WWII
For some Americans, World War II started early. In December 1937, four years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into the war, Japanese planes attacked an American gunboat, the USS Panay, on China’s Yangtze River, strafing and bombing the boat, sinking it, killing three American crew members, and the wounding 45 others. Read more
WWII
The column of sweaty, exhausted Japanese soldiers trudged single file through the thick, dark jungle. For days they had been pushing inland from the western end of Guadalcanal. Read more
WWII
Gerald “Zulu” Lewis peered from his Hurricane and spotted 20 German Bf-110s circling with a heavy escort of fast and deadly Bf-109 fighters over Redhill, south of London. Read more
WWII
The two exits from the American landing zones at Utah Beach were entrusted to the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Read more
WWII
The elite German paratroopers, who were some of the finest fighters in the service of the Third Reich, believed they were exceptionally well prepared to defend the deep water port of Brest on France’s Brittany coast against an impending attack by the Allies. Read more
WWII
Captain William Tennant stood on the deck of the Wolfhound, grimily observing the progress of a German air raid as his ship approached Dunkirk. Read more
WWII
The first time Adolf Hitler ventured into the captured territory of the Soviet Union was six weeks into the campaign on August 4, 1941, when he traveled to Borisov to the headquarters of Army Group Center and its commander, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. Read more
WWII
The Hungarian capital of Budapest is more than just a city. It is actually three cities in one, each with just a bit of unique color and flare. Read more
WWII
On board one of the transports headed for the island of Saipan in early June 1944, a battalion surgeon gave a group of Marines a lecture on what they could expect when they reached their destination. Read more
WWII
On September 4, 1944, tanks of the British 11th Armored Division lumbered into the outskirts of Antwerp, Belgium. Read more
WWII
In the summer of 1940, the world watched with rapt attention as the citizens, airmen, sailors, and soldiers of Great Britain steeled themselves for imminent invasion by the victorious German Army. Read more
WWII
They had been staring at it for the past four months. That small, rubble-strewn town of Cisterna di Littoria in central Italy just inland from the ports of Anzio-Nettuno, had become their nemesis. Read more
WWII
It was at the grand banquet given in his honor that General William “Wild Bill” Donovan told his host, General Dai Li, that the OSS intended to work on its own in China and that he wanted no interference from the Chinese. Read more
WWII
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, considered General Alfonse Juin to be the best French combat general of the conflict. Read more
WWII
There was tight security and feverish activity on the dock at the Hunters Point Navy Shipyard in San Francisco Bay around 3 am on Monday, July 16, 1945. Read more
WWII
Immediately after the Japanese attack on the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese realized that the oil reserves needed to carry on their new war against the Western powers were not as adequate as first thought. Read more
WWII
It was the most exciting scene Associated Press correspondent Robert St. John had yet witnessed in the career he had abandoned for five years to farm in New Hampshire then returned to when he sensed that war was coming. Read more
WWII
During the last half of 1944, the Wehrmacht in the east had been forced to cede just about everything it had conquered since the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union in June 1941. Read more
WWII
On November 11, 1943, under cover of darkness, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his key aides sailed down the Potomac River to the new battleship USS Iowa, there to meet with three of the four American members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff—Admiral Ernest J. Read more
WWII
By May 8, 1945, Adolf Hitler had been dead for more than a week. Germany was in the act of formally surrendering to the Soviets and the Western Allies, so occupying Red Army troops in the eastern German town of Brunn were not expecting to witness what may have been World War II’s last dogfight over Europe. Read more
