A Soviet T-34 tank (foreground) and another unidentified armored vehicle smolder after being hit by German antitank fire. As a forward observer, Lubbeck managed to stop an armored attack by directing a 150mm artillery piece to knock out two tanks.
WWII Quarterly

Summer 2015

Volume 6, No. 4

COVER: A U.S. tank crew looks for retreating Germans in the days following Allied landings on the southern coast of France.
Photo: National Archives

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly, Editorial

What I did last summer (and fall)

One of the great things about being a military historian is that you get to go places and meet people you might not ordinarily get to see and meet. Read more

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly, Personality

Helldiver Lieutenant Klenk

By Robert F. Dorr

Lieutenant William A. “Bill” Klenk, piloting a Curtiss SB2C-3 Helldiver, bristled at the “clawing, miserable weather,” with inverted pyramids of cloud hanging from a low ceiling and gray murk everywhere. Read more

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly, Museums

The D-Day Invasion Museum

By Flint Whitlock

There is such a treasure trove of fine military museums in Normandy—perhaps more than anywhere else in the world—that we could devote an entire issue to nothing but them. Read more

Fighting was intense in the towns and villages behind Juno Beach. Here, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division soldiers defend their position in a French town. Three of the soldiers are equipped with Lee Enfield Mk I rifles while the soldier at right is firing a Bren .303 Mk II machine gun.

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Soldiers of Juno: The Canadian Invasion of Normandy

By Dorothy Brotherton

As John Wesley Pointon jumped into the cold English Channel water with the Royal Canadian 7th Brigade Signal Corps and struggled with a heavy radio strapped to his back toward the beach that was being torn apart by shot and shell, the farm boy from Saskatchewan tried to make his mind go blank. Read more

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Naval Assault On Munda

By John J. Domagalski

The first days of January 1943 found American forces winning the prolonged struggle for control of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Read more

A line of German soldiers marches past a burning Russian building somewhere on the Eastern Front. The vast spaces of the USSR swallowed German armies and led to mass casualties. Few German POWs lived to return home.

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Suicide or Surrender

By William Lubbeck and David Hurt

BACKSTORY: Wilhelm Lubbeck served as an enlisted man in the 58th Infantry Division on the Eastern Front during Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union before being promoted to lieutenant. Read more

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Operation Strangle: The First Great Air Interdiction Campaign

By Jeff Patton

Following the spectacular success of the Allied air campaign against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and against the Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999, the value and efficiency of utilizing air power to shape or forgo the need for a ground battle has been taken for granted by military planners. Read more

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Why America Participated in the Allied Bombing of France in WWII

By Flint Whitlock

By any standard, the ancient city of Rouen, in Upper Normandy, is a historical treasure. Within its magnificent High Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral (which was portrayed in a famous series of paintings by the Impressionist Claude Monet as well as by his contemporary Camille Pissarro) is a tomb containing the heart of Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) who had been King of England and the Duke of Normandy. Read more

In August 1944, the Allies followed up the massive Normandy Invasion with another in southern France known as Operation Dragoon.

Summer 2015

WWII Quarterly

Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon

By Glenn Barnette and André Bernole

Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more