WWII Archives

Thick sulphurous smoke pours from the flaming wreckage of a B-17 bomber in a French field.

WWII

The Hidden Freedom Trail

by Adam Lynch

A few moments after his stricken Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber tore apart, co-pilot Ralph Patton hurriedly put his bail-out plan into action. Read more

WWII

General Douglas MacArthur’s Crisis at Biak

By Marc D. Bernstein

In April 1944, General Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific forces took a giant 600-mile leap along the north coast of New Guinea with their landing at Hollandia. Read more

Embattled Tobruk lies under a pall of smoke during Rommel’s push to capture the vital North African port city in the spring of 1941.

WWII

The Siege of Tobruk: WWII’s Debacle in the Desert

by Michael D. Hull

Sidi Barrani, Bardia, Sollum, Sidi Rezegh, Mersa Matruh, Bir Hacheim, El Agheila, Beda Fomm, Sidi Omar, Benghazi … The names of many remote villages in North Africa were written into history in 1941-1942 as British and Axis armies battled back and forth across the scrubby desert wastelands of northern Egypt and Libya. Read more

Students at the U.S. Maritime Service Training Station on Long Island, N.Y., practice putting on Morner lifesaving suits, which could keep them warm and buoyant in cold water.

WWII

Saving Men from Poseidon

By Kevin M. Hymel

The harsh elements of the world’s oceans and seas were undoubtedly just as dangerous to U.S. sailors as the German or Japanese navies. Read more

WWII

General Douglas MacArthur’s Navy

By Glenn Barnett

In November 1941, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet weighed anchor in Shanghai, China, for the last time. Alarmed by the growing hostility and aggressiveness of the Japanese, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the outnumbered and outgunned American vessels moved to the relative safety of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Read more

WWII

The Many Faces of Adolf Hitler

By Kevin M. Hymel

As the Allied armies in the West closed in on Germany in late September 1944, one question began to dog many of democracy’s leaders. Read more

George S. Patton’s bull terrier Wille waits quietly for his late master to return.

WWII

Patton’s Death

By Blaine Taylor

It was 11:45 am, on December 9, 1945, and former U.S. Third Army Commanding General George Smith Patton, Jr., Read more

U.S. Navy Helldiver aircraft attack the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Painting by Sam L. Massette.

WWII

Battle of Sibuyan Sea

By John Wukovits

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

The B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the Man Behind the Plane

By Sam McGowan

During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more

American tanks and armored gun carriers drive over snow-covered terrain to Samree during the Battle of the Bulge. Capture of the city opened the way to Houffallize, heart of the Bulge.

WWII

The End of the Battle of the Bulge

By Arnold Blumberg

Wednesday, December 27, 1944, found the military situation in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium stalemated. After 12 days of unrelenting struggle, the American and German forces on this part of the Western Front found themselves locked in brutal combat, unable to drive each other back. Read more

WWII

Operation Greif: Assassinate Eisenhower?

By Charles Whiting

On the morning of Monday, December 18, 1944, a mixed group of white MPs and black American service troops stood guard on the little bridge at Aywaille in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium. Read more

WWII

Operation Catapult: Churchill’s Desperate Measure

By Brooke C. Stoddard

Steaming through the summer Mediterranean night, the world having gone sour in two awful months, British Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville read the message just sent to him from London: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with, but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.” Read more

WWII

Famous Military Commanders: Admiral Philip Vian

By the time the British Pacific Fleet began staging air strikes against the Japanese in the spring of 1945, its aircraft carrier commander had already seen plenty of naval action since the beginning of World War II. Read more

Rifles in hand, a French patrol proudly poses for the camera in front of a log blockhouse fortification atop a rocky outcrop in Belgium.

WWII

The 1940 Battle of Gembloux

By Jonathan F. Keiler

On May 10, 1940, a daring group of German parachutists descended on the mighty Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, compelled its surrender, and opened the way for the German Army’s drive into Belgium. Read more

WWII

Lilya Litvak: The Red Air Force’s Female Fighter Ace

By Michael D. Hull

When German panzer and infantry columns rumbled across the frontier into Russia on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Air Force was woefully unready for war. Read more