WWII Archives

WWII

Cleveland-class Workhorses

By Nathan N. Prefer

During World War II, the U.s. “Arsenal of Democracy” produced thousands of ships of all shapes and sizes for the war effort. Read more

WWII

Poland Makes War Reparations Claim Against Germany.

On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler set World War II in Europe in motion when the spearheads of the Nazi Wehrmacht rolled across the German frontier into Poland. Read more

WWII

The Fight of USS California

by John J. Domagalski

The first rays of sunlight on December 7, 1941, marked a typical Sunday morning for the sailors aboard the battleship USS California at Pearl Harbor. Read more

Soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Division file ashore from Omaha Beach several days after the D-Day landings in Normandy. During the course of World War II, the Army and Marine Corps changed the configuration of their combat divisions to make them more efficient.

WWII

U.S. Divisions of World War II

By Colonel James W. Hammond, Jr. USMC (Ret.)

The definitive combat unit of comparable strength among the forces of the world during the 20th century was the division. Read more

WWII

Lightnings on the Deck

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Second Lieutenant William Capron first saw the attacking Messerschmitts as black dots descending rapidly to ambush his squadron of American fighter-bombers. Read more

A Supermarine Spitfire fighter of the British Royal Air Force chases a German Heinkel He-111 bomber during a swirl of aerial combat in the Battle of Britain. Canadian pilot Howard Peter “Cowboy” Blatchford served with the RAF during the crucial battle and was later killed in action.

WWII

Cowboy of the Royal Air Force

By Neil Taylor

In the six weeks since Britain’s formal declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots of No. Read more

The Third Reich kept up a steady barrage of music of one style or another, from the constant thump of marching boots and military bands, to street recitals, to radio broadcasts of German classical music, to light romantic fare—all part of the “emotion over intellect” campaign that Nazi Party ideology promoted. A constant soundtrack engulfed citizens and soldiers with a litany of songs that also served to promote morale and military aggressiveness and whose lyrics sought to drum in Nazi political and racist propaganda.

WWII

Off Duty, German Style

By G. Paul Garson

War has been described as long periods of extreme boredom punctuated by brief moments of extreme terror. Read more

WWII

Cockleshell Heroes: Courageous Commandos in Canoes

By Michael D. Hull

Early in World War II, the British War Office and the Admiralty were shocked by daring small boat attacks, some of them suicidal, on Allied shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. Read more

Paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division commandeer a German Kubelwagon in Carentan. Sergeant Don Malarkey witnessed the regimental chaplain giving last rites to the wounded in Carentan as enemy fire fell.

WWII

Donald Malarkey: The Story of Easy Company’s Brother from Astoria

By Kevin M. Hymel

Donald Malarkey’s comrades thought highly of him as a warrior and as a man. Staff Sergeant William “Wild Bill” Guarnere considered him his hero. Read more

WWII

One query that was raised on the Allied side in 1942—two years before Operation Overlord—was if the cross-English Channel invasion of Northwest Europe via France was necessary at all in order to defeat the Third Reich. Read more

Tanks of the U.S. 6th Armored Division leave their telltale tracks in the snow as they advance toward the town of Bastogne, recently relieved after days under siege by German forces during the Battle of the Bulge.

WWII

Prisoner in the Bulge

By David H. Lippman

Nobody knew it in the 6th Armored Division’s 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, but the tide of the Battle of the Bulge had turned by the time the outfit moved into snow-covered fields and forests near Bastogne. Read more

Aircraft manufactured in the U.S. await their new owners, the Soviet Red Air Force, at an airfield in Iran. The U.S. supplied several types of aircraft to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease, including the A-20, P-39, P-40, B-25, and AT-6.

WWII

Douglas A-20 Havoc Bomber: The Scourge of Axis Shipping

By Robert F. McEniry

Following the apocalyptic initial phase of Operation Barbarossa starting on June 22, 1941, the Germans inflicted crippling losses on the Red Army Air Forces (VVS) and the Soviet Naval Air Forces (VVS-VMF). Read more

In this 1943 painting by an unknown German war artist, paratroopers use a Kettenkrad to pull a trailer through the dusty streets of a Tunisian village.

WWII

The Sd.Kfz. 2 Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101

By Albert Mroz

Aside from a number of prototypes and experimental vehicles, the Kettenkrad was one of the most unconventional vehicles built during World War II. Read more

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a heavy aircraft powered by a large radial engine. It was capable of absorbing severe punishment and bringing its pilot home.

WWII

The Famed Jug

By Michael D. Hull

Losses were high and morale low when the U.S. Eighth Air Force intensified its heavy bomber missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in late 1942. Read more

Fey von Hassell smiles faintly for the camera at her estate, Brazza, in the summer of 1944. Fey is accompanied by a pair of German officers, who were apparently assisting with the children in preparation for relocation.

WWII

Incredible Wartime Odyssey

By Kelly Bell

By the spring of 1943 the situation for Nazi Germany was becoming grave as military reverses in Russia and Africa sent the formerly unstoppable Wehrmacht reeling. Read more

A Curtiss SOC-3 Seagull careens from the catapult aboard the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans in 1943. The Seagull was replaced by the Vought OS2U Kingfisher as the war progressed.

WWII

Heroic Sacrifice Over Sicily

By Patrick J. Chaisson

A thousand questions flashed through Lieutenant Cy Lewis’s mind as he spotted the pair of German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters banking in to attack him. Read more

Weary GIs move inland after landing in Sicily in July 1943 in this contemporary painting, Red Beach at Gela, 1700, by Mitchell Jamieson.

WWII

The Big Red One in World War II

By Steven Weingartner

The outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, found the United States in an isolationist mood that precluded, for the time being, any direct involvement in the conflict. Read more

Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers run the gauntlet of enemy antiaircraft fire and fighters to bomb the oil refineries and other facilities at Ploesti, Romania, on August 1, 1943.

WWII

The Return of Hadley’s Harem

By Duane Schultz

First Lieutenant Gilbert B. Hadley—he liked to be called “Gib”—was buried back home in Kansas in 1997, some 54 years after he was killed in action on August 1, 1943. Read more