WWII

WWII

Operation Fustian: Airborne Assault on the Bridges to Catania

By Mark Simmons

‘‘As I floated down, the whole dropping zone seemed to be on fire; tracer bullets had set the tinder-dry stubble alight. Read more

WWII

Japanese American National Museum

By Mason B. Webb

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, many Japanese Americans, especially those living on the West Coast, were suspected of being possible spies, saboteurs, and disloyal Americans. Read more

WWII

Battle of Midway: Story of a Yorktown Survivor

By Carol Edgemon Hipperson

BACKSTORY: After working in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Idaho, Ray Daves enlisted in the Navy in the spring of 1938 and reported for basic training the following year. Read more

WWII

Rankin C: The Occupation of Germany

By Michael E. Haskew

Almost from the beginning, the fractious alliance that defeated Nazi Germany was in peril. The United States and Great Britain had long distrusted the communist regime of the Soviet Union, and the feeling was strongly mutual. Read more

WWII

Last Stand at Völkerschlachtdenkmal: The Battle of Leipzig, 1945

By Michael E. Haskew

In October 1813, the combined allied armies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Saxony, and Württemberg met and defeated the French Grand Armee under Napoleon Bonaparte at the German city of Leipzig, forcing him to retreat and hastening his eventual abdication and exile to the island of Elba. Read more

WWII

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver: An Unpopular and Flawed Allied War Machine

By Robert F. Dorr

It sent Japanese warships to the bottom of the ocean. It pulverized fortifications on Japan’s home islands. Read more

WWII

Tom Harrisson: An Anthropologist’s War in Borneo

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

World War II in the Pacific was fought in thousands of remote locations. The island of Borneo was the site of one of the least known clandestine operations of the conflict, led by an adventurous, but arrogant, anthropologist. Read more

WWII

Moe Berg: Baseball Player in the OSS

By Peter Kross

In 1920, a young, handsome Jewish boy from New Jersey took the train from Grand Central Station to Princeton, New Jersey, where he would enroll that fall. Read more

WWII

Deaths in WWII: Casualties, and the Graves Registration Units

By Mason B. Webb

The very nature of war means that some participants will be killed and others will be wounded, and some estimate the deaths in WWII to be around 85 million. Read more

WWII

Operation Bagration: Soviet Triumph in the East

By Henrik Lunde

Operation Bagration, the largest operation of World War II, has never been adequately acknowledged in the West to the same extent as a number of smaller campaigns. Read more

WWII

Leslie Howard: The Actor’s Mysterious Fate on BOAC Flight 777

By Blaine Taylor

By June 1, 1943, British actor Leslie Howard, 50, was one of the most famous actors in the world, one of the leading male stars of one the greatest box-office draw movies of all time, the 1939 blockbuster Gone with the Wind. Read more

WWII

Mussolini’s French Invasion

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

Without warning, from behind his desk in his miniature coliseum of an office in Rome’s Palazzo Venezia, Benito Mussolini on the morning of May 26, 1940, pronounced those words that were to prove fateful for Italy, fatal for him: “I have sent Hitler a written statement, making it clear to him that I do not intend to stand idly by and that from June 5th I shall be in a position to declare war on France and England.” Read more

WWII

Crucible of Caen

By Michael D. Hull

General Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the British 21st Army Group, was delighted to learn by secret cipher on December 23, 1943, that he had been chosen to lead three Allied armies in history’s greatest invasion, scheduled for the following May. Read more

WWII

Storming the Point at Peleliu

 By Dick Camp

By the summer of 1944, the United States was advancing on Japan’s Home Islands in a two-pronged attack through the Central and Southwest Pacific theaters. Read more

WWII

Japan’s Road to War

By Eric Hammel

Japan’s road to World War II was a long one. Throughout the late 19th century, the island nation broke out of its feudal past on a path to modernity with a ruthlessness and singlemindedness that would have scared Western nations had they been paying attention. Read more

WWII

Savagery at Salerno

By Michael E. Haskew

As the 450 ships of the Operation Avalanche invasion force approached Salerno on the evening of September 8, 1943, the Allied troops, packed tightly aboard transport vessels, broke into wild celebration. Read more

WWII

101st in Operation Market-Garden: Taking the Bridge at Best

By Richard A. Beranty

On the veranda of his temporary headquarters in a Dutch country house outside Veghel, Holland, renowned Luftwaffe General Kurt Student played lunch host to an old comrade, the chief of staff of the German Seventh Army. Read more

WWII

Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines: An 82nd Airborne Stick’s Survival at Market-Garden

By Jan Bos

It was a beautiful September day over Holland. Gradually, a faint rumble began to grow, and the sunny sky was darkened. Read more

WWII

The USO Turns 75: American soldiers’ “Home Away From Home”

By John Provan

Almost every American veteran has fond memories of a Track-Side Free Canteen, or a USO center at some train station or airport situated at locations around the world, or a “USO Camp Show” that provided entertainment close to the front lines, during every conflict since World War II. Read more

WWII

Concentration Camp Liberators Reveal Their Silent Trauma

By Leila Levinson

Down in the basement of my father’s medical office a Nazi helmet stood guard. It sat on top of the pea-green Army trunk, CAPT R LEVINSON stenciled in white letters under a beaten-up leather handle. Read more