Summer 2021

Volume 12, No. 4

Cover: Private L.C. Byrd of the 761st Tank Battalion mans a machine gun on the turret of his M4 Sherman tank near Nancy, France, November 5, 1944. He and the unit saw their first combat two days later.

WWII Quarterly, Editorial

Ex-Nazis Still Being Rounded Up

There is no statute of limitations when it comes to the Holocaust.

In February 2021, a 95-year-old woman who was the secretary to Lt. Read more

WWII Quarterly, Ordnance

To attack targets from a steep angle, Curtiss developed the SB2C Helldiver—“The Beast.”

By Joseph Frantiska, Jr.

At the beginning of WWII, the U.S. Navy needed a combat aircraft that could meet several requirements: it had to serve as an attack fighter that could conduct precision dive-bombing and ground-support (strafing) operations yet still be small enough to be delivered to battle zones by aircraft carrier. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Battle of Meximieux: American Infantry & French Resistance

By Flint Whitlock

Nineteen-year-old Private First Class Peter Gaidosh of East Rochester, NY, was enjoying that rarest of wartime treats—a hot breakfast of fresh eggs, coffee, and pancakes—on the front lines. Read more

With its right wing on fire and breaking apart, a B-17 from the 483rd Bomb Group flying over rail yards is about to crash in the Yuogoslav city of Nis, April 25, 1944.

WWII Quarterly

Target: Das Reich

By Mark Carlson

Aboard each of the hundreds of Liberators and Flying Fortresses that daily left the soil of England bound for targets in Germany were ten young men. Read more

Rolling across a muddy field in France, the Sherman tank of Sergeant Harvey Woodward and his crew heads for the front. Shortly after this photograph was taken, the tank was hit by enemy fire and the entire crew killed.

WWII Quarterly

Patton’s Panthers: The Story of the 761st Tank Battalion

By Charles W. Sasser

In the Academy Award-winning film Patton, the setting was all wrong when actor George C. Scott delivered General George S. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Rethinking D-Day

By Blaine Taylor

One query that was raised on the Allied side in 1942—two years before Operation Overlord—was if the cross-English Channel invasion of Northwest Europe via France was necessary at all in order to defeat the Third Reich. Read more

German parachutists ride aboard a massive Tiger II tank, one of hundreds used during the Battle of the Bulge.

WWII Quarterly

Desperate Jump in the Ardennes

By Rob Krott

In 1944, Germany’s once victorious armies were in retreat on all fronts. Germany’s borders were threatened, and the American Army already occupied the German city of Aachen, the ancient city of Charlemagne and one-time capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Read more

Plane-handling crews aboard USS Enterprise (CV-6) work to prepare an F4F Wildcat for flight during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 26, 1942. The “Big E” would survive the war. Although the battle was a short-term victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk and damaged, Japan’s loss of many irreplaceable aircrews—particularly flight leaders—proved to be a long-term strategic advantage for the Allies in the Pacific.

WWII Quarterly

Violent Carrier Versus Carrier Clash

By Nathan N. Prefer

It had been a difficult year for the United States Navy.

Beginning with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, defeat after defeat had plagued the efforts of the American Navy to recover its balance and strike back against the rampaging Japanese. Read more

WWII Quarterly

Going for Broke

By Stephen D. Lutz

Thousands of Japanese American men demonstrated their loyalty to the U.S. by volunteering to serve in the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Infantry Regiment, to which the 100th would later be joined. Read more

WWII Quarterly

The Red Army’s Bloody Clash at Izyum

By Pat McTaggart

During the winter of 1941, both the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht experienced a terrifying bloodletting. Adolf Hitler’s seemingly invincible armies, having advanced hundreds of miles inside the Soviet Union, were slowed by the October muddy season that had turned all but a few roads into almost impassible quagmires. Read more

Summer 2021

From Around the Network

Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines: An 82nd Airborne Stick’s Survival at Market-Garden

WWII Weapons: Flamethrowers of the Wehrmacht

Amir Bega’s ‘Undercurrent’

King Charles I: Decision at Naseby