Spring 2019

Volume 10, No. 3

COVER: German soldiers carrying wire cutters and machine guns make their way through a trench somewhere in Russia.
Photo: ullstein bild

Gudrun Himmler with her father Heinrich at a Nazi sports festival, 1938.

WWII Quarterly, Editorial

Death of a Nazi Princess

It seems that every month there is a news item that relates to World War II. Here’s one you may have missed:

Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler Burwitz, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler, head of the dreaded SS and one of Adolf Hitler’s closest henchmen, died in or near Munich last year. Read more

WWII Quarterly, War Crimes

The Palawan Massacre: The Story from One of its Few Survivors

By Dick Camp, Col., USMC, Ret.

Superior Private Tomisaburo Sawa of the Imperial Japanese Army fixed the bayonet on his Type 99 Arisaka rifle and carefully checked to make sure the weapon was loaded. Read more

WWII Quarterly, Ordnance

The Grumman F4F Wildcat was a Rugged, Lethal Tool for the U.S. Navy

By Joseph Frantiska, Jr.

From the time of the Wright brothers, the vast majority of aircraft were biplanes with two wings stacked one above the other. Read more

Inside his M5 Stuart light tank, Sgt. Joe Cotten of the 14th Armored Division commanded his crew across Europe, facing death many times.

WWII Quarterly

Inside an M5 Stuart: A Tanker’s WWII Tale in His Own Words

By Kevin M. Hymel

“OH MY GOD!” thought tanker Joe Cotten. “We’re shooting machine guns at a Tiger Royal!” It was late December 1944 in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, near the German border. Read more

Spanish soldiers—now known as the Blue Legion—dash forward during an assault against Soviet positions defending Leningrad during the summer of 1943. The Spaniards’ eagerness for battle cost them heavy casualties.

WWII Quarterly

The Blue Division and the Spaniards Who Fought Against Stalin

By Blaine Taylor

The Russian winter of 1941-1942 hit with terrible ferocity. Battling the deadly, numbing cold as well as the massive numbers of Red Army troops were soldiers from sunny Spain. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Doolittle’s Raiders: The Men Who Shaped the Pearl Harbor Payback

By Nathan N. Prefer

In the months that led up to Doolittle’s raiders assembling to strike back at Tokyo, President Franklin D. Read more

WWII Quarterly

The Battle of Moscow: WWII’s First Critical Turning Point

By Jeff Chrisman

Many consider the Battle of Moscow in late 1941 to be the first turning point of World War II on the Eastern Front. Read more

WWII Quarterly

The Bombing of Dresden: Was the Attack Fully Justified?

By Mason B.Webb

It was February 1945, and the Bombing of Dresden had yet to commence. At this point in the war, the citizens of the capital of the German state of Saxony were beginning to think that they were living a charmed life. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Finding the Dachau Concentration Camp: a Soldier’s Personal Account

By Dan Dougherty

BACKSTORY: Dan Dougherty graduated from Central High School in Austin, Minnesota in June 1943 and was immediately activated from the Army Reserve. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Battle of Berlin: Why it Became the Death Knell for Hitler’s Third Reich

By David H. Lippman

The Battle of Berlin began with what a German colonel called “a dull, continuous roar of thunder from the east.” Read more

Spring 2019

From Around the Network

Bringing the War to the Japanese in China

Operation Fustian: Airborne Assault on the Bridges to Catania

Death Ride of the Shermans

Johann Georg Elser’s Treasonous Plot to Prevent World War II