    WWII

    The OSS: Assisting French Resistance in the Haute Savoie Region
    Read More