Less than three weeks before D-Day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of Army Group B, inspected the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy. Rommel is seen here during a pass-in-review that followed the inspection. He is standing alongside 21st Panzer Division commander Gen. Edgar Feuchtinger.

Summer 2024

Voluime 23, No. 2

Cover: A G.I. batters down a door in search of Germans during combat in early 1945. See story page 60.

Summer 2024

WWII History, Profiles

Cassin Young

By Glenn Barnett

In Hawaii, on Saturday, December 6, 1941, Commander Cassin Young eased his repair ship, Vestal, outboard of the battleship USS Arizona. Read more

Japanese-Americans await orders to board a train to a resettlement camp during the early days of U.S. involvement in World War II.

Summer 2024

WWII History, Insight

Fred Korematsu

By Eric Niderost

The afternoon of May 30, 1942, found Clyde Sarah waiting for his girlfriend Ida on Estudillo Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in San Leandro, a small town just across the bay from San Francisco. Read more

Summer 2024

WWII History, Weapons

The Rise and Fall of the Japanese ‘Zero’

By Mark Carlson

For thousands of Allied airmen the most terrifying sight they ever beheld was a Mitsubishi A6M Zero bearing down on them—burnished black cowling over a snarling Sakae engine, staccato bursts flashing from two machine guns and two cannon—often the last thing they ever saw. Read more

In 1943, U.S. Marines erected a makeshift cross of coconut logs as a memorial for the 22 victims of the Japanese executions of Allied prisoners on Betio. A permanent concrete memorial, shown here, was later constructed.

Summer 2024

WWII History, Top Secret

The Tarawa Coast-Watch Massacre Of 1942

By Peter McQuarrie

On October 15, 1942, a total of 22 men, all British subjects and all prisoners of war captured by Japanese military forces in the Gilbert Islands in the Central Pacific, were executed on Betio islet at Tarawa Atoll.. Read more

Summer 2024

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Hell Let Loose (Game Pass)

By Joseph Luster

From games exiting Early Access to games entering Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service, we now come to another look at Hell Let Loose. Read more

Summer 2024

WWII History, Simulation Gaming

Tank Operations: European Campaign

By Joseph Luster

Publisher 2tainment and the indie game devs at Linked Dimensions launched their turn-based tactical war game Tank Operations: European Campaign in Steam Early Access back in August 2019, but the time has finally come to unleash the full game. Read more

During the opening hours of Operation Goodwood, a Sherman tank carrying infantrymen, a Sherman flail tank nicknamed a “Crab,” and a halftrack serving as an ambulance await orders to advance on July 18, 1944. Caen was a D-Day objective, but the Allies were required to fight for weeks to capture the town.

Summer 2024

WWII History

Capturing Caen

By Alan Davidge

One of the most important tasks for Allied troops after the D-Day landing was to seize the city of Caen, nine miles behind Sword Beach. Read more

Medics, who have lost most of their supplies, still treat the wounded on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, in this mural by Keith Rocco. Center, left, bandaging a soldier’s leg is medic Charles Norman Shay, of the Penobscot Indian Nation, who received a Silver Star. Further to the left is wounded African American medic Waverly Woodson, Jr., who is helping a fellow soldier crawl forward. Woodson, who treated more than 200 men before collapsing after 30 hours, received a Bronze Star.

Summer 2024

WWII History

The Big Red One on D-Day

By Kevin Seabrooke

In celebration and commemoration of the courageous actions of the “The Big Red One” during the Allied Invasion of Normandy, the First Division Museum at Cantigny has unveiled two interpretive murals and a companion book outlining both the story of First Division on D-Day and the making of the murals by artist Keith Rocco. Read more

Soldiers of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion trudge through snow while carrying bazookas. According to their commanding officer, Lt. Col. David E. Pergrin, the brave engineers stayed to defend Trois-Ponts during the Battle of the Bulge after they had been taunted by fellow soldiers. Pergrin recalled that the infantrymen had shouted, “You engineer so-and-so! Why don't you come on up there and fight?”

Summer 2024

WWII History

Combat Engineers at Trois-Ponts

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Major Robert B. Yates arrived at the 1111th Engineers’ headquarters in Trois-Ponts, Belgium, around 13:30 on Monday, December 18, 1944, expecting to sit in on an ordinary staff meeting. Read more

Summer 2024

WWII History

The Sinking of Unterseeboot-85

By Erik Petkovic

On September 3, 1939, when Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, the Kriegsmarine only had 46 operational U-boats, the majority of which were used for training. Read more

Summer 2024

WWII History

Bold Gamble Above Cologne

By Michael D. Hull

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris, the burly, red-haired chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, was an anxious man on the evening of Saturday, May 30, 1942. Read more

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