Allies
“When 400,000 men couldn’t get home, home came for them.” These words could not better describe the amazing effort that the British military and civilian volunteers put toward saving the British and French soldiers trapped at Dunkirk. Read more
Allies
The island of Guadalcanal loomed in the distance as the warships of Task Force 36.1 approached the waters of Iron Bottom Sound on July 5, 1943. Read more
Allies
The Time magazine article was titled “It Flies!” It was a note of triumph and vindication, but also an epitaph, of an aircraft that was five years in the making—the “Spruce Goose,” a plane that should not have existed. Read more
Allies
Although located 420 miles west of Tokyo, the city of Hiroshima is today a tourist mecca, drawing tens of thousands of visitors from around the world for one single reason: to stand at the epicenter of history’s first nuclear explosion used against an enemy population. Read more
Allies
May 16, 1943, had been a sweltering spring day in England. At 9:39 pm, as the sun was dipping below the western horizon, leaving a rim of light and still good visibility, the first three of 19 Avro Lancaster bombers of No. Read more
Allies
On September 17, 1944, a massive but hastily planned airborne invasion of the Netherlands was launched. Codenamed Market-Garden, the operation called for three Allied airborne divisions (British 1st and American 82nd and 101st) to land along a narrow corridor reaching from advanced positions along the Dutch-Belgian border to a bridgehead on the northern bank of the Rhine River at Arnhem. Read more
Allies
“All I knew about Biak was that it was an island a degree south of the equator, one of the Schouten group lying north of Geelvink Bay toward the western end of New Guinea.” Read more
Allies
He was widely regarded as America’s best pilot, he was already a recipient of the Medal of Honor, he was commander of the Eighth Air Force caught up in 1,000-plane bombing missions deep into the Third Reich, and he was mad as hell. Read more
Allies
Special Sea Attack Force (SSAF) was an ordinary-sounding name for the pitifully tiny remnant of what was once the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Read more
Allies
World War II affected nearly every area of the world. It was the deadliest conflict in all of human history. Read more
Allies
By the beginning of February 1945, the British 14th Army was on the banks of the Irrawaddy River and poised to strike into central Burma. Read more
Allies
On a cold March evening in the Goldenrod Café in West Point, Nebraska, Mary Timmermann, a waitress there, picked up the telephone receiver when her boss told her it was Omaha calling long distance for her. Read more
Allies
“She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic, and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. Read more
Allies
The first days of January 1943 found American forces winning the prolonged struggle for control of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Read more
Allies
“The lieutenant said for everyone to lay your arms down,” a fellow paratrooper told Pfc. Bob Nobles, who had been fighting for six grueling days in the hedgerows following his unit’s jump into Normandy. Read more
Allies
Major General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more
Allies
The name Leonard Jay Thom may not mean anything to a great many people today, and that is unfortunate. Read more
Allies
Bradley could have been referring to German General Erwin Rommel. While Rommel was winning the war of desert armor tactics during 1941-1942 in the North African Campaign, he was losing the war of logistics. Read more
Allies
It was, as the phrase goes, another perfect day in paradise. As the sun rose above the Pacific in the clear, cloudless sky east of the Hawaiian Islands, on December 7, 1941, the giant U.S. Read more
Allies
While the surprise Japanese attacks against U.S. military bases in the Hawaiian Islands on December 7, 1941, are certainly the best-known aspect of the opening of hostilities between the two aLess well known today were the Japanese attacks on Clark Field and Iba Field on the opening day of hostilities in the Philippines. Read more
