WWII

WWII

The B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the Man Behind the Plane

During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more

WWII

Eleanor Roosevelt and Admiral Halsey

Prim, proper, and lacking any trace of braggadocio, the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, preferred placid pastimes and exchanging letters with close friends. Read more

WWII

The Most Serious Reverse

The HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger liner afloat, took only five days to transport the entire 106th Division from New Jersey to Glasgow, Scotland, making port on November 17, 1944. Read more

WWII

German Heer Infantryman, Battle of the Bulge

The German unified armed forces were renamed Wehrmacht “defense force” from 1935 to 1945, comprising the Heer (army), Kriegsmarine (navy) and Luftwaffe (air force)—all distinctly separate from the paramilitary Waffen Schutzstaffel “armed-protection squad” of the Nazi Party. Read more

WWII

Tough Fight at Mook

In the midst of the ambitious Operation Market-Garden, Brigadier General James M. Gavin, 82nd Airborne Division Commander, first heard about the crisis at Mook, along the Maas River, from his chief of staff, Lt. Read more

WWII

Britain’s Decisive Aerial Victory

“I say, better wake up.”

Red Tobin opened one eye, rolled over, and found his squadron mate, Pilot Officer John Dundas, shaking him by the shoulder and staring into his face. Read more

WWII

WWII Weapons: M3 37mm Antitank Gun

The men of Lieutenant Edwin K. Smith’s antitank platoon, 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division peered over the gun shields of their 37mm cannon at the column of Vichy French armored cars approaching their roadblock. Read more

WWII

Delaying Action at Enchenberg

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

WWII

The Heroic Voyages of the USS Gwin

Lieutenant Commander John Benjamin Fellows, the skipper of the American Gleaves-class destroyer USS Gwin (DD-433), stood on the bridge trying to see into the predawn blackness. Read more

WWII

A Time of Unreasoning Hatred

On February 28, 1942, Governor Ralph Lawrence Carr of Colorado received a telegram from the White House. At that moment he was in his office, surrounded by staff, but routine business had to be put on hold while Carr quickly scanned the missive that came directly from the president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Read more

WWII

Outfoxed in Burma

While the soldiers and officers of the Japanese 15th Army fought fiercely to defend Mandalay in central Burma, they were alarmed to discover that British and Indian troops were dangerously close to capturing their supply depot at Meiktila, 90 miles to their rear. Read more

WWII

Operation Tidal Wave Takes Aim at Ploesti

If there was a name of a prospective target that caused Allied airmen in the European Theater of Operations to blanch in the fall of 1943 and the spring of 1944, it was Ploesti. Read more

WWII

From Doughboy to GI Helmet

When the United States Army mobilized for defense in the fall of 1940, the peacetime draftees, National Guardsmen, reservists, and regulars carried Model 1903 Springfield rifles; the Guardsmen wore puttees; and all the soldiers covered their heads with the doughboy helmet—head-to-foot relics of World War I. Read more

WWII

Roads to Bastogne

The Ardennes Forest in eastern Belgium seemed almost surreal in the last days of autumn 1944, a quiet backwater in a raging storm. Read more

WWII

Locating the Altmark: An RAF Rescue Mission Beyond Compare

On the morning of February 16, 1940, two Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson aircraft lifted off from Thornaby Airfield in northern England. Read more

WWII

Creating the OSS: FDR’s Network of Personal Spies

One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more

WWII

An Army Combat Engineer’s Story of the D-Day Invasion

Nineteen-year-old army combat engineer Jay Rencher blinked the salt spray from his eyes, filled his lungs, and again plunged beneath the cold, roiling waves. Read more

WWII

Battle of the Philippine Sea & The ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’

Lieutenant Tom Bronn glanced anxiously at the fuel gauge on his Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. He had been aloft for almost four hours, engaged in a hectic combination of trying to locate Japanese ships he knew to be in the Philippine Sea, diving down to unleash his four bombs at a carrier as dusk enveloped his aircraft, and then embarking on a desperate search for his own carrier, the USS Lexington, in the darkness. Read more

WWII

WWII Vehicles: The Czech Panzer 38(t)

Poland, the Netherlands, France, the Balkans, and Russia were subjected to Germany’s blitzkrieg between 1939 and 1941. At the forefront of those assaults were tanks of Czechoslovakian design. Read more

WWII

Tough Stand of the Golden Lions

When the men of the newly arrived 106th Infantry “Golden Lions” Division arrived on the front lines near St. Read more