WWII

WWII

Bridge House Hotel: Crimes of the Kempeitai in Shanghai

By Eric Niderost

By the 1930s, Shanghai was already a legend in its own time––the most modern, populous, and decadent city in China. Read more

WWII

The Kempeitai: Japan’s Dreaded “Gestapo”

By Eric Niderost

In Western countries, “military police” are associated in the public mind with keeping order among off-duty personnel, such as arresting drunken servicemen. Read more

WWII

Battle of the Bulge POWs: One Man’s Story of Capture

By David H. Lippman

Nobody knew it in the 6th Armored Divisions 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, but the tide of the Battle of the Bulge had turned by the time the outfit moved into snow-covered fields and forests near Bastogne. Read more

WWII

Battle of the Bulge Tank Duel On Christmas Eve

By Christopher Miskimon

The Battle of the Bulge is famously known as the largest battle fought by the U.S. Army in World War II. Read more

WWII

Night of the Bloody Tiger: German Raid on a D-Day Exercise

By Michael D. Hull

Operation Bolero, the marshaling of Allied forces for the planned 1944 invasion of Normandy, was in full swing by late 1943, and much of England had been turned into a great armed camp. Read more

WWII

Amazing Photography of Normandy: D-Day Plus 1 Year

By Kevin M. Hymel

On June 6, 1945, two Stars & Stripes newspaper reporters traveled to Normandy with a mission: to photograph the effects of the year-old D-Day landings on the beaches, towns, and fields. Read more

WWII

D-Day: Over Normandy: A New Drone’s Eye View of the Iconic Beachhead

New technology has shaped the way we view our past. Breakthroughs in Computer Graphics, editing, and videography have allowed documentary filmmakers to present stories from different angles in order to enhance the viewer’s appreciation and understanding of a topic. Read more

WWII

WW2 Stories: 5 Compelling First-Hand Accounts from D-Day

The invasion of Normandy was one of the most audacious military campaigns in history. Nearly three million Allied personnel would participate in or support the Normandy operations. Read more

WWII

D-Day Casualties: Operation Overlord by the Numbers

The largest amphibious invasion in history began on the night of June 5-6, with the roar of C-47 engines preparing to take off , and climaxed on the beaches of Normandy. Read more

WWII

The WW2 Paratrooper: First-Hand Accounts of the D-Day Invasion

By Kevin M. Hymel

What was it like to be a WW2 paratrooper, parachuting into Normandy in the opening minutes of June 6, 1944—D-Day? Read more

WWII

The Scholarly Spies

By Tim Miller

Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more

WWII

Death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

By Phil Zimmer

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, intended to press ahead with his morale-boosting visits to forward units in the South Pacific in April 1943, despite dire warnings from subordinates of possible enemy ambushes. Read more

WWII

Heroic Fight for Wake Island

By Joshua Donohue

“All hands have behaved splendidly and held up in a manner in which the Marine Corps may well tell.” Read more

WWII

Innovative Soviet Fighter Ace

By Christopher J. Chlon

According to contemporary Soviet news sources, fighter Ace Alexander Pokryshkin was the most famous pilot in the Red Air Force during World War II. Read more

WWII

B-29 Production

Written by: Joe Kirby

By Joe Kirby

When Maj. Gen. Curtis Lemay, the hard-driving commander of the Twentieth U.S. Air Force based in Guam, decided to change tactics in early 1945 to boost the effectiveness of the B-29 Superfortress, it was the Bell Aircraft plant in Marietta, Georgia, that ultimately provided him with the stripped-down bombers that played such a key role in ending the war in the Pacific. Read more

WWII

The P38 Can Opener: WWII’s “Other” P-38

By Richard A. Beranty

Far down on the list of important inventions essential to victory in World War II is a modest gadget built of stamped metal called the GI Pocket Can Opener—commonly known as the P-38 can opener—which was used by American troops in the field to sever the lids off combat rations. Read more

WWII

Sinking the USS Reuben James

By Joseph Connor, Jr.

When the destroyer USS Reuben James (DD-245) was assigned to convoy duty in the North Atlantic in the autumn of 1941, its crew had a sense of foreboding and feared the worst. Read more

WWII

Ford’s Willow Run Factory

By Samantha L. Quigley

They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more

WWII

Panzer Fury in Hungary

By John E. Spindler

Even in the dark days of March 1945, when the Third Reich was on the brink of collapse, its troops managed to exhibit that grim humor that enables frontline soldiers to endure the horrors of battle. Read more

WWII

Storm Birds Wreak Havoc

By Phil Zimmer

Vasily Emelianenko led a flight of Soviet Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmoviks, or “Storm Birds,” in late June 1942 against a German-held airfield near Artemovsk in eastern Ukraine, flying low up a deep ravine to avoid detection. Read more