Volume 2, No. 3
Cover: B-24 Liberators of the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force streak away from the Ploesti oil refineries they have just bombed. Painting by Robert Taylor. Courtesy of The Military Gallery.
May 2003
WWII History
Just boys facing danger, please God make them men; If they live through the danger, make them boys once again. —Sergeant Ginger Woodcock, June 5, 1944
On the morning of June 6, 1944, the greatest amphibious fleet in history bore in toward the coast of Normandy. Read more
May 2003
WWII History
In March and early April 1942, American and British codebreakers uncovered indications of a Japanese offensive being prepared in the Pacific against Australia. Read more
May 2003
WWII History
The attempted crossing of the Rapido River in Italy by two infantry regiments of the U.S. 36th Division in January 1944 was one of the costliest failed attacks made by American forces during World War II. Read more
May 2003
WWII History
On the morning of February 16, 1940, two Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson aircraft lifted off from Thornaby Airfield in northern England. Read more
May 2003
WWII History
If there was a name of a prospective target that caused Allied airmen in the European Theater of Operations to blanch in the fall of 1943 and the spring of 1944, it was Ploesti. Read more
May 2003
WWII History
Peering through his binoculars, Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo was in awe of the nearly 800 ships from Vice Adm. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Editorial
Fifty-nine years after the end of the most horrific conflict ever known, American veterans of World War II will have a memorial dedicated on May 29, 2004. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Dispatches
Dear Sir,
I have just obtained a copy of your November issue which has just found its way into my local bookshop. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Ordnance
World War II tanks usually had aggressive- or ferocious-sounding names, such as Hellcat, Panther, or Tiger. Yet the tendency was not universal, as with British Cruisers or the American M-3 Honey. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Profiles
Crouched in their foxholes along Edson’s Ridge on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the Marines formed a critical but thin defense line between strategic Henderson Field and seasoned Japanese infantry lurking in the jungle. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Insight
On June 6, 1944, as the massive Allied naval armada made its way from ports in England across the English Channel to launch the projected D-day invasion at Normandy, a German fleet sortie swept down from its home ports on the North Sea and from occupied Norway. Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Top Secret
In the latter part of 1944, the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, mounted a plan called Operation Chrysler in Italy to “act as a liaison with partisan commanders, attempt to guide and control developments in northern Italy, and create a unified partisan command under the direction of the supreme allied commander.” Read more
May 2003
WWII History, Books
When the men of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 4th Infantry Division stepped out of a Higgins boat into waist-deep water at Utah Beach, Normandy, early on Tuesday, June 6, 1944, they were accompanied by a short, slender man with a dented nose. Read more
