Allies Archives

Allies

Red Army Generals: Ivan D. Chernyakhovsky

By Steven L. Ossad

The American jeep holding the 3rd Belorussian Front Commander, General Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, drove quickly through the city of Mehlsack, just outside Königsberg. Read more

The bloody battle for Okinawa is displayed in graphic detail in this painting. In the last major land battle of the Pacific War, Okinawa was fiercely defended by the Japanese, who developed fortified defensive lines in the southern section of the island. Offshore, kamikaze aircraft assaulted U.S. naval vessels.

Allies

Final Conflict on Okinawa

By Dr. Carl H. Marcoux

Although neither side was aware of it at the time, the battle for Okinawa would be the last major battle of World War II. Read more

Allies

The Me 262 and the Beginning of the Jet Fighter Age

By Phil Zimmer

The Germans knew the bombers were coming, and they prepared even as the U.S. 457th Bomber Group first assembled in the early morning sunlight over faraway London. Read more

T-34 medium tanks and Red Army infantrymen attack across an open plain in the Ukraine. The T-34 proved to be one of the most outstanding armored vehicles of World War II and spearheaded the Soviet advance into the Third Reich.

Allies

Death of the Ternopil Garrison

By Pat McTaggart

The city of Ternopil, located on the eastern bank of the Seret River, was founded in 1540 as a Polish military stronghold. Read more

Allies

From Pearl Harbor to Bikini: The USS Curtiss in Action

By Glenn Barnett

Gene Verge was born in Pasadena, California, in 1918. As a young man in 1941 he faced the probability of being drafted. Read more

Allies

Heinz Guderian: Author of the Blitzkrieg

By Phil Zimmer

Hitler was enraged as he stalked his way around the room during the waning months of World War II. Read more

Allies

The Fight for Singling

By Arnold Blumberg

After four months and a 600-mile advance from the beaches of Normandy into Brittany and then through eastern France, the spearhead of Lt. Read more

Allies

Siam Secrecy: The Thai Resistance in World War II

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

Thailand was perhaps the least known, though surely more scenic and exotic, covert battleground of World War II. Read more

Allies

Georgina’s mother sat next to me at her dining room table. She and her husband were veterans of the Great Patriotic War, and back in 1996 we all sat about the table on Victory Day and talked about the siege. Read more

Allies

Seizure of the Surcouf

By Christopher Miskimon

When built, the French Surcouf was the largest submarine in the world. She was named for Robert Surcouf, the famed French privateer who waged successful economic warfare against England during the Napoleonic era. Read more

Allies

Soviet Invasion of Manchuria: Catching Japan Unawares

By John Walker

At 11:02 am on August 9, 1945, an American warplane dropped an atomic device nicknamed “Fat Man” onto the city of Nagasaki, Japan. Read more

German soldiers operate an Enigma machine, sending classified information encoded through a system of rotor settings that were believed to be virtually impossible to crack. However, Allied cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park were reading top secret German communications for some time during World War II.

Allies

The Miracle of Bletchley Park

By Hervie Haufler

Great Britain’s military intelligence leaders learned from their experience in World War I that the kinds of minds capable of breaking codes are a rare commodity and are often not likely to blossom in a military atmosphere. Read more

Wearing distinctive pith helmets, British soldiers assume prone positions as their commander scans the horizon for enemy activity. These troops were photographed near Ramadi, Iraq, as the British attempted to secure Middle Eastern oil reserves.

Allies

Auchinleck of the Indian Army

By Jon Diamond

Many students of World War II history know General Sir Claude Auchinleck as the Commander-in-Chief Middle East, who, after taking over for General Sir Archibald Wavell in late June 1941, oversaw the fluctuating fate of Britain’s Eighth Army while combating German General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps during Operations Crusader and Gazala. Read more

In this painting by artist Norman Wilkinson, the British armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay is shown in flames as geysers from near-misses rise skyward. Jervis Bay’s opponent in this one-sided battle was the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. Although hopelessly outgunned, Jervis Bay took on Admiral Scheer in keeping with the finest traditions of the Royal Navy.

Allies

Gallantry on the High Seas: Merchant Ship Sacrifices in the Atlantic

By Robert Barr Smith

Throughout World War II, the British Admiralty’s deepest concern was the all-important shipping lanes that supplied their island fortress. Read more

We knew little about combat fatigue in WWII, yet more than 504,000 troops were lost due to what we now know as PTSD.

Allies

Combat Fatigue: How Stress in Battle was Felt (and Treated) in WWII

By Duane Schultz

Eugene Sledge knew a thing or two about combat fatigue. It was September 15, 1944, on a tiny spit of land called Peleliu: the Japanese opened up with heavy mortar fire just as the Marines moved off the beach and started inland. Read more

This painting by artist Jim Dietz shows 82nd Airborne Division glider infantrymen unloading a 75mm pack howitzer from a Waco CG-4A glider during Operation Market Garden, September 17, 1944. The glider proved to be an effective tool for delivering men, weapons, and equipment directly to the front lines, but it was also very dangerous.

Allies

Getting the Gliders Off the Ground

By Flint Whitlock

To bring soldiers swiftly and silently onto a battlefield, the U.S. Army decided to follow the German and British examples and build tactical gliders. Read more

Allies

Balkan Bedlam: Special Forces in WWII Albania

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to organize guerrilla resistance against the Nazis, he famously ordered it to set Europe on fire. Read more

Allies

Operation Tsuzigiri: Japan’s Ki-43s vs Allied ATC

by Jon Diamond

Why was Myitkyina such an important objective in the reconquest of Burma in 1943 through 1944 for the Allies and especially among them, Lt. Read more

Allies

Panzer Group 4: The March to Leningrad

By Pat McTaggart

Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Leningrad. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Read more

Allies

Citizen Spies: Simon and Marie Koedel

By Michael W. Williams

Buried in the October 24, 1944, edition of the New York times was the headline: “German Ex-Officer Held as Nazi Spy: Captain in Kaiser’s Army, 62 and Foster Daughter Accused of Sending Ship Data Before U.S. Read more

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Uniform: Prussian Grenadier of the 12th Regiment, 1755-1756