WWII

WWII

U.S. Coast Guard Goes to War

By Michael D. Hull

Recently put ashore, three companies of U.S. Marines advanced stealthily along the Matanikau River on the northern coast of Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942. Read more

WWII

The Forgotten Rhine Crossings

By Mason B. Webb

While British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was marching across Belgium, Holland, and into northern Germany on his way to the Rhine, Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group, made up of Courtney Hodges’s First and George Patton’s Third U.S. Read more

WWII

Fast Boats in Harm’s Way

By Nathan N. Prefer

The U.S. Navy put many ships in harm’s way during World War II, but none more so than the Patrol Torpedo or“PT” Boats. Read more

WWII

An Execution That Lingers

The photograph is brutal, harsh, and unsettling. The death of Sergeant Leonard George Siffleet occurred on October 24, 1943. Eighty years ago, Siffleet was bound and blindfolded, transported to the beach at Aitape, New Guinea, after two weeks of torture and mistreatment at the hands of his Japanese captors. Read more

WWII

Patton’s Fateful Verdun Meeting

By Kevin M. Hymel

On the morning of December 19, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., prepared his Third Army for a battle raging north of him—the Battle of the Bulge. Read more

WWII

War Through an Artist’s Eyes

By Howard Brodie

Newspaper artist Howard Brodie enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, soon joining the combat artist program. He was sent by Yank magazine to capture his impressions of the war with a pencil during the Guadalcanal campaign and then the fighting in Europe. Read more

WWII

Siegfried Line: Breaking the Dragon’s Teeth

By Allyn Vannoy

As the battalion officers surveyed the terrain before them, they must have been worried about the men who would have to cross it—the 300 yards of open ground to the banks of the Saar River lined with barbed-wire, concrete pillboxes, anti-vehicle “dragon’s teeth,” and reinforced with minefields in depth known as the Westwall or, more commonly, the “Siegfried Line.” Read more

WWII

Combat Command: Glory in the Wrenches

By Allyn Vannoy

The U.S. Army’s drive across France and Belgium during the late summer and fall of 1944 was made possible by the support of the logistics and maintenance personnel that performed their duties magnificently—but received little credit or glory. Read more

WWII

Warsaw Rising: The Battle for Poland’s Capital

By Peter Zablocki

Polish General Tadeusz “Bor” Komorowski knew the fight for the Old Town Warsaw was over. His last hope—and that of his army—was to slip out unnoticed and move the headquarters position to the town center. Read more

WWII

Japanese submarine I-19 was the scourge of the Pacific.

By Glenn Barnett

After the Great War, the leading naval powers met to try to avoid another ruinously expensive arms race and, hopefully, prevent future wars. Read more

WWII

The Battle of Garfagnana: Italy’s ‘Battle of the Bulge’

By James Bilder

There are important similarities between Hitler’s final great push into Belgium and Luxembourg and Mussolini’s drive south of Garfagnana. Read more

WWII

As a teen, she worked at a concentration camp in Poland. At 97, she went on trial for her Nazi past.

German prosecutors continue to go after anyone associated with the Third Reich’s concentration and death camps with a tenacity that would make Hitler’s victims proud. Read more

WWII

Inside the OSS: An Interview With Elizabeth P. McIntosh

By Bob Bergin

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was America’s first strategic intelligence organization. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized its establishment on June 13, 1942, six months after World War II began, to collect and analyze strategic intelligence and to conduct special services, including subversion, sabotage, and psychological warfare. Read more

WWII

Franz von Papen: Vice Chancellor of Nazi Germany

By Scott A. Beal

On May 31, 1932, Franz von Papen achieved the pinnacle of a long career serving his country when, in a surprising move, the aging President Paul von Hindenburg named him Chancellor of Germany. Read more

WWII

WWII Tanks: Italy’s Failed Iterations

By Arnold Blumberg

Although it suffered, like all combatants, from the costly stalemate and horrendous casualties of trench warfare during World War I, Italy never used tanks during that conflict. Read more

WWII

The Siege of Leningrad: Debacle At Luban

By Edward Paraubek

On February 23, 1942, Red Army Day, the People’s Commissar of Defense, Josef Stalin, issued Order No. 55. Read more

WWII

How Franklin D. Roosevelt Prepared the U.S. for World War II

By Peter Kross

By June 1940, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s seventh year in office, Europe was ablaze. In that month, France fell to the Nazi blitzkrieg that threatened to overtake the entire continent. Read more

WWII

Closing the Falaise Pocket

By Mike Phifer

After almost two months of bloody and desperate fighting, the Allies had failed to break through the German defenses that had been limiting their hold on Normandy since D-Day. Read more

WWII

Saving Face After the Surrender of Japan

By Ulrich A. Straus

It will not come as a surprise to American readers that when the Japanese emperor delivered his surrender message on August 15, 1945, Allied forces led by the United States had thoroughly defeated Japan’s naval and air power in the Pacific. Read more

WWII

Red Air Force Heroines: The Night Witches

By George Tipton Wilson

Ignoring a nonaggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, an invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Read more