WWII
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
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
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
When Nathan and Jane Olds of Stanton, ND; Ralph and Vera Endicott of Aberdeen, Wash.; and Effie Costin of Henryville, Ind., Read more
WWII
As Allied bombs rained down from B-17s and B-24s on their own men to open Operation Cobra, a three-star general was visiting the front lines: Commander of Army Ground Forces Lt. Read more
WWII
On a June morning in 1942, a battalion of American soldiers stepped down from a train at Fort William in the northern highlands of Scotland. Read more
WWII
The 18-year-old seamen bobbed in the oily waters off the Philippine coast with other survivors of the October 25, 1944, battle. Read more
WWII
Few would argue that Daimler-Benz is one of the most prominent and highly regarded motor vehicle manufacturers in automotive history. Read more
WWII
Donald R. Lobaugh was a juvenile delinquent, a kid sent to reform school when he was 16 years old. Read more
WWII
Straddling the River Orne nine miles from the English Channel coast, the French medieval city of Caen was the focal objective of Lt. Read more
WWII
In September 1942, two patrols of armed jeeps and trucks of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) raided the German airfield at Barce. Read more
WWII
With the German Sixth Army in its death throes at Stalingrad in January 1943, Stavka, the Soviet High Command, sought to capitalize on the disaster by unleashing massive offensives along the entire German-Soviet front. Read more
WWII
Thanks to the rather far-fetched mid-1970s TV series Black Sheep Squadron, the bent-wing image of the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair is no doubt one of the most vivid of the World War II fighters in the minds of most Americans. Read more
WWII
She was a sleek, efficient, deadly killer, a home to six officers and 60 enlisted men, and a holy terror to the enemy. Read more
WWII
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander Southwest Pacific Area, kept his promise to return to the Philippine Islands when his Sixth Army under the command of Lt. Read more
WWII
As they boarded the train for Montreal, the two Americans tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. Read more
WWII
The first of the three Eagle Squadrons was formed at Church Fenton, Yorkshire, in September 1940. The idea of forming an all-American squadron in the RAF was not a wildly popular one— with either the British or the Americans. Read more
WWII
Ernest Taylor Pyle was born August 3, 1900, in Dana, Indiana. He came from a farm family. Read more
WWII
During the winter of 1941, both the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht experienced a terrifying bloodletting. Adolf Hitler’s seemingly invincible armies, having advanced hundreds of miles inside the Soviet Union, were slowed by the October muddy season that had turned all but a few roads into almost impassible quagmires. Read more
WWII
When Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed out of Tokyo Bay after his historic visit in 1854, he left in his wake a desire among the Japanese to emulate all things Western. Read more
European Theater
