WWII

WWII

Rescue Plane Down

By Kevin M. Hymel

“Awe c’mon, Mom,” Cecil Petty told his emotional mother before leaving Homer, Illinois, in February 1941. “Who knows, I might be a hero.” Read more

WWII

Insight: Bombing the Abbey

By Duane Schultz

For the thousands of Allied soldiers who had fought and suffered for so long in the shadow of the abbey of Monte Cassino, Tuesday morning, February 15, 1944, was a time of joy and celebration. Read more

WWII

Race to Moscow

By Victor Kamenir

The troops of Germany’s Army Group Center were more than a week into a fresh offensive to capture Moscow on July 14 when they approached the historic battlefield of Borodino where the Russians delayed Napoleon’s advance on Moscow in 1812. Read more

WWII

The Red Ass Squadron Goes to War

By Charles W. Sasser

Unlike bomber crews that went home if they survived a designated number of missions, World War II fighter pilots like Lieutenant Jim Carl, 354th Fighter Group, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), flew until the war ended, they got shot down over enemy territory and were captured, or they died. Read more

WWII

The Bridges at Nijmegen

By Christopher Miskimon

Lieutenant Colonel Ben Vandervoort’s 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (2/505) was fighting its way through the Dutch town of Nijmegen on September 19, 1944. Read more

WWII

Hard Road to the Rhine

By Michael D. Hull

January 1945—with World War II in its sixth year—found the Allied armies going on the offensive after the Battle of the Bulge, but they were still west of the Rhine and six weeks behind schedule in their advance toward Germany. Read more

WWII

Soldiers: A Forgotten Hero

By Nathan N. Prefer

He led the American drive up the New Guinea coast, took his troops ashore on Leyte and Luzon in the Philippines, and was designated by the Allied supreme commander in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, to lead the planned invasion of Japan itself. Read more

WWII

Gavin’s Sky Soldiers

By Joshua Shepherd

By mid-afternoon on September 20, 1944, the deceptively placid waters of Holland’s Waal River were wreathed in dense clouds of smoke. Read more

WWII

The Legend of the Black Sheep

In the 1970s, actor Robert Conrad starred in Baa Baa Black Sheep, leading a band of brawling, hard-drinking U.S. Marine fighter pilots flying their Vought F4U Corsairs against the best Japanese fighter jockeys in the Solomon Islands, and the show became a staple of weeknight television viewing. Read more

WWII

More World War II in the News

Hardly a month goes by that there isn’t something related to World War II in the news. Here’s a sampling of some recent news items—all from February 2019:

Identification Sought

On January 3, 1944, the destroyer USS Turner (DD-648) exploded under still mysterious circumstances near the entrance to New York Harbor. Read more

From Around the Network

  • Military Games

    Game Review: Days of War
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  • Smoke from his cigar curls upward as an SS officer and his detachment pause at a road sign directing traffic toward the village of Malmedy, Belgium, during the opening hours of the German Ardennes offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. In a field near Malmedy, troops under the command of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper committed one of the most infamous battlefield atrocities of World War II.

    WWII

    Adolf Hitler Sends Joachim Peiper to the Bulge
    Read More
  • As military games continue to grow in scope and detail, does their portrayal of history also improve? A look at this question and Brothers in Arms 3.

    Military Games

    Game Features: Do Games Mislead Us About History?
    Read More

  • WWII

    Target: America’s West Coast
    Read More