WWII Archives

WWII

From Pilot to POW

By Allyn Vannoy

Six B-17G’s of the 416th Bombardment Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, led by Captain B.E. Read more

In a painting by John Hamilton, the battle cruiser HMS Hood (left) explodes and breaks up as the battleship HMS Prince of Wales moves out of range of the assailant, the Bismarck, in the Denmark Strait, May 24, 1940. Over 1,400 British sailors went down with Hood in one of history's last clashes between capital ships.

WWII

The era of the battleship reached its apogee at Tsushima Strait in May 1905, when Admiral Heihachiro Togo’s powerful Japanese battleships annihilated the Russian fleet in the Russo-Japanese War. Read more

Trailing a tank destroyer down a road, an American soldier raises his M-1 rifle to fire at a German sniper. These soldiers are en route to the Seine River bridge north of Fontainebleau.

WWII

Breakout Across the Seine

By Arnold Blumberg

On August 14, 1944, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., paused after his daily staff conference to offer a short speech about the accomplishments of his Third Army. Read more

WWII

The German Submarine U-47

By William F. Floyd Jr.

On the evening of October 13, 1939, The German submarine U-47 surfaced off the Orkney Islands in the North Sea. Read more

A Marine Raider machine-gun crew uses palm fronds to camouflage its position during intense training prior to the Makin Raid. The Marines fought heroically against a stout Japanese garrison on the atoll and withdrew after controversially considering surrender to the enemy.

WWII

Raid on Makin

By David H. Lippman

In the darkness, the two American submarines moved toward the hostile beach, inching carefully through badly marked waters. Read more

WWII

Axis Collapse in Normandy

By Robert L. Durham

German panzergrenadiers surrounded Hill 314 just east of Mortain in Normandy on August 7, 1944, trapping several companies of the 2nd Battalion of the U.S. Read more

A single German soldier stands guard over several American prisoners, captured in the confusion on D-Day. At least some of these prisoners were airborne, and Charlie Lefchik shared a similar journey to a prisoner of war camp.

WWII

Riding the German Rail

By Richard A. Beranty

The large number of Allied prisoners being funneled south to Rennes, France, following the D-Day invasion swelled the German transit camp to capacity so the decision was made to transport the men to permanent locations inside Germany. Read more

A frightening sight to the Japanese: the underbelly of a B-29 Superfortress. Some 4,000 of the giant bombers were produced during the war. One of the last two flyable examples is “Fifi,” which was delivered to the USAAF in 1945. It was purchased in 1971, restored, and is flown today by the Commemorative Air Force. It is based at the Vintage Flying Museum at Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas.

WWII

Flaming Death in Tokyo

By Nathan N. Prefer

Despite his nickname, General Henry Harley (“Hap”) Arnold was unhappy. In early 1945 he was having major problems with one of his own special projects, the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, for which he had often risked his career. Read more

In this detailed painting by artist Rick Reeves titled Avengers of Bataan, soldiers of the U.S. 38th Infantry Division advance toward Japanese positions while under heavy fire during the bloody battle for Zig Zag Pass.

WWII

Back to Bataan

By Nathan N. Prefer

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese caught the United States Army Air Forces units in the Philippines on the ground late on December 8. Read more

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu, who shot down six Japanese aircraft in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, takes off in his F6F Hellcat from the deck of the USS Lexington in a painting by Nicolas Trudgian. By 1944 the Japanese carrier fleet had only half the number of aircraft of the United States, making it highly unlikely they would reverse the tide of the War in the Pacific.

WWII

Carrier Clash in the Marianas

By Chuck Lyons

The Philippine Sea encompasses two million square miles of the western part of the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by the Philippine Islands on the west, the Mariana Islands on the east, the Caroline Islands to the south, and the Japanese Islands to the north. Read more

WWII

Ninth Air Force Captured In Brushstrokes

By Kevin M. Hymel

The Ninth Air Force officially arrived in England when General Lewis H. Brereton set up his headquarters in Sunninghill Park, Berkshire, on October 16, 1943. Read more

WWII

The Battle of Iwo Jima: Red Sun, Black Sand

By John Walker

No foreign army in the 5,000-year history of Japan had ever successfully conquered Japanese territory. In late 1944, American war planners were about to challenge that statistic on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Read more

A German tank commander peers from the turret of a formidable PzKpfw. I Tiger tank somewhere in Russia. The great tank battle at Kursk was a significant defeat for the German Army on the Eastern Front, and one of Hitler's favorite commanders, General Walter Model, failed him at a critical time during the action.

WWII

Model’s Failure in Command

By Pat McTaggart

Colonel General Walter Model was a rising star in the German ArFmy in early 1943. The son of a music teacher, Model was born on January 24, 1891, in Genthin, Saxony-Anhalt. Read more

With its right wing on fire and breaking apart, a B-17 from the 483rd Bomb Group flying over rail yards is about to crash in the Yuogoslav city of Nis, April 25, 1944.

WWII

Target: Das Reich

By Mark Carlson

Aboard each of the hundreds of Liberators and Flying Fortresses that daily left the soil of England bound for targets in Germany were ten young men. Read more

An abandoned German weapons carrier lies smashed along a roadside as soldiers of the British Eighth Army search for German snipers in Acquino on May 27, 1944.

WWII

Eternal City Liberated

By Michael E. Haskew

Italy was unforgiving. German resistance to Allied operations had been brutal since the Salerno landings in the autumn of 1943, and by the following spring frustration had mounted upon frustration. Read more

WWII

To attack targets from a steep angle, Curtiss developed the SB2C Helldiver—“The Beast.”

By Joseph Frantiska, Jr.

At the beginning of WWII, the U.S. Navy needed a combat aircraft that could meet several requirements: it had to serve as an attack fighter that could conduct precision dive-bombing and ground-support (strafing) operations yet still be small enough to be delivered to battle zones by aircraft carrier. Read more

WWII

A Photographer in the Ninth Air Force

By Audrey Lemick

When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific. Read more

Plane-handling crews aboard USS Enterprise (CV-6) work to prepare an F4F Wildcat for flight during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 26, 1942. The “Big E” would survive the war. Although the battle was a short-term victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk and damaged, Japan’s loss of many irreplaceable aircrews—particularly flight leaders—proved to be a long-term strategic advantage for the Allies in the Pacific.

WWII

Violent Carrier Versus Carrier Clash

By Nathan N. Prefer

It had been a difficult year for the United States Navy.

Beginning with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, defeat after defeat had plagued the efforts of the American Navy to recover its balance and strike back against the rampaging Japanese. Read more

Ogden Pleissner, an artist and war correspondent for LIFE magazine, captured American tanks advancing through the bombed-out city of St. Lô as German prisoners are marched to the rear.

WWII

Deadly Cobra Strike

By Michael E. Haskew

The Allied planning for Operation Overlord had been ongoing for more than two years. Vast quantities of supplies and hundreds of thousands of fighting men and their machinery of war had crowded southern England. Read more

This Seversky P-35 fighter plane has nosed over during a landing at Clark Field in the Philippines. Like other types flown by the 27th Bomb Group, the P-35 was obsolete during World War II and outclassed by Japanese fighter types.

WWII

Hostage to Misfortune

By Sam McGowan

In May 1942, the 27th Bombardment Group transferred from Batchelor, Australia, to Hunter Field outside Savannah, Georgia. It was a transfer without men or equipment to the same base from which the group had departed in October 1941 for the Philippine island of Manila. Read more

WWII

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