WWII Archives

WWII

Lucky All The Way!

By Susan Zimmerman

During World War II, many of England’s Royal Air Force (RAF) Class A airfields were made available to the U.S. Read more

WWII

The 44th Infantry Division, part of the U.S. Seventh Army’s XV Corps, was pushing elements of the battered German 25th Panzergrenadier Division back toward the German frontier in the Vosges Mountains during early December 1944. Read more

A German submarine rolls on a heavy sea during a mission in the Atlantic. Painting by Olaf Rahardt, 2000.

WWII

Cloak and Dagger Mounties

By John Mancini

In the early morning of Monday, November 9, 1942, the german U-boat U-518 surfaced off the bleak Quebec coast. Read more

With smoke rising and the barrel of their Bofors gun hot from rapid discharging, the weapon’s crew fires over open sights during support for British and Canadian troops in Operation Veritable. This photo was taken in the Netherlands at Nuttderden on the road to Kleve, as British and Canadian troops moved forward.

WWII

Devils in the Forest

By William E. Welsh

The German paratroopers marched the captured Canadian officer through the dark forest to the damp underground bunker that served as their platoon headquarters. Read more

WWII

Nuremburg Prosecutor

By Blaine Taylor

On March 23, 1991, at a reunion of the postwar Nuremberg International Military Tribunal staffers in Washington, I had occasion to meet the former American prosecutor, Brigadier General Telford Taylor. Read more

In this 1941 portrayal of the Battle of Britain, artist Paul Nash said his painting was “an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area, and thus summarizes England’s great aerial victory over Germany.” It symbolically depicts the aerial conflict that lasted from July 10, 1940 to October 31, 1940, with outnumbered, free-flying British fighters battling the orderly ranks of German aircraft.

WWII

The Battle of Britain: WWII’s Most Consequential Campaign?

By Matthew J. Benedetti

Two decades after the carnage of the Great War, the world was again plunged into the cauldron of armed conflict. Read more

Polish soldiers, attached to the British Eighth Army in Italy, slog along a flooded road.

WWII

Blood In The Soil

By Glenn Barnett

In 1939 the one thing that Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin could agree on was the partition of Poland. Read more

WWII

Third Reich Women at War

By Paul Garson

During the 12 years of the highly militarized society of the Third Reich, some 20 million Germans—men and women as well as children—donned a uniform of one kind or another. Read more

A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber flies over a body of water. Corporal Joseph Hartman survived a terrible ordeal following a mid-air collision aboard a B-17, which was followed by an incredible odyssey.

WWII

Sole Survivor

By Phil Scearce

On December 1, 1942, a 431st Bomb Squadron Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress named Omar Khayyam – The Plastered Bastard took off from a base codenamed Cactus on a photo-reconnaissance mission toward enemy-held Bougainville Island in the Pacific. Read more

WWII

WWII: German Rations and Feeding the Troops of the Third Reich

By G. Paul Garson

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who purportedly said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Toward the goal of feeding his particular army’s stomach more efficiently, in 1795 the French general came up with an interesting solution to the problem. Read more

WWII

Lend-Lease on the High Seas

By Glenn Barnett

At high tide on the night of March 28, 1942, an American-built British destroyer disguised as a German torpedo boat steamed boldly up the estuary of the Loire River in occupied France. Read more

A young soldier of the armored forces trains with a Springfield Arsenal .30-06 M1 Garand rifle at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in early 1942. Soldiers liked the rifle’s rugged construction and dependable operation. A skilled marksman could hit targets at a range of 450-500 yards.

WWII

America’s trusty M1 Garand rifle was “Woven into the fabric of the nation.”

By David J. Little

After the Great War, in which American troops were sent into combat with either the bolt-action M1903 Springfield rifle or the bolt-action British Enfield, planners in the War Department realized that, if the United States were ever drawn in combat again, they would need a far superior weapon. Read more

Early in the attempt to defeat the Soviet Union, German aircraft controlled the skies. Here three Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers fly high over their target city of Novgorod. The dive bombers proved effective as airborne artillery against ground targets, but the growing number of Soviet fighters soon took their toll of the Luftwaffe.

WWII

Struggle for Stalin’s Skies

By Kelly Bell

On February 3, 1943, Lieutenant Herbert Kuntz of the 100th Bomber Group made the last flight by any German pilot over the Soviet city of Stalingrad. Read more

After crossing the English Channel to Normandy, U.S.- supplied M4 Sherman tanks of the 1st Polish Armoured Division’s 10th Armoured Brigade assemble near Caen before the start of Operation Totalise, August 8, 1944.

WWII

The 1st Polish Armoured Division Served with Honor

By William Stroock

Polish Major General Stanislaw Macze, commander of the 1st Polish Armoured Division stood tall and watched as General Guy Simonds, II Canadian Corps, delivered very harsh news to the half dozen German generals and admirals of the 1st Parachute Army, General Erich Straub commanding. Read more

WWII

Massacre At Malmédy

By Nathan N. Prefer

The surrender did not begin well. As First Lieutenant Virgil Lary stood in the road next to a snow-covered field just south of Malmédy, Belgium with his hands raised, one of the German tankers poked his head out of the hatch and fired twice at him with his pistol. Read more

WWII

Operation Husky: Allied Power Struggle

By William Dennis

By the summer of 1943, American forces felt that they had proven that they were as good as anything the enemy could throw at them. Read more

WWII

The Ijmuiden Raids: None Came Back

By Allyn Vannoy

Even as they were being integrated into the European Allied air campaign, the use and operation of American B-26 Marauders, and other medium bombers, was still being worked out—with sometimes, as at IJmuiden, Holland, disastrous results. Read more

WWII

Tarawa: ‘Marine Corps’ Toughest Battle

By Flint Whitlock

For a week before November 20, 1943, U.S. Navy and Seventh Air Force planes did their best to destroy the Japanese defenses on the tiny Pacific atoll of Tarawa. Read more

101st Airborne Division troopers, backed by Sherman tanks, battle the Germans in the woods surrounding Bloody Gulch in Normandy, June 1944, where Lieutenant Ronald Speirs and his men fought. The paratroopers had only rifles, machine guns, and grenades with which to conduct the battle until armored forces arrived.

WWII

Ronald Speirs: ‘Imperfect But Daring Leader’

By Jared Frederick & Erik Dorr

Swirls of black smoke billowed high above the steeples and splintered roofs as Lieutenant Ronald Speirs surveyed the stucco exteriors of storefronts and dwellings pocked by the scars of urban battle. Read more

WWII

‘Hallowed war grave’ is world’s deepest discovered shipwreck

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, from October 23-26, 1944, was the largest air and sea battle of World War II. An important part of the battle took place off Samar Island on October 25, 1944. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

Battle of Berlin Prelude: Küstrin, and Death on the Oder

“God Has Been Our Shield”

Countdown to Pearl Harbor

Field Marshal Erich von Manstein at Kursk: An Impossible Victory