WWII

Warfare History Network, home of the foremost WWII History and WWII Quarterly magazines, is your best source for military history online. Here you’ll find our in-depth and vivid accounts of the greatest war in history, from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of the Bulge; from the desperate fighting on the Eastern Front to Iwo Jima and the Battle of Midway. Our vast collection of rare photographs, battle maps, illustrations and meticulously researched articles will give you new insight into the battles, leaders, weapons, and much more.

WWII

Flak Gunner for the Luftwaffe

Interview by Allyn R. Vannoy

An estimated 1.2 million people were employed by the German ground-based air-defense system by the end of the war in Europe. Read more

Aerial view of the USS Wasp (CV-7) near San Diego, California, in June 1942, shows 38 Hellcats and Dauntlesses, some with their wings folded, arrayed on the flight deck.

WWII

The Death of the USS Wasp

By Mason B. Webb

After the debacle at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States realized that it had its hands full. Read more

Americans try out a German antitank weapon in Ceppagna, Italy, in January 1944.

WWII

Captured Weapons of the Reich: A Photo Essay

By Kevin M. Hymel Read more

WWII

The Workhorse Lancaster

By Nigel Price

Powerful, brisling with firepower and able to carry an amazingly large bombload, the majestic Avro Lancaster, along with the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, has come to symbolize the might of the Royal Air Force in World War II. Read more

WWII

The U.S. Third Army and XIX TAC: Partners for Victory

By Sam McGowan

In the summer of 1944, the Third United States Army under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton made a spectacular dash across France, a daring advance that ranks high on the list of great military endeavors. Read more

WWII

The Strange Odyssey of USS Stewart

By Glenn Barnett

The Spanish-American War saw the development of the torpedo as we know it today. It was not the static mine of the Civil War but a propeller driven, waterborne explosive device. Read more

The six British Horsa gliders assigned to Operation Dead-stick swoop down on the Caen Canal Bridge at under cover of night on June 5-6.

WWII

Lightning Assault on Pegasus Bridge

By Joshua Shepherd

At midnight of June 6, 1944, a trio of Halifax bombers, each towing a Horsa glider, roared above the black waters of the English Channel. Read more

An American soldier of the 31st Infantry Division carries an M3 submachine gun, known as the Grease Gun, during landings on the island of Morotai in the Pacific in September 1944.

WWII

The Controversial M3 Grease Gun

By Patrick J. Chaisson

No one ever used the words “graceful” or “elegant” to describe the M3 submachine gun. Instead, those soldiers, sailors and Marines who carried it called the M3 a “plumber’s nightmare” or “the cake decorator.” Read more

WWII

Slogging into the Reichswald

by David H. Lippman

Just after midnight on February 9, 1945, across the diamond-shaped mass of forest, hills, and flooded terrain that defined the Reichswald, rain fell in a steady downpour upon a battlefield that had already seen some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II in Western Europe. Read more

Smoke billows from bomb strikes against the submarine pens at St. Nazaire. This photo was taken from a U.S. bomber that participated in a costly raid against the heavily defended pens on the French coast.

WWII

Lessons at St. Nazaire

By Robert F. Dorr

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

Military History Book Reviews for Winter 2023

By Christopher Miskimon

A Handful of Heroes: Rorke’s Drift Facts, Myths and Legends (Katie Stossel, Pen and Sword Books, South Yorkshire UK, 2022, 201 pp., Read more

Nisei soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team take on German tanks during their successful effort to rescue the Lost Battalion in France in October 1944.

WWII

Hero of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

By Michael D. Hull

Early on the morning of Sunday, October 15, 1944, a platoon of the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) waited on a hill for its first action in the rugged Vosges Mountains of eastern France. Read more

Sailors of the boarding party from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury work to rig a towline to the bow of the captured German submarine U-505 in the Atlantic. Rough seas required the sailors to hold tightly to the guide wire running from the conning tower to the bow of the submarine.

WWII

Captured on the High Seas

By Michael D. Hull

Itching for sea duty but forced to cool his heels with shore assignments, 40-year-old U.S. Navy Captain Daniel V. Read more

WWII

Night Fighting Corsairs

By Robert F. Dorr and Fred L. Borch

Just before it was drawn into World War II, the United States began developing a night fighter version of one of its most famous warplanes. Read more

WWII

The Browning Automatic Rifle

By William F. Floyd Jr.

By dawn on June 9, 1944, the men of the Company C, 1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, of the 82nd Airborne Division found themselves engaged in a fierce firefight with German troops at the village of Cauquigny just west of the Merderet River in Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula. Read more

WWII

From Around the Network

Look down the barrel of a sniper’s gun and “hold breath.”

Britain’s hollow-cast toy soldiers continue to attract collectors decades after their manufacture.

Revolutionary France’s Opening Salvo

George Washington’s Daring Gamble at Yorktown