Summer 2020

Volume 11, No. 4

Cover: British Corporal M. Smith poses with a tommy gun in Italy. Smith was involved in the fighting near Monte Cassino.
Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.

WWII Quarterly

Commemorating the End of the World’s Worst War

By Flint Whitlock

It is an intriguing truism of history that those who start wars inevitably end up losing them. A few examples spring to mind: Napoleon vs. Read more

A Fu-Go bomb snagged on a tree in Kansas, February 23, 1945. Approximately 9,000 balloons were launched, but only about 900 made it across the Pacific; several landed in the Midwest.

WWII Quarterly, Ordnance

The Deadly Balloon Bombs of Imperial Japan

By 1944, the Japanese still had no long-range bombers to match the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. And a great many of Dai Nippon’s warplanes and aircraft carriers were lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Read more

WWII Quarterly

King Company at Bloody Lindern

By Frank Chadwick

In November 1944, an American infantry division underwent its baptism of fire in the worst conditions imaginable and acquitted itself with honor beyond anyone’s expectation. Read more

A Marine with a 3.5-inch rocket launcher ("bazooka”) sights a target as his fellow Marines prepare to assault a Japanese position north of Naha, May 1945.

WWII Quarterly

Iceberg in the Pacific

By Michael E. Haskew

The curious coincidence was obvious to everyone. April 1, 1945, was both Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Pegasus Bridge: D-Day’s Textbook Mission

By Flint Whitlock

Late on the night of June 5, 1944, while American paratroopers were on their way to drop behind Utah Beach, another, smaller air armada carrying 170 British airborne troops was also dashing headlong into battle like an aerial cavalry charge towards the far eastern flank of the Normandy invasion site. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Operation Silver Fox: An Opportunity Lost at Murmansk

By Pat McTaggart

As Adolf Hitler began to formulate his grandiose plans for the conquest of the Soviet Union, he considered the far northern operation area little more than a sideshow. Read more

A kamikaze pilot salutes as he receives his orders for a “divine wind” mission. It is estimated that over 1,200 pilots (out of 2,314) lost their lives on such missions.

WWII Quarterly

Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots Hit Hundreds of Ships

By Nathan N. Prefer

The nation of Japan was hopeless before the invading force. They were outnumbered, and the enemy was about to land on the shores of the Imperial Home Islands. Read more

WWII Quarterly

The Allied Liberation of Paris

By John E. Spindler

At dusk on August 24, 1944, south of Paris, about half a mile from Croix de Berny crossroads, stood a tall, lanky man tapping a malacca cane. Read more

WWII Quarterly

The Essex Regiment’s Frontal Assault on Monte Cassino

By Alan Davidge

It was March 14, 1944, and Private Albert “Albie” Duddy of D Company, 1st/4th Battalion Essex Regiment, was staring up at the monastery on top of the hill at Monte Cassino from a location north of the town of Cassino, Italy. Read more

Summer 2020

From Around the Network

German U-Boats: Scapa Flow Shock

Controversial Civil War Commanders: Gideon Pillow

On the trail of the Amber Room

William B. Hazen: The “Best-Hated Man” of the American Civil War