June 2018

Volume 17, No. 4

Cover: A German fallschirmjäger, photographed in Italy in 1944, where the Allies struggled to break through the Gustav Line to liberate Rome.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-585-2188-08; Photo: Roisgen

In this detailed painting by artist Rick Reeves titled Avengers of Bataan, soldiers of the U.S. 38th Infantry Division advance toward Japanese positions while under heavy fire during the bloody battle for Zig Zag Pass.

WWII History

Back to Bataan

By Nathan N. Prefer

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese caught the United States Army Air Forces units in the Philippines on the ground late on December 8. Read more

WWII History

Fighting Across Europe with the 101st Airborne

By Connie Kennedy

“Oui.” It was one of the few words 101st Airborne paratrooper Norwood Thomas knew in French, and it served him well on the morning of June 6, 1944. Read more

This Seversky P-35 fighter plane has nosed over during a landing at Clark Field in the Philippines. Like other types flown by the 27th Bomb Group, the P-35 was obsolete during World War II and outclassed by Japanese fighter types.

WWII History

In May 1942, the 27th Bombardment Group transferred from Batchelor, Australia, to Hunter Field outside Savannah, Georgia. It was a transfer without men or equipment to the same base from which the group had departed in October 1941 for the Philippine island of Manila. Read more

An abandoned German weapons carrier lies smashed along a roadside as soldiers of the British Eighth Army search for German snipers in Acquino on May 27, 1944.

WWII History

Eternal City Liberated

By Michael E. Haskew

Italy was unforgiving. German resistance to Allied operations had been brutal since the Salerno landings in the autumn of 1943, and by the following spring frustration had mounted upon frustration. Read more

WWII History

Filling the Black Hole

By Michael D. Hull

A generally overlooked factor of World War II has been the influence, sometimes highly significant, of nations that remained neutral. Read more

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a heavy aircraft powered by a large radial engine. It was capable of absorbing severe punishment and bringing its pilot home.

WWII History, Ordnance

The Famed Jug

By Michael D. Hull

Losses were high and morale low when the U.S. Eighth Air Force intensified its heavy bomber missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in late 1942. Read more

WWII History, Editorial

Naomi Parker Fraley, the real “Rosie the Riveter,” has died at the age of 96.

She was just 20 years old, wearing coveralls, her hair in a polka-dot bandanna, operating a lathe on the floor of the machine shop at the Alameda Naval Air Station in California when the photographer snapped the photograph that became a poster that became a legend. Read more

Newly liberated Polish prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp at Hanover-Ahlem queue up to receive rations of soup from American soldiers.

WWII History, Profiles

Henry Kissinger’s World War II

By Tim Miller

In November 1944, a young American soldier wrote back to his parents in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Read more

Smoke and flames billow from the stricken battleship USS West Virginia in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

WWII History, Insight

Caught in the War

By Jim Campbell

Because it was such a long and cataclysmic event, World War II still resonates with so many of us. Read more

A Marine on Guadalcanal waits for “chow call” while manning a trench near the front lines.

WWII History, Books

Operation Shoestring

By Christopher Miskimon

The night of October 26, 1942, was a hellish time for the soldiers and Marines on Guadalcanal, and it was about to get worse. Read more

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

June World War II Shooters

By Joseph Luster

Countless shooters have attempted to capture the essence of World War II in their campaigns, and each has gone about it in a slightly different way. Read more

June 2018

From Around the Network

Band of Brothers’ Buck Compton: One Man’s Call of Duty

The B-25 Mitchell medium bomber played a significant role in World War II.

November World War II Games

To attack targets from a steep angle, Curtiss developed the SB2C Helldiver—“The Beast.”