Japanese

A Civilian in MacArthur’s Air Force

By Raymond E. Bell

Stephen Pierce Duggan, Jr., wanted to be a United States Marine. When the United States entered World War II, Steve was all set to do his part. Read more

Japanese

Confident Carrier Admiral Marc “Pete” Mitscher

By Michael D. Hull

He was a seagoing J.E.B. Stuart who hid beneath weather fronts to make his attacks, and he fought more naval engagements than John Paul Jones and David Farragut combined. Read more

Japanese

Bloodbath at Mukden: Imperial Russia and Japan Collide

By Louis Ciotola

January and February 1905 were critical months for both the Russian and Japanese empires, which were locked in a war over East Asia that neither of them could sustain. Read more

Japanese

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

Japanese

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

Japanese

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

Japanese

Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

By Robert Barr Smith

They carried no weapons, only holy books and rudimentary vestments, a crucifix or a Star of David and sometimes a little Communion kit. Read more

Japanese

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

Japanese

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

Japanese

Combat Fatigue: How Stress in Battle was Felt (and Treated) in WWII

By Duane Schultz

Eugene Sledge knew a thing or two about combat fatigue. It was September 15, 1944, on a tiny spit of land called Peleliu: the Japanese opened up with heavy mortar fire just as the Marines moved off the beach and started inland. Read more

Japanese

Operation Tsuzigiri: Japan’s Ki-43s vs Allied ATC

by Jon Diamond

Why was Myitkyina such an important objective in the reconquest of Burma in 1943 through 1944 for the Allies and especially among them, Lt. Read more

Japanese

Was the 1917 Enfield a Good Rifle Compared to the Springfield?

By Steve Lilley

In director Howard Hawks’s 1941 film classic, Sergeant York, then-Corporal Alvin York, portrayed by Gary Cooper, single-handedly knocks out more than 30 German machine-gun nests and, with little assistance, captures 132 enemy soldiers. Read more

Japanese

The Battle of the Coral Sea

By John Wukovits

World War II was less than six months old when the American public, already stunned by the debacles at Pearl Harbor and Guam, faced one of its darkest moments. Read more

Japanese

Perilous Rescue of the SS Cape San Juan

By Eric Niderost

The giant Martin PBM-3R “Mariner” landed with a kind of swanlike grace, its stubby bow parting the waters, transforming them into a series of white and foamy ripples that radiated from the seaplane’s wake. Read more

Japanese

The Birth of the Viet Minh: World War II’s Prelude to the Vietnam War

By John Brown

In the late 18th century, the French established Catholic missions in Indochina, and until the 1820s they enjoyed local protection, but after that persecution began and increased steadily, particularly under Emperor Tu-Duc, who reigned from 1847 to 1883 and wanted to stamp out Christianity. Read more

Japanese

U.S. Forces in the Philippines: Too Little, Too Late

by Sam McGowan

In the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught unprepared in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. Read more

Japanese

WWII Planes: The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

By Sam McGowan

During the first year of American participation in World War II, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk (Kittyhawk or Tomahawk to the British) came to symbolize the United States Army Air Corps as it fought a desperate war to hold the Japanese in check. Read more

Japanese

How Japanese Aircraft Carrier Construction Was Thwarted

by John W. Whitman

Japan lacked the industrial strength needed to wage a war against the United States. Yet, Japanese military planners seldom considered the limitations to their nation’s construction capabilities. Read more

Japanese

Submarine Surgeon on the USS Seadragon

By George Tipton Wilson

In cramped quarters aboard the submarine USS Seadragon, beneath the Pacific Ocean, with enemy warships circling above, 22-year-old pharmacist’s mate Wheeler Bryson (Johnny) Lipes was ordered to perform an emergency appendectomy on seaman Darrell Dean Rector. Read more

Japanese

Charles ‘Swede’ Momsen: Submarine Pioneer

By Glenn Barnett

In July 1943, the American submarine USS Tinosa was on patrol in Japanese waters when she came across an unescorted oil tanker. Read more