U.S. Army Air Corps

Boyd Wagner: Early American Ace

By Sam McGowan

Common wisdom has long held that Japanese pilots and aircraft, particularly their fighters, were superior to the American, Australian, and British counterparts they faced in combat in the Philippines and Southeast Asia in the opening months of U.S. Read more

Courtesy of the Army Air Corps, allied airpower played a significant role in turning the tide at the Battle of the Bulge.

U.S. Army Air Corps

The Army Air Corps at the Battle of the Bulge

by Michael D. Hull

At daybreak on December 16, 1944, three senior officers in the Army Air Corps and a Royal Air Force air vice marshal arrived at an elegant chateau near the town of Spa in southeastern Belgium that was the headquarters of Lt. Read more

During Operation Cobra, the first US Army began a high-risk, high-reward bombing mission just weeks after the D-Day invasion.

U.S. Army Air Corps

Operation Cobra: The High-Risk Follow-Up to the D-Day Invasion

by Brian Todd Carey

On June 6, 1944 the Allies opened the Second Front against Nazi Germany. Concentrated against the beaches of Normandy, Operation Overlord landed 20 army divisions plus support troops on five beaches in anticipation of a breakout across France and toward Berlin. Read more

B-24 Liberators of the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force, one with an engine on fire, streak away from the Ploesti refineries they have just bombed in a painting by Robert Taylor.

U.S. Army Air Corps

Operation Tidal Wave Takes Aim at Ploesti

By Sam McGowan

If there was a name of a prospective target that caused Allied airmen in the European Theater of Operations to blanch in the fall of 1943 and the spring of 1944, it was Ploesti. Read more

General George C. Kenney utilized his gifts of innovation and keen eye for leadership to great success during the Pacific War.

U.S. Army Air Corps

George Kenney’s Air Force During The Pacific War

By Sam McGowan

Although the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the event that served to galvanize America to fight World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and his military advisers had pervasively decided that defeating the Japanese would be secondary to destroying the Nazi war machine in Europe. Read more

A twin-boomed P-38 Lightning flies over snow-capped mountain peaks. With its tremendous range and firepower, the P-38 saw service in every major theater of World War II.

U.S. Army Air Corps

What Made the Lockheed P-38 Lightning So Special?

By Sam McGowan

Due largely to their use in the postwar U.S. Army Air Forces and present proliferation among the air show community, the North American P-51 Mustang is thought of by many as the most important American fighter of World War II. Read more

U.S. Army Air Corps

Ernest Hemingway’s War

By Roy Morris, Jr.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the nation’s most famous writer, a man who had built his reputation on gritty and intense novels about wars, soldiers, and “grace under pressure,” was nowhere to be seen—at least not on the home front. Read more