WWII Archives

WWII

Operation Goodwood: Monty’s Armored Corridor

By Major General Michael Reynolds

The political and military reasons for launching Operation Goodwood have been discussed in virtually every book written about the Normandy campaign. Read more

Corpsmen attend to a wounded Marine while others bring another wounded man up the beach at Betio. Illustration by Kerr Erby.

WWII

Brutal Battle For Betio

By Steven Weingartner

Betio is the main island of the Tarawa Atoll in the Central Pacific nation of Kiribati, formerly known as the Gilbert Islands. Read more

Trucks and trailers loaded with supplies pass a sign warning civilian traffic to stay off the express route reserved for Red Ball Express and military use.

WWII

Red Ball Express: The Allies’ Unprecedented Lifeline to Victory

By Allyn R. Vannoy

While supply and logistics may seem like dull, dry topics, they are absolutely essential to military operations, for no victory can be achieved without a steady, uninterrupted flow of food, fuel, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, and other key matériel. Read more

American paratroopers proceed along a dirt road through a churchyard in Normandy. In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to seize key objectives. The focus for the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne was the bridge across the Merderet River at La Fiere.

WWII

D-Day Airborne Stand at La Fière

By Christopher Miskimon

Unlike many of the paratroopers in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Lieutenant John J. Dolan knew exactly where he was when he landed on June 6, 1944. Read more

WWII

Home Front USA: Rationing

By Herb Kugel

In 1941-1942, British journalist Alistair Cooke traveled through the United States. In his description of his trip, American Home Front 1941-1942, he reported stopping for breakfast at a restaurant in West Virginia where, “the sugar was rationed at breakfast, and there was a note on the menu requesting that … in the interests of ‘national defense,’ keep to one cup of coffee.” Read more

From their position inside a ruined house, two solders from the 4th Infantry Division’s 22nd Infantry Regiment fire on a German tank with a 3.5-inch rocket launcher, commonly called a “bazooka,” during the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944.

WWII

The Cold Shoulder

By Allyn Vannoy

Army commanders understand that the key to dealing with an enemy breakthrough is to slow the enemy’s advance and prevent the breach from widening—that is, “holding the shoulders.” Read more

Allied forces on the beach in Normandy in June 1944. Double agent Juan Pujol Garcia led the Germans to believe that the Normandy landings were a diversion and the main landing would be at the Pas de Calais.

WWII

How Juan Pujol Garcia (a.k.a. “Garbo”) Made The D-Day Invasion Happen

By Peter Kross

In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, the largest armada ever sent into war assaulted the coast of France at Normandy. Read more

WWII

Task Force Raff’s Race Against Time

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Colonel Ed Raff kept glancing at his wristwatch while trying to control the growing sense of dread inside him. Read more

WWII

A Marine Scout’s War Journey

By Matt Broggie

Sergeant Larry Kirby will always remember the fighting on the morning of March 12, 1945, as his unit, Easy Company, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, attempted to move against Hill 362C under the cover of darkness in northeastern Iwo Jima. Read more

WWII

Flak Gunner for the Luftwaffe

Interview by Allyn R. Vannoy

An estimated 1.2 million people were employed by the German ground-based air-defense system by the end of the war in Europe. Read more

Aerial view of the USS Wasp (CV-7) near San Diego, California, in June 1942, shows 38 Hellcats and Dauntlesses, some with their wings folded, arrayed on the flight deck.

WWII

The Death of the USS Wasp

By Mason B. Webb

After the debacle at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States realized that it had its hands full. Read more

Americans try out a German antitank weapon in Ceppagna, Italy, in January 1944.

WWII

Captured Weapons of the Reich: A Photo Essay

By Kevin M. Hymel Read more

WWII

The Workhorse Lancaster

By Nigel Price

Powerful, brisling with firepower and able to carry an amazingly large bombload, the majestic Avro Lancaster, along with the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, has come to symbolize the might of the Royal Air Force in World War II. Read more

WWII

The U.S. Third Army and XIX TAC: Partners for Victory

By Sam McGowan

In the summer of 1944, the Third United States Army under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton made a spectacular dash across France, a daring advance that ranks high on the list of great military endeavors. Read more

WWII

The Strange Odyssey of USS Stewart

By Glenn Barnett

The Spanish-American War saw the development of the torpedo as we know it today. It was not the static mine of the Civil War but a propeller driven, waterborne explosive device. Read more

The six British Horsa gliders assigned to Operation Dead-stick swoop down on the Caen Canal Bridge at under cover of night on June 5-6.

WWII

Lightning Assault on Pegasus Bridge

By Joshua Shepherd

At midnight of June 6, 1944, a trio of Halifax bombers, each towing a Horsa glider, roared above the black waters of the English Channel. Read more

An American soldier of the 31st Infantry Division carries an M3 submachine gun, known as the Grease Gun, during landings on the island of Morotai in the Pacific in September 1944.

WWII

The Controversial M3 Grease Gun

By Patrick J. Chaisson

No one ever used the words “graceful” or “elegant” to describe the M3 submachine gun. Instead, those soldiers, sailors and Marines who carried it called the M3 a “plumber’s nightmare” or “the cake decorator.” Read more

WWII

Slogging into the Reichswald

by David H. Lippman

Just after midnight on February 9, 1945, across the diamond-shaped mass of forest, hills, and flooded terrain that defined the Reichswald, rain fell in a steady downpour upon a battlefield that had already seen some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Read more

Smoke billows from bomb strikes against the submarine pens at St. Nazaire. This photo was taken from a U.S. bomber that participated in a costly raid against the heavily defended pens on the French coast.

WWII

Lessons at St. Nazaire

By Robert F. Dorr

Even today, they don’t like to talk about the St. Nazaire raid.

Compared to the thousand-plane raids that went deep into Germany later in World War II, the January 3, 1943, bomber mission from England to the coast of German-occupied France was small and spanned only a modest distance. Read more