Axis Archives

Axis

Bradenburgers: Germany’s Special Forces in World War II

by Jon Latimer

War had been raging for 10 days, and Wehrmacht columns were pouring through Poland in a ceaseless torrent. Read more

Shortly after a surrender to U.S. forces, German officers hand out rations of bread to hungry soldiers.

Axis

The German 11th Panzer Division: Giving Up the Ghost

By Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Bell Jr.

It was an impressive sight. Upon the reviewing stand as honored guest was General Dwight D. Read more

Axis

Frederic John Walker & the German U-Boat

by Robert Barr Smith

On this writer’s desk sits a small, pewter mug, dented and somewhat bat-tered. It is neatly engraved, and the lettering reads: “Wardroom H.M.S. Read more

Using a machine gun and carbine rifles, infantrymen sight up enemy positions during an attack on Cape Gloucester.

Axis

Operation Cartwheel: Seizing the Solomons and Beyond

by Douglas Sterling

On the island of New Britain, at the north end of the Solomon chain, lay a major base that provided Japanese forces with the naval power, supplies, and reinforcements to control the sea lanes of the Southwest Pacific. Read more

Axis

WWII Heroes: Aristides de Sousa Mendes

By Michael D. Hull

Panic and confusion reigned across France as the bright, warm spring of 1940 turned into summer.

Blitzkrieg, a brutal new mode of warfare, was on the loose in Western Europe. Read more

The Vestal assists a U.S. Navy destroyer.

Axis

The USS Vestal: The Pearl Harbor Attack & Beyond

by Glenn Barnett

On Saturday, December 6, 1941, the repair ship USS Vestal eased alongside the USS Arizona at her berth at Pearl Harbor. Read more

Axis

WWII Spies: Oreste Pinto

By Robert Whiter

Two men were seated on either side of a paper-strewn table inside an office of MI5, the British intelligence service, in the Royal Victoria Patriotic School at Clapham, London, shortly after the fall of France in the spring of 1940. Read more

On November 10, 1942, American troops occupy a machine-gun position in North Africa. The troops met sporadic resistance from Vichy French forces.

Axis

General Mark Clark’s Secret Mission to North Africa

By Jon Mikolashek

Rain battered the shore and the seas were rough on the night of October 21, 1942. Under the surface of the water, a submarine carried the Allies’ best hope for turning the tide of war in 1942. Read more

Axis

The Battle of the Bulge & The Defense of St. Vith

By Charles Gutierrez

The U.S. 9th Armored Division arrived in the European Theater of Operations in late October 1944 as a reserve for Maj. Read more

Axis

Operation Matterhorn

by John Kennedy Ohl

Most writings about World War II tend to attribute the success or failure of military operations to the skill with which generals and admirals handled their forces in battle and to the fighting abilities of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Read more

Smoke billows from a generator employed at Ludwigshafen along the banks of the Rhine River. The ruins of the city of Mannheim, Germany, are visible in the background.

Axis

Smokescreens: Fighting for Metz

By Jon Latimer

With the defeat of the German Seventh Army and the closing of the Falaise Gap in the summer of 1944, the Allies pursued the retreating enemy across France. Read more

Axis

Battle of Rennell Island: A Fiery End for the USS Chicago

by John Domagalski

With bond clerk Marge Henning standing by as a witness, Colonel Frank Eldridge removed the first piece of the puzzle. Read more

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The Murmansk Run: Running the Gauntlet of WWII’s Arctic Convoys

By Flint Whitlock

It was unbelievably dull and uncomfortable duty, often interspersed with moments of sheer terror and the possibility of sudden and violent death. Read more

Axis

Charlie Mott: Flying Tiger Caged

By Bob Bergin

Charles D. Mott was a U.S. Navy dive-bomber pilot when he joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG), the small band of Americans who flew under the leadership of General Claire Lee Chennault and became known to history as the Flying Tigers. Read more

Strutting through the streets of Prague, German paratroopers participate in a military parade after the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Axis

Prague Uprising in the Spring of 1945

By Pat McTaggart

The first days of May 1945 found the German war machine in absolute chaos. Berlin had fallen, and entire German armies were surrendering en masse. Read more

This photograph of the historic February 23, 1945, flag raising atop Mount Suribachi was taken as Marines took up positions and sought to anchor the pole in the debris and rock atop the extinct 550-foot volcano.

Axis

Franklin Sousley & The Battle of Iwo Jima

By Randall B. Ingram

Everyone has seen the now famous photograph of the three firefighters hoisting Old Glory over the ruins of the World Trade Center. Read more

The British battleships Warspite, Valiant, and Barham fire upon the Italian cruisers Fiume and Zara during the Battle of Cape Matapan on March 28, 1941. The Italian fleet suffered a humiliating defeat in the pivotal Mediterranean engagement.

Axis

Mussolini’s Navy Foiled: The Battle of Cape Matapan

By Glenn Barnett

In June 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini wrestled with a dilemma. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was the very essence of a victorious warlord. Read more

In full gear, paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division wait calmly in the skies above Sicily for the order to stand up and hook up aboard their Douglas C-47 Dakota transport aircraft.

Axis

WWII Letters: Corporal James. G. Delaney

By Maura B. Delaney

Letters were a valuable commodity to the World War II soldier. They were the link to home and to all things familiar in a most unfamiliar place and time. Read more

During a conversation with Attorney General Francis Biddle (left), J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gestures toward a display at a conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House on April 7, 1942.

Axis

Walter Koehler & J. Edgar Hoover

By David Alan Johnson

Throughout his lifetime, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover always boasted that no enemy agent, either spy or saboteur, ever operated at large in the United States during World War II. Read more

Axis

German U-Boats: Scapa Flow Shock

By Jon Latimer

World War II had been in progress for six weeks when on the evening of October 12, 1939, the German submarine U-47 surfaced off the Orkney Islands at the northern tip of Scotland. Read more

From Around the Network

The Human Face of D-Day

Daring Doolittle Raid Survivors

With Third Army Across Europe

Blood in the Snow