WWII
At about 8 am on the morning of December 7, 1941, I stood on the third-floor deck of a red brick barracks that looked across the Schofield Barracks golf course toward the infantry barracks that housed much of the U.S. Read more
WWII
Even today, they don’t like to talk about the St. Nazaire raid.
Compared to the thousand-plane raids that went deep into Germany later in World War II, the January 3, 1943, bomber mission from England to the coast of German-occupied France was small and spanned only a modest distance. Read more
WWII
A casual observer of World War II photographs after 1943 will often notice slouch hat- or beret-wearing Australian “diggers,” or armed Melanesian natives in the Australian Constabulary battalions, slogging through the muck and jungle of New Guinea, Bougainville, New Britain, and Borneo carrying a rather odd-looking weapon with a vertical top-mounting magazine. Read more
WWII
By Kevin M. Hymel
“Only God and the Navy can do anything until we hit the shore,” Lt. Gen. George S. Read more
WWII
Technically and visibly, it was unique among World War II fighters. The P-38 stood on tricycle landing gear, with its twin Allison engines in separate booms and the pilot sitting in his cockpit in a cupola between the booms. Read more
WWII
At the height of its power and with the Third Reich on the verge of initiating its colossal invasion of the Soviet Union, high-ranking members of the Nazi intelligence community literally went to the dogs. Read more
WWII
Polish General Tadeusz “Bor” Komorowski knew the fight for the Old Town Warsaw was over. His last hope—and that of his army—was to slip out unnoticed and move the headquarters position to the town center. Read more
WWII
After the Great War, the leading naval powers met to try to avoid another ruinously expensive arms race and, hopefully, prevent future wars. Read more
WWII
The most nightmarish of World War II alternative history scenarios is the one in which Nazi Germany acquires atomic weapons. Read more
WWII
Mired in combat during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest of Germany, an American soldier wrote in December 5, 1944: “The road to the front led straight and muddy brown between the billowing greenery of the broken topless firs, and in the jeeps that were coming back they were bringing the still living. Read more
WWII
The “few” who defended Great Britain in the sky during the days it stood alone against Hitler would have been hundreds fewer without the volunteers from outside the British Empire. Read more
WWII
Much of what we know today about World War II are the visual images—both still and moving—that combat photographers took to document all phases of this costly human tragedy. Read more
WWII
On September 2, 1945, Japanese representatives boarded the battleship USS Missouri, riding at anchor in Tokyo Bay, to sign an instrument of unconditional surrender. Read more
WWII
If a single airplane has captured the public imagination more than any other, it is undoubtedly the North American P-51 Mustang fighter. Read more
WWII
It was indeed an unprecedented effort to raise a continent from the devastation of a horrific world war, and ironically, the idea belonged to a career soldier. Read more
WWII
“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
WWII
In warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more
WWII
In his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title, prestigious Hollywood film director Frank Capra claimed that on Monday morning, December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, two U.S. Read more
WWII
“We’ve been slogging our way through hedgerow country, half an acre a day, and we’ve got to find a way to break out.” Read more
WWII
During World War II, many of England’s Royal Air Force (RAF) Class A airfields were made available to the U.S. Read more
