WWII Archives

Layton intercepted Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s itinerary. Army P-38s rose to shoot down the admiral’s plane on a inspection tour of Bougainville in 1943.

WWII

Edwin T. Layton

By Mike Mclaughlin

On the morning of December 31, 1941, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz assumed command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Read more

The USS West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arizona smolder and smoke in the aftermath of the surprise aerial attack by a fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers.

WWII

When Lt. Cmdr. Matsuo Fuchida, commander of the Japanese strike force at Pearl Harbor, arrived over the naval base on the morning of December 7, 1941, the sight that greeted him—enemy battleships resting placidly at anchor—put him in mind of an earlier war. Read more

A Luftwaffe decal attached to its helmet.

WWII

Collecting German Helmets of World War II

By Peter Suciu

In the annals of 20th-century warfare the modern combat helmet has easily become one of the most recognizable pieces of battlefield equipment. Read more

Advancing past a knocked-out Mk IV panzer, an American infantry patrol picks its way through the rubble of a Normandy village, wrecked during the Operation Cobra bombings. Cobra was launched to break through the second line of German defenses and regain the momentum lost after the initial Operation Overlord landings.

WWII

Normandy Breakout

By Brian Todd Carey

Concentrated against the beaches of Normandy on June 6, Operation Overlord landed 9 army divisions plus support troops on five beaches in anticipation of a breakout across France and toward Berlin. Read more

WWII

Better Or Best: The B-17 Vs. The B-24

By Sam McGowan

One of the most frequently discussed arguments to come out of World War II is which was the “better” bomber, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Read more

British prisoners march off under German guard after the capture of Tobruk. Rommel was aided in this astonishing coup of June 1942 by knowledge of British plans intercepted from messages by the U.S. Military Attaché in Cairo.

WWII

Colonel Bonner Fellers

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, renowned as “the Desert Fox,” was a master of mobility and maneuver warfare during the see-saw North African campaign of World War II. Read more

Fleming with the first movie James Bond, Sean Connery.

WWII

Ian Fleming: Biography of the Man Behind James Bond

By Peter Kros

Ian Fleming’s biography would certainly include creating the famous British spy James Bond, but the author also led a secret life of his own. Read more

WWII

Before the Battle of the Bulge: Forming the 551st “GOYAs”

By Donald Roberts II

By summer’s end 1944 Adolf Hitler, along with much of his staff, began to realize that Germany was in serious danger of losing the war. Read more

A GI rushes past the hulk of a burning German tank, destroyed by the resurgent Americans who first fought their enemy on land at Kasserine.

WWII

American Baptism of Fire at Kasserine Pass

By Roy Morris, Jr.

The North African sky was clear and cold on the evening of February 13, 1943, as American General Dwight D. Read more

Abandoned casemates of the Maginot Line stand as silent and futile sentinels in the wake of the victorious Wehrmacht.

WWII

The French Maginot Line: Its Full History and Legacy after WWII

By Flint Whitlock

Like a disjointed, moss-covered, concrete serpent, the French Maginot Line snakes some 800 miles, from the Mediterranean border with Italy northward, until it disappears near the North Sea. Read more

WWII

Air Force Profiles: Pilot Phil Cochran

By Gerald Astor

Superficially, Phil Cochran personified the WWII fighter pilot, a combat daredevil, nonchalant about the niceties of rank and zealous in pursuit of what he called “chicks.” Read more

WWII

Bloody Betio: The Assault on Tarawa

By Al Hemingway

Pfc. Clayton Jay of Lamesa, Texas, was watching the sunrise from the attack transport Zeilin in the early morning hours of November 19, 1943. Read more

WWII

The USS England’s Hedgehog Weapons System

By A.B. Feuer

In the Spring of 1944, Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda assembled a large fleet of warships at Tawi-Tawi in the southern Philippine Islands. Read more

German fighters take on American P-47 Thunderbolts from the 56th Fighter Group, 61st Fighter Squadron near the Dutch border in March 1944. The center plane, “Our Gal Sal,” was piloted by Lieutenant Robert Shoens.

WWII

Victory Delayed: The Battle for Air Supremacy in World War II

By Eric Hammel

The popular conception of the struggle in the air over northern Europe during World War II is of squadrons of sleek fighters racing over the German heartland to protect contrailed streams of lumbering bombers stretching beyond sight. Read more

WWII

Operation Overlord’s Colonel Alexis von Roenne

By David Alan Johnson

During the early part of 1944, an event took place that would change the outcome of World War II. Read more

During the opening hours of Operation Goodwood, a Sherman tank carrying infantrymen, a Sherman flail tank nicknamed a “Crab,” and a halftrack serving as an ambulance await orders to advance on July 18, 1944. Caen was a D-Day objective, but the Allies were required to fight for weeks to capture the town.

WWII

Capturing Caen

By Alan Davidge

One of the most important tasks for Allied troops after the D-Day landing was to seize the city of Caen, nine miles behind Sword Beach. Read more

WWII

Remembering a great leader on the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe, was unleashed on the Nazis on D-Day—June 6, 1944—on the orders of one man. Read more

Medics, who have lost most of their supplies, still treat the wounded on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, in this mural by Keith Rocco. Center, left, bandaging a soldier’s leg is medic Charles Norman Shay, of the Penobscot Indian Nation, who received a Silver Star. Further to the left is wounded African American medic Waverly Woodson, Jr., who is helping a fellow soldier crawl forward. Woodson, who treated more than 200 men before collapsing after 30 hours, received a Bronze Star.

WWII

The Big Red One on D-Day

By Kevin Seabrooke

In celebration and commemoration of the courageous actions of the “The Big Red One” during the Allied Invasion of Normandy, the First Division Museum at Cantigny has unveiled two interpretive murals and a companion book outlining both the story of First Division on D-Day and the making of the murals by artist Keith Rocco. Read more