WWII

The submerged “Gavutu Wildcat,” a Grumman F4F fighter plane possibly flown by Lt. James E. Swett, a U.S. Marine Corps ace, during the aerial battles in the Solomon Islands during World War II.

WWII

Searching for a Wildcat

By Bruce Petty

On November 3, 2011, at 0945, the hydrographic ship HMNZS Resolution discovered what appeared to be an aircraft in the waters near Gavutu Island in the Solomon Island group. Read more

Paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division ride aboard a transport aircraft en route to their drop zones near the Salerno beachhead during the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland September 13-14, 1943. Members of the 504th and 505th Parachute Infantry Battalions were dropped to support the push inland. Members of the509th were deployed behind enemy lines to break up German communications at Avellino.

WWII

Desperate Venture at Avellino

By Nathan N. Prefer

The Fifth U.S. Army was in trouble and dropping 600 paratroops at Avellino to disrupt the communications of the 16th Panzer Division seemed like a sound solution. Read more

In this painting by artist Larry Selman, PT-109 streaks across the waters adjacent to the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons. PT-109 was cut in half during a collision with the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.

WWII

John F. Kennedy and PT-109

By John J. Domagalski

The celebrated life of President John F. Kennedy has been recounted many times in the decades since he assumed the highest office in the land. Read more

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a U.S. Army Air Force B-17 bomber seeks a place to land after flying into the midst of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other military installations on the island of Oahu. A flight of 12 B-17s—in transit from California to the Philippines—had taken off from Hamilton Field the previous evening for the 14-hour night flight.

WWII

B-17s at Pearl Harbor

By Mark Carlson

Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya, sitting in his gray Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, led two other fighters on another strafing run on the parking ramps and hangars of Hickam Army Air Base on Oahu. Read more

A pitiful Buchenwald inmate lifts a food bowl to his frail mouth, hardly seeming to comprehend that freedom has come at last. For many, the end of the nightmare had come too late.

WWII

WWII Concentration Camps: The Horrific Discovery at Buchenwald

By Flint Whitlock

When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the world changed forever.

Not only was Hitler determined to pay back Germany’s enemies for his country’s defeat during the Great War, but he was also determined to rid Germany and the rest of Europe of persons whom his twisted Aryan ideology believed were “inferior” or “subhuman.” Read more

In this bleak painting by American combat artist Mitchell Jamieson, members of a Naval Armed Guard contingent load and fire the forward deck gun aboard a merchant ship in pitching seas. (Naval Historical Center)

WWII

Hazardous Duty with the Naval Armed Guard

By Russell Corder

They have been called “the other Navy,” the “Navy’s stepchildren,” and perhaps most fittingly, “the forgotten Navy.” Officially, however, they were the Naval Armed Guard or more simply the Armed Guard (AG). Read more