WWII

A long line of American soldiers are about about to begin their long journey into captivity. Most of the troops were moved by rail; Allied planes sometimes unknowingly attacked trains that carried American POWs.

WWII

Captured in the Bulge

By Flint Whitlock

It took the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the world’s largest passenger liner, only five days to transport 15,000 men of the 106th Infantry Division from New Jersey to Glasgow, Scotland, making port on November 17, 1944. Read more

Japanese American children at the Raphael Weill Public School in San Francisco recite the Pledge of Allegiance, April 1942. The two girls in the front row were both sent to internment camps along with their parents.

WWII

“Justice for All”

By Susan Zimmerman

In the fall of 1941, as relations worsened between the United States and Japan and war became imminent, the presence of 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast pushed the issue of internment to the forefront. Read more

Fighting men of the 92nd Infantry Division, the famed Buffalo Soldiers, march past the wreckage of a knocked out PzKpfw. VI Tiger tank in the vicinity of Ponsacco, Italy. The African-American soldiers of the 92nd Division fought racial injustice in their own army, as well as the Germans.

WWII

The Brave Buffalo Soldiers

By Michael D. Hull

Despite their gallant service in the Civil War, on the Western frontier, and in the Spanish-American War, black soldiers were used mostly for labor and given only a limited fighting role when the U.S. Read more

WWII

A BDM Girl Comes to America

By Don A. Gregory

Frieda’s last doll was bought for her by her father, August Streit, in 1938. At age 10 she was really too old for dolls, her father thought, but he would buy her this last one. Read more

A line of German soldiers marches past a burning Russian building somewhere on the Eastern Front. The vast spaces of the USSR swallowed German armies and led to mass casualties. Few German POWs lived to return home.

WWII

Suicide or Surrender

By William Lubbeck and David Hurt

BACKSTORY: Wilhelm Lubbeck served as an enlisted man in the 58th Infantry Division on the Eastern Front during Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union before being promoted to lieutenant. Read more

Following one of many harrowing Luftwaffe raids against London, rescue workers comb through the rubble of a structure looking for survivors. The people of London and other British cities endured many nights of bombing during the Blitz of 1940-1941.

WWII

Night of Devastation

By David Alan Johnson

The first word of the incoming Luftwaffe raid arrived at about 10:45 p.m. on the night of Saturday, May 10, 1941. Read more

The Bismarck had tremendous firepower. She is shown firing her four double 15-inch guns in a modern painting.

WWII

Trapping the Bismarck

By John Protasio

Baron Burkhard von Mullenheim-Rechberg’s life was in danger. An officer aboard the German battleship Bismarck, Mullenheim-Rechberg was at his station as his ship was trading salvos with several British warships. Read more

WWII

Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?

By Mark Carlson

With all it had going for it, how did Germany manage to lose World War II? There are many answers to this deceptively simple question, including the obvious one that the Allies had the technical and industrial advantage. Read more

Corporal Alvin York of the U.S. 82nd Division received the Medal of Honor for cutting down a large group of Germans at close-quarters with his Colt M1911 during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

WWII

The Colt 1911

By Christopher Miskimon

Petty Officer R. J. Thomas, a U.S. Navy SEAL, wound up in deep trouble one day in 1969. Read more

Fw-190D-13/R11, named ‘Yellow Ten,” was flown by Franz Götz of JG-26. Götz is shown preparing to surrender at the Luftwaffe airbase at Flensburg near the Danish frontier in the spring of 1945 after the airfield was captured by advancing Allied forces. The original plane has been restored and now resides in the collection of the Champlin Fighter Museum. Painting by Jack Fellows.

WWII

The Luftwaffe’s Sturmvogel

By David H. Lippman

An American advertising poster for one of their bombers showed a cartoon of a smiling pilot over the captioned question, “Who’s afraid of the big Focke-Wulf?” Read more

Smoke billows from distant fires and a German shell explodes on the beach at Dunkirk as Allied soldiers await evacuation from the east mole or directly into the surf in Operation Dynamo, May-June 1940.

WWII

Captain George Tennant, Dunkirk Architect

By Jon Diamond

As aptly stated by historian Max Hastings in his book Warriors, “the leaders most readily admired by fellow-soldiers are those who seem committed to do their duty, and also to bring every possible man home alive.” Read more

This artist’s rendering depicts the proposed aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy made out of ice, and its relative size compared to the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable.

WWII

Back-room Genius of World War II

By Frank Johnson

While the Battle of Britain raged and a German invasion was feared in the sunny, tense summer of 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill took time to create an organization that would exemplify his offensive spirit, his love of gadgets and innovations, and his use of cronies. Read more

Dauntlesses dive bombers and Wildcat fighters from the USS Ranger attack German shipping in Bodo harbor in northern Norway in a painting by Mark Postlethwaite.

WWII

Carrier Strike in Norway

By Christopher Miskimon

The morning sun arose late in the North Atlantic Ocean on October 4, 1943. In the far northern latitudes 100 miles off the coast of Norway, the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) slid smoothly through the icy waters, turning into the wind to launch its aircraft. Read more