Allies Archives

Combat divisions fielded by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps comprised regulars, recruits, and draftees.

Allies

U.S. Divisions of World War II

By Colonel James W. Hammond

The definitive combat unit of comparable strength among the forces of the world during the 20th century was the division. Read more

Allies

Red Ball Express: The Legendary Lifeline

By Michael D. Hull

August 1944 saw a rosy mood of optimism and self-deception sweep through the Allied high command in France as a result of the sudden, dramatic end to the campaign in Normandy. Read more

Allies

Leclerc and Liberation

By Michael D. Hull

After the humiliating fall of France in June 1940, two impassioned patriots—a general and an infantry captain—refused to accept defeat and determined, against all odds, to exact retribution from the German invaders. Read more

Allies

The Magnificent Jeep

By Michael D. Hull

General of the Army George C. Marshall called it America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare. General Dwight D. Read more

Allies

Surviving France’s Shame: French General Maxime Weygand in WWII

By Blaine Taylor

“What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over,” intoned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “The Battle of Britain is about to begin.” Read more

Allies

“Is Paris Burning?” Liberating the City of Light

By Kelly Bell

By the late summer of 1944, the Third Reich was almost surrounded. Two years earlier Adolf Hitler had ground 10 European countries under his heel along with vast expanses of North Africa and Soviet Russia. Read more

Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, standing second from right, studies a map while conferring with officers aboard a universal carrier at the Europa Docks in Bremen, Germany, on April 27, 1945.

Allies

Brian G. Horrocks: Bernard Montgomery’s Frontline General

By Michael D. Hull

A big challenge faced Maj. Gen. Brian G. Horrocks, an infantryman, when he was cross-posted to take command of the British Army’s 9th Armored Division in March 1942. Read more

Allies

The Ill-Fated Goettge Patrol: Richard Tregaskis

by John Wukovits

The heated reaction by the Marines to the slaughter at the Goettge Patrol, answered in kind by the Japanese, led to some of the fiercest combat seen in the war. Read more

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

Leningrad: A Survivor’s Story

By Bob Kunzinger

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

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

From Around the Network

Jim Kunkle: Flying the P-38 Lightning… and Almost Everything Else

Einsatzgruppen in Germany: The Nazi Killing Squad

Africa Squadron

Daring Doolittle Raid Survivors