WWII History January 2008 Archives

A Junkers Ju-52 returns from Crete, bringing home wounded parachutists and Alpine patrol soldiers.

WWII History January 2008

Fliegen und Siegen: Photographs from the Luftwaffe

By A. Burke

Sixty-five years ago, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe showcased its aerial triumphs in a 1942 commemorative book of photographs entitled Fliegen und Siegen (“Flying and Victory”). Read more

War artist Gary Sheenhan captured the prisoners’ misery, fear, and deprivation at Buchenwald in 1945. The revolts in Sobibor and Treblinka were the last chance for the inmates to survive as the Nazis began to cover up their heinous deeds.

WWII History January 2008

Revolts in the Death Camps

By Jonathan F. Keiler

By the spring of 1943, the Nazi deaths camps in eastern Poland—Sobibor, Belzac, and Treblinka—were running out of victims. Read more

In a photo taken from another B-29 in formation, this heavy bomber disgorges incendiary bombs from the skies above Formosa. The largest B-29 raid of the war to date took place on October 14, 1944. The target was the repair and supply facilities at Okayama on the island.

WWII History January 2008

B-29 Superfortress: The Plane That Bombed Japan Into Submission

By Sam McGowan

As the Japanese delegation stood on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, preparing to sign the documents that ended World War II, a large formation of Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers swooped low over Tokyo Bay as a reminder of the terrible destruction that had befallen their nation and turned Japan’s cities into ruins. Read more

British commandos march through the ruins of the French town of Caen. An objective of the Allied D-Day landings that was supposed to have been captured on June 6, stiff German resistance prevented the city from being liberated until a month later.

WWII History January 2008

Fleming, Ian Fleming

By Hervie Haufler

Some accounts of Ian Fleming’s life make it seem that only at the age of 44, as an antidote to the shock of finally agreeing to get married, did he suddenly commit himself to the unplanned task of creating his James Bond novels. Read more

Having been issued ammunition, Abyssinian troops known as Shifta advance on the run to take up positions against the advancing enemy.

WWII History January 2008

South Africans in the Breech: Expelling Mussolini From Ethiopia

By Jon Latimer

Boarding a train at the famous station built by the French as a terminus on the line from Djibouti, the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, Ras Tafari, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia left his capital Addis Ababa on May 2, 1936. Read more

A U.S. Navy destroyer escort was originally conceived as something of a stopgap measure during World War II. Later, the design proved to be effective in all theaters. Here, a destroyer escort is shown under way during sea trials.

WWII History January 2008

Holding the Line on the High Seas

By Paul B. Cora

Through the first half of World War II, Allied shipping losses to German U-boats climbed steadily from over 400,000 tons in the last four months of 1939 to more than two million tons each in 1940 and 1941, before reaching a staggering 6,266,215 tons in 1942 following the entry of the United States into the war. Read more

U.S. Navy dive-bombers attack a Japanese cruiser at the Battle of Midway in this painting by Robert Benny.

WWII History January 2008

Lifting the Japanese Military

By John W. Whitman

Japanese military successes in 1941 and 1942 shocked the West. Behind those successes lay a logistics effort not often appreciated, that of shipping. Read more