During the Anzio breakout in May 1944, a 3rd Division machine-gun crew fires on enemy positions near Cisterna, Italy. During the Italian campaign, 16 3rd Division men earned the Medal of Honor, nine of them posthumously.

Spring 2023

Volume 14, No. 3

Cover: Tuskegee airman Edward C. Gleed of the 332nd Fighter Group stands in front of P-51/D Mustang “Creamer’s Dream” at Ramitelli airfield, Italy. See story page 30. Photo: Library of Congress

WWII Quarterly, Editorial

A tragic loss of life, a tragic loss of history

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for prop-driven airplanes, especially World War II warbirds. I guess it began when my parents took me to an airshow back in the early 1950s. Read more

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (right) inspects members of an assault gun battalion standing in front of their guns—10.5cm leFH 18 (Sf.) auf Geschützwagen 39H(f)—a self-propelled howitzer designed by Alfred Becker—in Normandy, France, a month before the Allied invasion. Only 48 were produced during the war.

WWII Quarterly, Personality

Oberstleutnant Alfred Becker

By Craig Van Vooren

Students of World War II know the name Percy Hobart—a British general who raised and trained several armored divisions and who invented all sorts of unique and unusual weapons of war—swimming tanks, flail tanks (for exploding landmines), a flame-throwing tank, a tank that laid down its own roadway, and many other odd-but-useful devices. Read more

An 81mm mortar crew from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 15th Infantry Regiment fires at enemy positions during the division’s drive on Campobello, Sicily, July 1943. Of the 40 Medals of Honor awarded to men of the 3rd, two were earned during the month-long campaign for Sicily.

WWII Quarterly

Above & Beyond

By Mason B. Webb

The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division has one of the longest legacies in the United States Army. Originally formed in November 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina, it gained a reputation for toughness. Read more

In Richard Taylor’s striking new painting, the Tuskegee “Red Tail” pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group are shown escorting a damaged B-17 Flying Fortress of the 483rd Bomb Group to its home base in Italy, summer 1944. Skin color made no difference to the bomber pilots when their “little friends” came up to escort them on their bombing missions.

WWII Quarterly

African-American Airmen Blasted Barriers

By Dante Brizill

The African American Tuskegee Airmen took the fight to a well-trained and deadly enemy with a ferocity and tenacity that World War II aerial combat required. Read more

Five 82nd Airborne troopers, plus a pilot and co-pilot, are photographed with a 1,439-lb. 75mm pack howitzer inside a CG-4A “Waco” glider during training in Morocco prior to the June 1943 invasion of Sicily. The glider forces sustained heavy losses during Operation Husky.

WWII Quarterly

Glider Pilots: No Engines, No Parachutes, No Second Chances

By Scott McGaugh

During the decade of the U.S. Army’s experiment with gliders in war, nearly as many glider pilots died in training as they did in combat. Read more

Oradour today looking southeast along the Main Street, Rue Desourteaux. On a hot summer afternoon, 200 SS soldiers drove up unannounced from the St Julien road (bottom right) sealed off the town and rounded up its inhabitants into a central recreational area. The townspeople were then bombed, shot or burned to death. The Germans then set the town ablaze, with the exception of the house of a cloth and wine merchant, which was looted and occupied until around 10 p.m.

WWII Quarterly

The Execution of Oradour-sur-Glane

By Alan Davidge

Known throughout France as the Village des Martyrs—“Village of Martyrs,”—the pillaged remains of Oradour-sur-Glane have stood nearly eight decades now as a memorial to the dead and reminder of the atrocities of war. Read more

“Over the Top of the World” by Roy Grinell. Pilots flying this treacherous route over the Himalayas kept Allied supply lines open.

WWII Quarterly

A Son’S Memoir: Surviving The CBI’s ‘Aluminum Trail’

By Fred T. Martin

Winston Churchill called it, “An immense laborious task, unlikely to be completed until the need for it has passed.” Read more

Major General Walton Walker, left, commander of U.S. XX Corps, greets Maj. Gen. Philippe Leclerc, commander of the 2nd French Armored Division, after the division landed at Utah Beach, Normandy, on August 1, 1944. The French division was then attached to Maj. Gen. Wade M. Haislip’s XV Corps, a part of George Patton’s Third U.S. Army. From Normandy, Leclerc would lead his men triumphantly to the liberation of Paris by the end of month. The 2nd French Armored Division notably took part in the Battle of the Falaise Pocket, the Battle of Dompaire, the Colmer Pocket and the push into Bavaria in May 1945.

WWII Quarterly

Leclerc: Free France’s Greatest General

By William G. Dennis

Géneral d’ Armée Jacques-Philippe Leclerc’s service to France during World War II made him one of the few heroes to be admired by the whole country. Read more

Spring 2023

From Around the Network

Stalin’s Wartime Paranoia

The Supermarine Spitfire and the Battle of Britain

Tank Clash in the Sinai

Holding Hosingen At All Costs