WWII Archives

WWII

The General George Patton Museum of Calvary and Armor

By Blaine Taylor

Fifty years have gone by since the inception of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., Read more

U.S. troops hit the beach in North Africa on November 8, 1942. Operation Torch was the first major offensive action by American troops during the war against Nazi Germany.

WWII

Operation Torch and The Assassination of Admiral Jean Darlan

By Peter Kross

Less than a year after the sudden and devastating Japanese attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the American military was about to embark on a large-scale offensive operation against German and Italian forces in North Africa. Read more

A panther tank and panzer grenadiers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking help to break the encirclement of the Russian town of Kowel in the strategically important area of the Pripet Marshes.

WWII

Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

WWII

Hermann Göring and His Final Judgment at Nuremberg

By Blaine Taylor

The Allied indictment against Hermann Wilhelm Göring (1893-1946) at Nuremberg as issued by the International Military Tribunal in 1945 reads as follows:

“The defendant Göring between 1932-45 was: member of the Nazi Party, Supreme Leader of the SA (Brownshirts), General in the SS, a member and President of the Reichstag, Minister of the Interior of Prussia, Chief of the Prussian Police and Prussian Secret Police, Chief of the Prussian State Council, Trustee of the Four Year Plan; “Reich Minister for Air, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, President of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, member of the Secret Cabinet Council, head of the Hermann Göring Industrial Combine, and Successor Designate to Hitler. Read more

The B-17 bomber flown by Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr., is shadowed by a Zero piloted by famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai, who shot Kelly down on December 10, 1941.

WWII

The Mitsubishi Zero Gave ‘Made in Japan’ New Respect

By Joseph M. Horodyski

The psychological and military shock that the Allies experienced when they first encountered Mitsubishi’s legendary A6M2 Zero fighter plane at the beginning of the Pacific War may be difficult to understand today. Read more

Portuguese soldiers board the passenger ship Mouzinho in Lisbon harbor, April 1941. Their destination was the Azores, where they would reinforce the garrison against the threat of German invasion.

WWII

Portugal’s Political Tightrope

By B. Paul Hatcher

“With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Read more

Pu Yi, wearing glasses and a plumed hat, salutes the crowd at the ceremony proclaiming him emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

WWII

Kenji Doihara: Japanese General and Convicted War Criminal

By Wil Deac

At 11:30 pm on December 22, 1948, four handcuffed men were led by guards into the chapel of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. Read more

WWII

The Air Transport Command: From Lend Lease To The Hump

By Sam McGowan

World War II was responsible for numerous technological advances, not the least of which was the establishment of the largest airline in history. Read more

WWII

USS Franklin and Father O’Callahan

By Michael D. Hull

On March 3, 1945, the 27,100-ton aircraft carrier USS Franklin churned out of Pearl Harbor and headed westward for the war zone. Read more

A panoramic painting of the Battle of Stalingrad depicts Soviet soldiers and T-34 tanks advancing against the invading Germans. The five-month siege ended in February, 1943, with a German defeat and two million deaths. Mariya Oktyabrskaya would see her first combat that October in Smolensk.

WWII

Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya and the T-34 medium tank ‘Fighting Girlfriend.’

By Kevin Seabrooke

Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a Soviet Ukrainian tank driver and mechanic who fought on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany during World War II. Read more

German soldiers and tanks on the offensive in Russia during the winter of 1942 move across the snowy landscape of a Russian village. This photo first appeared in Signal, a magazine published for members of the German military.

WWII

The German SS at Rzhev: Loyal to Their Deaths

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

Early in December 1941, Operation Typhoon, the German drive on Moscow, withered in the face of tenacious Soviet resistance and one of the worst Russian winters in living memory. Read more

In Robert Taylor’s painting, Return from Schweinfurt, P-47 Thunderbolt fighters of the 56th Fighter Group head for home, low on fuel and ammunition, while B-17 bombers fend off late attacks by German Me-109 fighters.

WWII

Daylight Bombing Gamble: The Schweinfurt–Regensburg Mission

By Richard Rule

In early 1942, the U.S. Eighth Air Force arrived in England firmly entrenched in the belief that continuous and accurate daylight precision bombing was the only way to decisively crush German industrial capacity. Read more

An M-26 tank—manned by soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment—is poised to counter an enemy attempt to cross the Naktong River in Korea, September 1950.

WWII

“Bulldog Johnny” Walker

By Blaine Taylor

In September 1948, Lt. Gen. Walton Harris Walker, 58, took over command of the Eighth Army on occupation duty in Japan from his predecessor, Robert Eichelberger, a former West Point superintendent and devotee of Allied Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur. Read more

WWII

How Did Benito Mussolini Die? The Story Behind Il Duce’s Last Moments.

By Wil Deac

It was shortly before seven o’clock on the rain-drenched morning of April 27, 1945, the day before the death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more

A contingent of U.S. Marine Corps intelligence personnel and native scouts shove their canoes off from the coast watchers’ station at Segi, New Guinea, on a routine patrol.

WWII

Coast Watchers in the Solomons

by John Brown

Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, coast watcher Cornelius Page, a plantation manager on Tabar Island 20 miles north of New Ireland in the South Pacific, reported by teleradio that Japanese planes were making reconnaissance flights over New Ireland and New Britain. Read more

WWII

Marine Lieutenant Jack Power: WWII Medal of Honor Recipient

By Michael D. Hull

Outside City Hall in Worcester, Mass., stands a soldier who has been on guard duty since 1947. Read more

WWII

The Forgotten American Airborne of Operation Market-Garden

By Major General Michael Reynolds (ret.)

“In the years to come everyone will remember Arnhem, but no one will remember that two American divisions fought their hearts out in the Dutch canal country,” wrote U.S. Read more