WWII

WWII

Slogging into the Reichswald

By David H. Lippman

(Continued from Part 1 in the August 2020 issue)

Just after midnight on February 9, 1945, across the diamond-shaped mass of forest, hills, and flooded terrain that defined the Reichswald, rain fell in a steady downpour upon a battlefield that had already seen some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Read more

Fire from the guns of the Australian cruiser HMAS Perth splits the darkness in the opening moments of the Battle of Sunda Strait on February 25, 1942. The Australian vessel and the American cruiser Houston were lost in action against the Japanese.

WWII

Heroic Fight Against Long Odds

By John Wukovits

The haggard American sailors aboard the limping cruiser hoped that the journey upon which they had just embarked was the long-expected voyage back to the United States. Read more

Polish troops engage in field exercises in April 1939, just five months before the Nazi invasion of their country and the outbreak of World War II. Some Poles initially thought the Soviet Army was there to help them.

WWII

Invasion from the East

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

It was a quiet dinner on a side street in Berlin the evening of June 26, 1939, but more than food would be devoured that night. Read more

WWII

Australia’s Heroic Son

By Christopher Miskimon

John Hurst Edmondson, known to his friends as Jack, died April 14, 1941, lying on the concrete floor of a sand-swept fighting outpost in the perimeter around Tobruk, Libya. Read more

WWII

Rethinking D-Day

By Blaine Taylor

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

Residents of an English town gather around an Army band to listen to their favorite songs in Band Concert by Olin Dows. Many of the songs that were written and performed during World War II are standards today.

WWII

World War II Music

By Sheldon Winkler

Some of the most memorable and enduring popular music of the 20th century was written during World War II. Read more

Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, founder of the Lebensborn Program, talks with a young Ukrainian boy. Many children were essentially kidnapped from occupied countries and given to German parents.

WWII

Children for Hitler

By Brent Douglas Dyck

By 1936, 18-year-old Hildegard Koch had reached a crossroads in her young life as she finished her schooling. 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

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu holds up six fingers signifying the number of Japanese aircraft that fell to his guns during an eight-minute span on a single mission.

WWII

The Setting Sun

By David H. Lippmann

Once again, the Japanese regarded an upcoming naval engagement as the “decisive battle,” but it had been two years since her aircraft carriers and battleships had emerged from their Inland Sea lairs to menace the United States Navy. Read more

The first U.S. M4 Sherman enters the German city of Aachen through a hole opened in the railroad station entrance by a tank dozer—German defenders had demolished a viaduct on the main avenue into Aachen, slowing the Americans’ progress.

WWII

Smashing in to Germany

By William R. Hogan

Task force commander Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hogan, eager to get any advantage over the entrenched enemy of the 12th Infantry Division, requested a section of M2 flamethrowers from the 23rd Engineer Battalion. Read more

Allied vessels burning after a Luftwaffe raid on the Italian port of Bari on December 2, 1943, sank 27 cargo and transport ships, including the US Liberty ship John Harvey—with a secret cargo of 2,000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs, each holding 60–70 lbs of the chemical agent.

WWII

The SS John Harvey’s Mustard Gas Disaster

By Neil Taylor

Ensign Kay Kopl Vesole, USNR, did not like being a sitting duck. Normally he would have enjoyed the warm Italian sunshine, but as commander of the Navy Armed Guard aboard the John Bascom, a 7,176-ton Liberty ship, he was not permitted to relax while his ship lay moored in crowded Bari harbor, a small though vital port on the heel of Italy. Read more

Standing on what is most likely a PzKpfw. III, a German tank commander scans the desert horizon in North Africa. The battle-hardened forces of Gen. Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps would inflict a stinging defeat on the Americans at Tunisia’s Kasserine Pass in February 1943

WWII

Chaos Pass

By David Lippman

The message was sent to a staff officer for Brig. Gen. Paul Robinett to read, and it made very little sense. Read more

An amphibious DUKW landing vehicle burns in the background of this photo as US Marines have taken cover on the landing beach near Asan, Guam. The image was taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, who would take the iconic photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima six months later.

WWII

Hitting the Beach at Guam

By David Alan Johnson

Sometime during the middle of July 1944, a well-meaning war correspondent asked an officer with the Third Marine Division if his men were ready for the landings on Guam. Read more

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