Allies
The director flicked his finger, and General Charles de Gaulle began reading his address into the British Broadcasting Corporation’s microphone, speaking from London to his defeated countrymen across the English Channel, calling upon them to continue resistance in the face of overwhelming German supremacy. Read more
Allies
The most successful and popular patriotic show of World War II and one of the most unique productions in the history of entertainment was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, which originally began as a Broadway musical. Read more
Allies
The Germans could not believe it. Without suffering the loss of a single soldier or sailor, the German Army and Navy had sailed 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Royal Navy and captured Narvik without firing a shot, bagged nearly 500 Norwegian soldiers, seized one of Norway’s major military depots, and even taken five armed British merchant ships and their crews. Read more
Allies
When one gazes upon the bookshelves in the Military History section of a well-endowed library, one cannot help but notice the number of volumes dedicated to the battles for North Africa during World War II and particularly to the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Read more
Allies
The parachute of aptly named Major J.D. Frost cracked open in the freezing air high above the French Channel coast at 12:45 am, and he commenced drifting down through the moonlit gloom. Read more
Allies
The arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more
Allies
On July 17, 1941, United States Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall sat before the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Read more
Allies
In September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more
Allies
Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more
Allies
Just after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more
Allies
In April 1941, things were going quite well for the German armed forces. In a series of earlier campaigns, they had conquered Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France. Read more
Allies
In 1976, the Soviet city of Tula joined an elite group of nine other Soviet communities designated as “Hero Cities.” Read more
Allies
During World War II British and American aircraft carriers, serviced and ready for naval combat, averaged 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Read more
Allies
From the training grounds to the battlefront, soldiers and Marines usually dined on C and K rations. Read more
Allies
Between September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. Read more
Allies
On the morning of June 13, 1944, the brilliant new aircraft carrier Taiho weighed anchor and slowly moved out of Tawi-Tawi anchorage in the Sulu archipelago in the southwestern Philippines. Read more
Allies
By the autumn of 1944, most of Nazi-occupied Europe had been liberated by Allied forces. The conquering armies now faced the invasion of the German homeland. Read more
Allies
The U.S. Army entered the war in North Africa in November 1942, eager to engage the German and Italian armies and prove itself their equal. Read more
Allies
To plead Superior Orders one must show an inexcusable ignorance of their illegality. The sailor who voluntarily ships on a pirate craft may not be heard to answer that he was ignorant of the probability that he would be called upon to help in the robbing and sinking of other vessels … a man who sails under the flag of skull and crossbones cannot say that he never expected to fire a cannon against a merchantman,” wrote Judge John L. Read more
Allies
The following story describes one of our air raids when I was piloting a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II. Read more
