Japan

A Submariner’s Letter From World War II

By Robert Schultz with James Shell

By Christmas 1941, Robert Hunt, torpedoman on the submarine USS Tambor, had witnessed the Japanese bombing of Wake Island, had slept in the Tambor’s forward torpedo room on the way back to Pearl with a bomb-induced leak bubbling in the corner, and had stood on his sub’s bow and seen the devastation of Battleship Row as debris in the oil-slicked harbor bumped against the hull. Read more

Japan

The M2 4.2-Inch Chemical Mortar

By Christopher Miskimon

In the last days of March 1945, a soldier named Carl Getzel sat on a hill outside the city of Aschaffenburg and watched as it was slowly destroyed. Read more

Japan

The Doomed Expansion of Imperial Japan

by Michael E. Haskew

Since 1931, Japan’s army had asserted control over territory on the continent of Asia, brushing aside Chinese resistance, condemnation and political pressure from other nations, and most recently, the Allied military. Read more

Japan

Bloody Tarawa: Betio’s Lagoon

By John Wukovits

Colonel Merritt A. Edson, the 2nd Marine Division’s chief of staff, and Colonel David M. Shoup designed a simple plan to seize Betio—land along its northern beaches, drive straight across the narrow island, and kill the defenders. Read more

Japan

First Strike Against Japanese Industry

By Phil Scearce

Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber crews of the U.S. 11th Bombardment Group spent the first three months of 1943 organizing on Hawaiian airfields and flying practice and patrol missions around the islands. Read more

Japan

“This is the Army”: Irving Berlin’s War

By Sheldon Winkler

The most successful and popular patriotic show of World War II and one of the most unique productions in the history of entertainment was Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, which originally began as a Broadway musical. Read more

Japan

Escape From Bataan

By Glenn Barnett

Most Americans were surprised by the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, but the military had known that war with Japan was inevitable. Read more