WWII Archives

Lying in the rubble of Weisweiler, a German town between Aachen and Jülich, an American rifleman from the 84th Infantry Division takes aim at an enemy position. A massive American-British-Canadian offensive in early 1945 was designed to quickly break through enemy lines and cross the Rhine, but a combination of winter weather, flooded fields, and determined German resistance made progress slower than the Allies had hoped for.

WWII

Operation Grenade: Race to the Roer

By Allyn Vannoy

In early 1945, while the American First Army was focusing on the dams of the Roer River near the German-Belgium border and Patton’s Third Army was probing the Eifel and clearing the Saar-Moselle triangle, the First Canadian Army was about to open their offensive as part of Operation Veritable in a drive southeast up the left bank of the Rhine from the vicinity of Nijmegen. Read more

WWII

Going for Broke

By Stephen D. Lutz

Thousands of Japanese American men demonstrated their loyalty to the U.S. by volunteering to serve in the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Infantry Regiment, to which the 100th would later be joined. Read more

Major Charity Adams (center) commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-black, all-female Women’s Army Corps unit to serve overseas during World War II. PFC Romay Johnson remembered her as a strict officer.

WWII

A Black WAC in the U.S. Army

By Kevin M. Hymel

Although Private First Class (Pfc) Romay C. Johnson served in war-torn England and France during World War II, it was her tumultuous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean that she remembered most vividly. Read more

Soviet tanks and infantrymen advance into the smoking ruins of Königsberg. The city fell on April 9, 1945. OPPOSITE: Red Air Force Ilyushin IL-2 fighters fly uncontested over Königsberg, April 1945. Such planes strafed columns of refugees and attacked defenseless ships packed with evacuees.

WWII

Operation Hannibal: The Third Reich’s Last Hurrah

By Dr. Richard Selcer

As Soviet armies threatened Berlin in February 1945, Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels promised the German people that the capital would be defended to the last stone and the last man. Read more

WWII

Faces of Battle

By Kevin M. Hymel

What was it like to come to grips with the enemy, to fight and survive combat? For each men, the experience was different; for many, it was almost impossible to relate to those behind the lines or an ocean away. Read more

The wreckage of the American Boeing B-17 bomber named Raunchy is removed from a lake in Switzerland, where it ditched during a mission to bomb Stuttgart, Germany, on September 6, 1943. The crew survived and were interned in Switzerland for the duration of the war.

WWII

“What Are You Doing in My Country?”

By Duane Schultz

Lieutenant Martin Andrews was not scheduled to fly that day. He and his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber crew had survived 12 missions out of the required 25 and were due for a much needed week of rest and recuperation. Read more

“Over the Top of the World” by Roy Grinell. Pilots flying this treacherous route over the Himalayas kept Allied supply lines open.

WWII

A Son’s Memoir: Surviving The CBI’s ‘Aluminum Trail’

By Fred T. Martin

Winston Churchill called it, “An immense laborious task, unlikely to be completed until the need for it has passed.” Read more

Oradour today looking southeast along the Main Street, Rue Desourteaux. On a hot summer afternoon, 200 SS soldiers drove up unannounced from the St Julien road (bottom right) sealed off the town and rounded up its inhabitants into a central recreational area. The townspeople were then bombed, shot or burned to death. The Germans then set the town ablaze, with the exception of the house of a cloth and wine merchant, which was looted and occupied until around 10 p.m.

WWII

The Execution of Oradour-sur-Glane

By Alan Davidge

Known throughout France as the Village des Martyrs—“Village of Martyrs,”—the pillaged remains of Oradour-sur-Glane have stood nearly eight decades now as a memorial to the dead and reminder of the atrocities of war. Read more

An 81mm mortar crew from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 15th Infantry Regiment fires at enemy positions during the division’s drive on Campobello, Sicily, July 1943. Of the 40 Medals of Honor awarded to men of the 3rd, two were earned during the month-long campaign for Sicily.

WWII

Above & Beyond

By Mason B. Webb

The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division has one of the longest legacies in the United States Army. Originally formed in November 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina, it gained a reputation for toughness. Read more

Major General Walton Walker, left, commander of U.S. XX Corps, greets Maj. Gen. Philippe Leclerc, commander of the 2nd French Armored Division, after the division landed at Utah Beach, Normandy, on August 1, 1944. The French division was then attached to Maj. Gen. Wade M. Haislip’s XV Corps, a part of George Patton’s Third U.S. Army. From Normandy, Leclerc would lead his men triumphantly to the liberation of Paris by the end of month. The 2nd French Armored Division notably took part in the Battle of the Falaise Pocket, the Battle of Dompaire, the Colmer Pocket and the push into Bavaria in May 1945.

WWII

Leclerc: Free France’s Greatest General

By William G. Dennis

Géneral d’ Armée Jacques-Philippe Leclerc’s service to France during World War II made him one of the few heroes to be admired by the whole country. Read more

Five 82nd Airborne troopers, plus a pilot and co-pilot, are photographed with a 1,439-lb. 75mm pack howitzer inside a CG-4A “Waco” glider during training in Morocco prior to the June 1943 invasion of Sicily. The glider forces sustained heavy losses during Operation Husky.

WWII

Glider Pilots: No Engines, No Parachutes, No Second Chances

By Scott McGaugh

During the decade of the U.S. Army’s experiment with gliders in war, nearly as many glider pilots died in training as they did in combat. Read more

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (right) inspects members of an assault gun battalion standing in front of their guns—10.5cm leFH 18 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen 39H(f)—a self-propelled howitzer designed by Alfred Becker—in Normandy, France, a month before the Allied invasion. Only 48 were produced during the war.

WWII

Oberstleutnant Alfred Becker

By Craig Van Vooren

Students of World War II know the name Percy Hobart—a British general who raised and trained several armored divisions and who invented all sorts of unique and unusual weapons of war—swimming tanks, flail tanks (for exploding landmines), a flame-throwing tank, a tank that laid down its own roadway, and many other odd-but-useful devices. Read more

In Richard Taylor’s striking new painting, the Tuskegee “Red Tail” pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group are shown escorting a damaged B-17 Flying Fortress of the 483rd Bomb Group to its home base in Italy, summer 1944. Skin color made no difference to the bomber pilots when their “little friends” came up to escort them on their bombing missions.

WWII

African-American Airmen Blasted Barriers

By Dante Brizill

The African American Tuskegee Airmen took the fight to a well-trained and deadly enemy with a ferocity and tenacity that World War II aerial combat required. Read more

WWII

A tragic loss of life, a tragic loss of history

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for prop-driven airplanes, especially World War II warbirds. I guess it began when my parents took me to an airshow back in the early 1950s. 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

WWII

Australia’s Heroic Son

By Christopher Miskimon

John Hurst Edmondson, known to his friends as Jack, died April 14, 1941, lying on the concrete floor of a sand-swept fighting outpost in the perimeter around Tobruk, Libya. Read more

An M4A3E8 of 4th Armored Division takes cover along a sunken road while covering the H-4 highway outside Bastogne with its 76mm gun. This updated version of the Sherman has wider tracks for better performance in snow and mud; note the star has been painted over so German gunners cannot use it as an aiming point.

WWII

Deadly Drive to Bastogne

By Christopher Miskimon

Private Bruce Fenchel was writing a letter home when his first sergeant burst into the barracks room. “Pack your duffel bags and get ready to roll,” the NCO said ominously. Read more

A Jagdpanzer 38(t) tank destroyer in Hungary, circa 1944. Nicknamed “Hetzer,” baiter or agitator, this compact , powerful weapon was Hitler’s response to British and Russian tanks that were too heavily armored for towed German anti-tank guns.

WWII

The Jagdpanzer 38

By William E. Welsh

It became glaringly apparent to the German Wehrmacht in 1943 that it needed a solution to the threat of heavily armored British and Russian tanks whose armor proved too thick for German towed anti-tank guns. Read more

WWII

Into The Bitter Forest

By David H. Lippman

“In the early hours of 8 February 1945, I climbed into my command post, which consisted of a small platform halfway up a tree,” Lt. Read more

In this painting by war artist Jack Fellows, Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter pilot Henry T. “Hammerin’ Hank” Elrod scans the skies above Wake Island for Japanese aircraft on the morning of December 12, 1941. The defenders of Wake Island were among the first American heroes of World War II.

WWII

Flying Leathernecks

By Robert F. Dorr and Fred L. Borch

Marine aviators of Fighter Squadron 211, or VMF-211, looked up in frustration as Japanese war planes thronged over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

Admiral James Stavridis’ ‘To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision’

Agostino von Hassell and Herm Dillon’s ‘West Point’

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III

Hitler’s Winter of ‘44