Fall 2021

Volume 13, No. 1

Cover: One of 11 famous D-Day photos by Robert Capa, who was attached to the 16th Infantry Regiment. Men of the 16th Regiment were among the first to land under intense German fire.
Photo: National Archives

WWII Quarterly, Editorial

Requiem for a Prince and a Sergeant

The number of World War II survivors continues to grow smaller. This spring, two of them made the news.

The first, of course, was Prince Philip, husband of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth, who died on April 9, 2021. Read more

WWII Quarterly, Ordnance

The M-3 Stuart Light Tank Series

By Christopher Miskimon

Thirteen Panzerkampfwagen IV tanks advanced down the Chouigui-Mateur road in an attack against the newly arrived American First Armored Division. Read more

Robert Capa’s famous blurry image of the 1st Infantry Division’s amphibious landings at the Easy Red/Fox Green sectors of Omaha Beach indelibly captures the fear and chaos of the D-Day invasion. Four rolls of Capa’s film were rushed back to LIFE magazine’s London office, where a darkroom mistake ruined all but 11 images.

WWII Quarterly

“A Hell of a Good Place to Die”

By Christopher Miskimon

Corporal Michael Kurtz stood on the deck of an attack transport ship sitting off the Normandy coast. Gazing out over the ship’s railing in the pre-dawn hours, he could see the ship’s crew working the davits and ropes for the landing craft. Read more

Forced south along the coast after their sterling performance at the Battle of Abbeville, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, part of the 51st Highland Division, hold the line at the River Bresle.

WWII Quarterly

Still Fighting After Dunkirk

By Alan Davidge

Background: When the German army burst through Belgium’s Ardennes Forest in May 1940, it cut the Allies’ front line in half, then turned northwards through France towards the Channel coast. Read more

WWII Quarterly

From Pilot to POW

By Allyn Vannoy

Six B-17G’s of the 416th Bombardment Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, led by Captain B.E. Read more

In this 1941 portrayal of the Battle of Britain, artist Paul Nash said his painting was “an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area, and thus summarizes England’s great aerial victory over Germany.” It symbolically depicts the aerial conflict that lasted from July 10, 1940 to October 31, 1940, with outnumbered, free-flying British fighters battling the orderly ranks of German aircraft.

WWII Quarterly

The Battle of Britain: WWII’s Most Consequential Campaign?

By Matthew J. Benedetti

Two decades after the carnage of the Great War, the world was again plunged into the cauldron of armed conflict. Read more

During this action, Ware’s small assault group was fully engaged in attacking enemy positions.

WWII Quarterly

Bloody Fight for Hill 351: Skirmish in the Colmar Pocket

By Dan Champagne

On a cold, dark December morning in 1944, B Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Regiment began the slow ascent up Hill 351. Read more

The road to victory: A military policeman waves through another truck rushing cargo on a one-way highway to the fast-moving front lines in Normandy, France, August 1944. The mostly African American drivers of the Red Ball Express realized that without a steady stream of food, fuel, ammunition, medical equipment, troops, and other critical supplies, the Allied advance would grind to a halt.

WWII Quarterly

Red Ball Express to the Rescue!

By Dante Brizill

In a message to the Red Ball Express in October of 1944, Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, “To it falls the tremendous task of getting vital supplies from ports and depots to combat troops, when and where such supplies are needed, material which without armies might fail. Read more

Aerial view of the USS Wasp (CV-7) near San Diego, California, in June 1942, shows 38 Hellcats and Dauntlesses, some with their wings folded, arrayed on the flight deck.

WWII Quarterly

The Death of the USS Wasp

By Mason B. Webb

After the debacle at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States realized that it had its hands full. Read more

The Eastern Front exacted a terrible toll on the German Army and Hitler’s refusal to abandon the Crimea needlessly cost Germany countless troops.

WWII Quarterly

The Eastern Front: Germany’s Futile Battle For Crimea

By Pat McTaggart

On July 4, 1942, the men of newly promoted Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Eleventh Army celebrated the capture of the last Soviet bastion in the Crimea. Read more

Fall 2021

From Around the Network

Wretched Misconduct of the Red Army

The Battle for Khartoum

Ordeal at Outpost Snipe: Defiant Stand at El Alamein

Swashbucklers Of The China Skies