WWII Archives

WWII

A List of American Commanders in WWII Who Lost Their Lives

By Thomas R. Cagley

General George S. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” Read more

German soldiers enter a French village during the opening hours of the Ardennes Offensive of December 1944. Intelligence reports of a German buildup of men and materiel were virtually ignored by senior American commanders in the days leading up to the offensive.

WWII

The Allies’ Near-Catastrophic Intelligence Failure

By Michael Hull

After the tumultuous liberation of Paris and the German Army’s eastward flight from France, Allied hopes rose high in the late summer and autumn of 1944. Read more

B-17 tail gunner Ken Tucker thought his crew's luck had run out on a raid over Germany—just as flak had ripped into the wing of this Flying Fortress over Vienna in February 1945. But he managed to complete 35 missions with only one wound.

WWII

Diary of a B-17 Tail Gunner

By Allyn Vannoy

Just after releasing their bomb-load, flak slammed into the B-17, causing it to go out of control, falling fast. Read more

WWII

Major General Edward L. Spears

By Jon Diamond

On May 22, 1940, within a fortnight of being appointed Britain’s prime minister, Winston S. Churchill was confronted with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), under Lord Gort, retreating from Belgium. Read more

In this painting by Marine Corps artist John McDermott, a pair of flamethrowing tanks belch fire into a narrow ravine where Japanese troops have taken cover, while Marines move up warily, crouching behind the steel hulls of the armored vehicles. The Marines invaded Peleliu, in the Palaus Island Group, on September 15, 1944.

WWII

Terrible Trial on Peleliu

By Michael E. Haskew

It was a bold prediction. “Rough but fast … We’ll be through in three days. It might only take two.” Read more

The USS Langley, the first operational aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy, was converted from the fleet collier Jupiter in 1922. The carrier served as the cradle of U.S. naval aviation and was nicknamed “Covered Wagon” due to its resemblance to the wagons that crossed the American West in the 1800s.

WWII

USS Langley: The U.S. Navy’s Covered Wagon

By Frank Johnson

Five years after Great Britain had launched HMS Argus, the world’s first aircraft carrier, in 1917, and following the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty on February 6, 1922, the U.S. Read more

Joe Dimaggio, the famed Yankee Clipper, steals home during a game against the Chicago White Sox in May 1942. Dimaggio set a record the previous season for his 56-game hitting streak.

WWII

Baseball Goes to War

By Roy Morris Jr.

In December 1941, after four decades of play in the same sixteen eastern and midwestern cities, major league baseball was finally coming to the west coast. Read more

The Cromwell tank of Captain Roy Dunlop and another just to the rear with smoke billowing from it are shown near Point 213 after being immobilized by Tiger tanks east of Villers-Bocage. Both British tanks belonged to A Squadron, County of London Yeomanry.

WWII

Tigers Triumphant at Villers-Bocage

By Michael E. Haskew

On D-day, June 6, 1944, the British 3rd Infantry Division was the first to land on Sword Beach. Read more

WWII

American Eagles Over Dieppe

By David Alan Johnson

All the pilots of No. 71 (Eagle) Squadron, Royal Air Force, had been ordered to report to the briefing room on the afternoon of August 18, 1942. Read more

WWII

Was Rudolf Hess Murdered?

By Mason B. Webb

In 1979, Dr. Hugh Thomas, a British physician, came out with a highly controversial book that made the startling claim that Nazi Germany’s Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, did not commit suicide in Berlin’s Spandau Prison in 1987, but actually died in 1941, and that the man who died in prison was, in reality, Hess’s double! Read more

WWII

French Commandos Land on D-Day

By John E. Spindler

Aboard one of two LCIs carrying French commandos approaching the Normandy coast, Lieutenant-Commander (Capitaine de Corvette) Philippe Kieffer looked at his watch. Read more

WWII

The Sinking of Unterseeboot-85

By Erik Petkovic

On September 3, 1939, when Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, the Kriegsmarine only had 46 operational U-boats, the majority of which were used for training. Read more

New recruits wearing soft headgear board a C-47 for their first practice jump.

WWII

How Paratroopers Earned Their Wings

Photo Essay By Kevin M. Hymel

Every American soldier who jumped into North Africa, Europe, the Philippines, and other combat zones around the globe during World War II had to first learn his trade at Fort Benning, Georgia. Read more

Short-barreled Panzer IVs advance through the mountains of northern Tunisia. At Kasserine Pass, German panzer columns blasted American tanks and then encircled isolated U.S. infantry units.

WWII

Panzer Strike at Kasserine Pass

By Mike Phifer

Ignoring the swirling sands stirred up by the fierce winds of the Sahara Desert in the early morning hours of February 14, 1943, Generalleutnant Heinz Ziegler ordered his panzer columns forward to attack the American forces deployed in central Tunisia. Read more

WWII

“Butch” O’Hare: the Original Top Gun

By Patrick Reynolds

Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare rocketed to fame in February 1942 by singlehandedly taking on eight Japanese torpedo bombers bent on destroying the aircraft carrier USS Lexington and shooting down several of them. Read more

Real paratroopers or fake? The Allies were inspired to use dummy parachutists from the Germans, who deployed decoys during their 1940 attack on the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael. (Shown here are real Americans during Operation Market Garden.)

WWII

Operations Titanic’s Paradummies

By Richard L. Baker

Using parachutes to insert large forces behind enemy lines quickly fostered the idea of also using decoys to sow doubt and confusion. Read more

WWII

Breaching the Gothic Line

By Michael E. Haskew

A last line of defense in Italy was necessary, but for senior German commanders it was unthinkable that it could ever be contested by Allied forces. Read more

French Maquis resistance fighters during the liberation of France (1944–1945). Operating from rural strongholds, these guerrillas played a vital role in sabotaging German lines of communication and aiding the Allied advance.

WWII

Nancy Wake

By Kevin Seabrooke

On the eve of Operation Overlord, members of the French Resistance cut dozens of major long-distance and underground cables the Germans had installed during their occupation of France—forcing them to use radios vulnerable to interception by Allied intelligence—just as they faced the largest amphibious assault in history. Read more

WWII

The 28th Infantry Division Stands

By Nathan N. Prefer

On September 16, 1944, Adolf Hitler revealed his master plan for reversing Germany’s declining fortunes in the West during World War II. Read more

WWII

German U-Boats: Scapa Flow Shock

By Jon Latimer

World War II had been in progress for six weeks when on the evening of October 12, 1939, the German submarine U-47 surfaced off the Orkney Islands at the northern tip of Scotland. Read more

WWII

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