WWII Archives

WWII

Iwo Jima: This Shall Not Be in Vain

By Al Hemingway

Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith was 62 years of age. At a time in life when most men contemplate retirement, he was a very busy individual. Read more

Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, founder of the Lebensborn Program, talks with a young Ukrainian boy. Many children were essentially kidnapped from occupied countries and given to German parents.

WWII

Children for Hitler

By Brent Douglas Dyck

By 1936, 18-year-old Hildegard Koch had reached a crossroads in her young life as she finished her schooling. Read more

WWII

Lightnings on the Deck

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Second Lieutenant William Capron first saw the attacking Messerschmitts as black dots descending rapidly to ambush his squadron of American fighter-bombers. Read more

A huge floating Phoenix unit, part of the artificial Mulberry harbors, under construction at Portsmouth, England.

WWII

Mulberry Harbors: The Allied Secret Weapon at Normandy

By Blaine Taylor

One of the major aims of the great Allied invasion of German-Occupied France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, was the securing of the port of Cherbourg on the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. Read more

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu holds up six fingers signifying the number of Japanese aircraft that fell to his guns during an eight-minute span on a single mission.

WWII

Once again, the Japanese regarded an upcoming naval engagement as the “decisive battle,” but it had been two years since her aircraft carriers and battleships had emerged from their Inland Sea lairs to menace the United States Navy. Read more

WWII

What Made the German Luger the Most Famous Pistol in Modern Warfare

By Blaine Taylor

The German Luger is, most likely, the most famous pistol in modern warfare. Almost every World War II movie ever made featuring German armed forces seems to show it as an integral part of its action sequences. Read more

The first U.S. M4 Sherman enters the German city of Aachen through a hole opened in the railroad station entrance by a tank dozer—German defenders had demolished a viaduct on the main avenue into Aachen, slowing the Americans’ progress.

WWII

Smashing in to Germany

By William R. Hogan

Task force commander Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hogan, eager to get any advantage over the entrenched enemy of the 12th Infantry Division, requested a section of M2 flamethrowers from the 23rd Engineer Battalion. Read more

Allied vessels burning after a Luftwaffe raid on the Italian port of Bari on December 2, 1943, sank 27 cargo and transport ships, including the US Liberty ship John Harvey—with a secret cargo of 2,000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs, each holding 60–70 lbs of the chemical agent.

WWII

The SS John Harvey’s Mustard Gas Disaster

By Neil Taylor

Ensign Kay Kopl Vesole, USNR, did not like being a sitting duck. Normally he would have enjoyed the warm Italian sunshine, but as commander of the Navy Armed Guard aboard the John Bascom, a 7,176-ton Liberty ship, he was not permitted to relax while his ship lay moored in crowded Bari harbor, a small though vital port on the heel of Italy. Read more

Standing on what is most likely a PzKpfw. III, a German tank commander scans the desert horizon in North Africa. The battle-hardened forces of Gen. Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps would inflict a stinging defeat on the Americans at Tunisia’s Kasserine Pass in February 1943

WWII

Chaos Pass

By David Lippman

The message was sent to a staff officer for Brig. Gen. Paul Robinett to read, and it made very little sense. Read more

WWII

Brigadier General Arthur W. Vanaman

By Allyn Vannoy

Mission No. 443, dispatching the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Air Divisions against Nazi-occupied Europe was launched by the U.S. Read more

On January 14, 1945, soldiers from D Company, 1st Battalion, of the 158th Regimental Combat Team, fire on a Japanese sniper near the village of Damortis along the Lingayen Gulf of Luzon, Philippines.

WWII

Second Lieutenant Erving Peterson’s Distinguished Service Cross

By Michael A. Flexsenhar III

Second Lieutenant Erving L. Peterson led a seven-man reconnaissance patrol along the coastal road out ahead of the 158th Infantry’s main column. Read more

An amphibious DUKW landing vehicle burns in the background of this photo as US Marines have taken cover on the landing beach near Asan, Guam. The image was taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, who would take the iconic photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima six months later.

WWII

Hitting the Beach at Guam

By David Alan Johnson

Sometime during the middle of July 1944, a well-meaning war correspondent asked an officer with the Third Marine Division if his men were ready for the landings on Guam. Read more

In 1940 the R.A.F. was producing 115 trained pilots every two weeks to fly planes such as this Supermarine Spitfire.

WWII

Pilot Officer Percy Prune

By Kerria Seabrooke

After German Chancellor Adolf Hitler had rejected all offers of peace, Prime Minister

Winston Churchill declared in June 1940 that “The Battle of Britain is about to begin.” Read more

During his only visit to Paris, Adolf Hitler pauses on the terrace of the Palais de Chaillot with the Eiffel Tower in the background on June 23, 1940.

WWII

Paris Under the Swastika

By Tim Miller

Once, during the Nazi occupation of Paris, a German officer made his way to the attic of 7 Rue des Grands-Augustins, home and studio of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. Read more

WWII

Nine World War II Book Reviews for Fall 2025

By Kevin Seabrooke Full Reviews

Pearl Harbor: Japan’s Greatest Disaster (Mark Stille, Osprey/Bloomsbury Publishing, 368pp., 16-pages b.w photos, appendices, Nov. 4, 2025 $35 HC)

Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines (Peter R. Read more

WWII

Hurricanes in the Arctic Skies

By Neil Taylor

Nestled among patches of dwarf birch trees on the side of a hill gently rising above the dockyard of the Russian Northern Fleet in Severomorsk (formerly known as Vaenga) lies a nondescript cemetery bearing witness to the savage conflict that engulfed the Soviet Union’s northern frontiers during the latter half of 1941. Read more

WWII

Blitzkrieg Express

By Joseph Luster

Taking a break from intense strategy games, which tend to dominate the World War II gaming landscape, we have something completely different but no less engaging in Blitzkrieg Express. Read more

A Japanese Aichi D3A “Val” dive bomber is captured near Pearl Harbor in this image of the events of December 7, 1941. A flight of Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters strafed the Ewa Marine Corps Air Station, followed minutes later by a formation of Vals carrying ordnance.

WWII

Embattled Marines At Air Station Ewa

By Joshua Donohue

Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya eased the throttle lever forward in the cockpit of his Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter as it left the deck of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) carrier Akagi just after 6 a.m. Read more

At Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic explosion sends a billowing mushroom cloud skyward on August 16, 1945.

WWII

The Atomic Bomb Ended World War II and Changed Mankind’s Future

The events of early August 1945 brought World War II in the Pacific to an end and ushered in a new era of warfare, one with the potential for apocalyptic annihilation. Read more

WWII

The Incessant Rains of the Green Inferno

By Al Hemingway

As dawn broke on December 26, 1943, the unmistakable silhouettes of American warships could be easily seen by the Japanese defenders on New Britain Island. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

Patton in WWI

The Grumman F4F Wildcat was a Rugged, Lethal Tool for the U.S. Navy

Military History Book Reviews for Spring 2023

Operation Nordwind: The “Other” Battle of the Bulge