Axis
The tempo of war planning intensified for the invasion of Europe during the early months of 1944. Finally, at daylight on June 6, 1944, Allied infantry stormed ashore along the German-held Normandy coast. Read more
Axis
The second week in April 1940 was a stormy period in the North and Norwegian Seas. The weather deteriorated during April 7, with low cloud cover and fog. Read more
Axis
Shortly before dawn on May 20, 1941, a flight of 500 transport planes took off from seven airstrips on mainland Greece. Read more
Axis
Any American submarine that had made contact with a Japanese task force a year or two earlier would almost certainly not have had the success that Darter and Dace had with Admiral Kurita’s task force. Read more
Axis
As soon as he arrived on the bridge of the submarine USS Dace, Lt. Cmdr. Rafael C. Read more
Axis
On the evening of August 7, 1937, two neophyte radio broadcasters went to dinner together at the luxurious Adlon Hotel in Berlin, Germany. Read more
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In December 1944, the Ardennes front or “ghost front” was an area where either veteran Allied units rotated in to rest and recover from terrible combat losses or where new, untested units arrived to gather some combat experience from the minor skirmishes that would occasionally flare up. Read more
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The swinging beams of searchlights and the wail of air raid sirens had preceded the crash of the guns. Read more
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On the second day of Adolf Hitler’s bold invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Germans were confronted with one of their most glaring shortcomings in weapons and armament. Read more
Axis
In the predawn hours of September 15, 1944, the official start of the two-month Battle of Peleliu, a powerful fleet of U.S. Read more
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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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Captured by the Red Army during World War II, diaries written by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, lay forgotten in the vast, byzantine collections of the Russian Military Archive. 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
