Allies
Laden with 500-pound bombs and incendiaries, 10 Japanese twin-engine Mitsubishi Ki21 Sally bombers took off from the Hanoi airfield in Indochina on the morning of Saturday, December 20, 1941. Read more
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During the second week of July 1944 a young, sharp Lieutenant Goldstein of the 4th Infantry Division’s 22nd Infantry Regiment was told by his boss, Colonel Buck Lanhan, “Expect a special civilian, a big war correspondent is coming to visit us. Read more
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The bogey man of the U.S. Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign was not the Zero fighter or the I-class submarine. Read more
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If Peleliu was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific Theater, it was also one of the least known until recently. Read more
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During the early hours of December 7, 1941, five midget submarinesof the Imperial Japanese Navy waited to enter Pearl Harbor, the anchorage of the U.S. Read more
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The fighting at Orsha saw the first battlefield use of the Red Army’s experimental battery of BM-13 multiple-launch rocket systems. Read more
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It was just about midnight on June 12, 1942, and the Abwehr (Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency) hoped that Dasch and his three men, along with another four-man group to be put ashore on the coast of Florida, would be able to destroy factories of the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) located in the United States. Read more
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“I’ve been old in all my ranks,” said Henri Philippe Pétain, created Marshal of France on December 8, 1918, at age 62. Read more
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Military posters played a crucial role in motivating Americans to do their best and make sacrifices—of all kinds—during World War II. Read more
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At 12:30 am, October 9, 1943, Commander Edward S. Hutchinson spotted his first targets as a submarine commander. Read more
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World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor. Read more
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He was, in the truest sense, a national hero. Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France, the hero of Verdun, is, however, best remembered in the modern world as a traitor, a collaborationist who sacrificed the honor of France to make a deal with Hitler and the Nazis. Read more
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In the annals of World War II, one of the most famous airplanes is the British-developed Supermarine Spitfire, an agile, elliptical-wing fighter that has become synonymous with the Royal Air Force victory in the Battle of Britain. Read more
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The image of Red Army soldiers hoisting their hammer and sickle emblazoned banner atop the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament, is a classic photo of World War II, an image that told the world Nazi Germany was at last finished. Read more
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During World War II, naval mines were used extensively in the Baltic Sea. Their low cost provided weaker German and Finnish fleets with an effective force multiplier in negating Soviet numerical and qualitative advantages. Read more
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Duty in the British Merchant Navy was hazardous during World War II. Braving the stormy Atlantic, the expanse of the Pacific, and the daily rigors of life aboard ship were challenging enough during peacetime; however, during the dark days of the war a determined enemy, bent on bringing the island nation and its far-flung empire to their knees, unleashed a vicious campaign against Britain’s merchant lifeline. Read more
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As the submarine USS Cod left Apra harbor, Guam, on the afternoon of June 26, 1945, for her seventh war patrol, her crew of 97 officers and enlisted men were all but certain that their new assignment was to be junk hunting—a thankless and dangerous job that in the words of one Cod crewman saw “Uncle Sam risk a seven million dollar submarine and crew to sink a leaky sailboat not worth more than $20,000!” Read more
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Admiral Ernest King could not believe what he was reading. The graying 63-year-old chief of U.S. naval operations had been awoken from his sleep. Read more
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In April 1941, German troops swarmed into Greece from Bulgaria. Despite a valiant defense by the Greek Army and support from the British, the Nazis smashed their battle lines and controlled Greece within weeks. Read more
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By early 1945, less than a year before General George S. Patton’s mysterious death, Adolf Hitler’s armies were almost exhausted. Read more
