WWII

Major Richard Bong was America’s Ace of Aces.

WWII

Richard Bong (1920-1945)

By Sam McGowan

Without dispute, the P-38 was the airplane of the aces. While other fighter types had their share of aces, the P-38 was flown by most of the top scorers, of whom Major Richard Ira Bong was at the top of the heap. Read more

WWII

The M2 4.2-Inch Chemical Mortar

By Christopher Miskimon

In the last days of March 1945, a soldier named Carl Getzel sat on a hill outside the city of Aschaffenburg and watched as it was slowly destroyed. Read more

WWII

New Year’s Day Defense in Alsace

By Allyn Vannoy

Like something out of a dream, a soldier walked into the command post. He unspooled a line of wire, hooked a field phone to it, checked the line, and handed the receiver to the officer in charge, Captain Howard Trammell, saying, “Someone wants to talk to you.” Read more

WWII

Battle of the Philippine Sea & The ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’

By John Wukovits

Lieutenant Tom Bronn glanced anxiously at the fuel gauge on his Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. He had been aloft for almost four hours, engaged in a hectic combination of trying to locate Japanese ships he knew to be in the Philippine Sea, diving down to unleash his four bombs at a carrier as dusk enveloped his aircraft, and then embarking on a desperate search for his own carrier, the USS Lexington, in the darkness. Read more

Early in the war, German troops advance in the company of a Czech-made tank and under cover of a smoke bomb they have ignited. The German occupation of Czechoslovakia provided the Wehrmacht with a windfall of military hardware.

WWII

WWII Vehicles: The Czech Panzer 38(t)

by Arnold Blumberg

Poland, the Netherlands, France, the Balkans, and Russia were subjected to Germany’s blitzkrieg between 1939 and 1941. At the forefront of those assaults were tanks of Czechoslovakian design. Read more