WWII Archives

An artist’s depiction of the USS Indianapolis disaster. The cruiser, with nearly 1,200 men aboard, sank within 12 minutes of being torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58 on July 30, 1945; only 316 men survived after several days in the shark-infested waters. (Painting by maritime artist Chris Mayger)

WWII

A Survivor’s Tale

By Flint Whitlock

The mission was top secret. The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) had just delivered the last parts of the atomic bomb from California to the island of Tinian and was heading, unescorted, to Guam when it was intercepted by a Japanese submarine, the I-58, and torpedoed on July 30, 1945. Read more

Searchlights stab into the darkness as Royal Navy warships illuminate Italian cruisers during the Battle of Cape Matapan. Prince Philip served aboard the battleship HMS Valiant during the decisive naval victory over Mussolini’s fleet.

WWII

Prince Philip’s War

By Michael E. Haskew

The son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Prince Philip was the last of five children and a great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria. 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

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

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

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

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

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

The American soldier at right covers two Germans captured north of Lorient France in August 1944 with his M-3 submachine gun.

WWII

The M-3 “Grease-Gun” showcases Yankee ingenuity at its ugly best.

By David J. Little

As America geared up for war, the economy of building a wartime army was overwhelming. Tanks, aircraft, soldiers and weapons—all would consume huge resources, and manufacturers were challenged to reduce costs wherever they could. Read more

Disabled automobiles lie abandoned in the street of a French village south of the major port city of Cherbourg. In this image soldiers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division move cautiously through the area.

WWII

Cherbourg’s Bloody Toll

By Pat McTaggart

It was June 1944. Two generals, one American and one German, faced each other with diametrically opposed missions. Read more

American soldiers splash ashore at Anzio, Italy, during an end run expected to compromise the German defenses of the Gustav Line. The landings failed to achieve the desired results and remain controversial to this day.

WWII

Prudence or Paralysis?

By Steve Ossad

Hitler called it an “abscess.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the chief sponsor and loudest cheerleader for the endeavor, grudgingly proclaimed it “a disaster.” Read more

Australians expand and improve the Italian defenses at Tobruk in February 1941 in anticipation of an attack by Axis forces in a painting by Australian war artist Ivor Hele. Two months later, Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps began probing the Allied defenses at the key Libyan port.

WWII

Rommel Repulsed

By Robert Heege

It was the first week of April 1941, and Lt. Gen. Richard O’Connor could scarcely believe what was happening as his driver suddenly cocked the wheel and swerved hard left, flooring the gas pedal in a futile attempt to outrun the multiple bursts of machine-gun fire erupting all around them, lighting up the Saharan night as bullets chased after his wheels. Read more

The 809th Tank Destroyer Battalion prepares to move out from the French port of Le Havre on January 22, 1945. The equipment consists of M20 command and reconnaissance cars belonging to the 809th’s A Company. The M20 was a variant of the M8 Greyhound, with the turret and 37mm cannon removed.

WWII

Tank Destroyers in Action! Photos of the 809th on the Front

By Neal Fausset

The 809th Tank Destroyer Battalion was an independently attached unit of the U.S. Army. The battalion was activated on March 18, 1942, at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and remained in the United States through most of the war. Read more

WWII

Turning Point In The Pacific

By Michael E. Haskew

Despite more than a decade of triumphs in Asia and the Pacific, by the spring of 1942 the Japanese military establishment was in a somber mood. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

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Heyde Toy Soldiers

The Battle of Bentonville: General Joseph E. Johnston’s Last Stand

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