U.S. Army Air Corps
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
U.S. Army Air Corps
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
U.S. Army Air Corps
The popular conception of the struggle in the air over northern Europe during World War II is of squadrons of sleek fighters racing over the German heartland to protect contrailed streams of lumbering bombers stretching beyond sight. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
The mighty invasion armada for the main thrust at Luzon in the Philippine Islands was being assembled on December 28, 1944. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
On September 28, 1939, the day after Warsaw fell to the German Army, American aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran sat down and wrote a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
When the call came that morning, it was not unlike the 25 times previously when they had flown, or all those other times when weather intervened and postponement was ordered. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
Racing his Bentley at breakneck speed between his High Wycombe headquarters and the Air Ministry during World War II, Air Marshal Arthur Travers Harris was the bane of motorcycle policemen on the London road. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
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
U.S. Army Air Corps
Still stunned by the sneak Japanese onslaught on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, American families tried to summon up their Christmas spirit in December 1941. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
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
U.S. Army Air Corps
Adolf Hitler’s wartime Armaments Minister Albert Speer was right when he termed the Führer’s pilot from 1932 to 1945, Lt. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
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
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
U.S. Army Air Corps
The year 1939 was one of massive military parades across Europe. On April 20, the largest ever was held in Berlin to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, complete with the paratroopers, wheeled artillery, tanks, half-tracks for motorized infantry, and overhead Luftwaffe fly-bys that would mark the coming campaigns and revolutionize warfare forever. Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
Superficially, Phil Cochran personified the WWII fighter pilot, a combat daredevil, nonchalant about the niceties of rank and zealous in pursuit of what he called “chicks.” Read more
U.S. Army Air Corps
The planning was done behind closed doors. The work was done at secret facilities. The result? America’s first jet plane—a fighter that might have seen combat in World War II, had things gone differently. Read more
