Search & discovery
Find a person, battle, citation, tank profile, article, book or episode. Start with a name or identifier, then explore the connections.
Showing 253–270
Night still clung to the sea when the submarine slid in among the enemy ships. On the open bridge, spray cold against his face, Commander Lawson “Red” Ramage watched the black shapes of freighters and tankers loom out of the darkness. Their wakes glowed faintly, white scars across a heaving Pacific, while bursts of star shell and tracer fire clawed at the sky. Somewhere off Taiwan, a Japanese convoy was trying to sli
A story of speed, reach, and improvisation told through the flight decks, hangar bays, and air groups that fought from these big decks.
The October 1944 landings restored a major Allied foothold in the Philippines. Fleet battles protected that foothold, but Japanese reinforcement and the struggle for routes toward Ormoc made the ground campaign longer and more difficult than the beach assault alone suggests.
On August 25th, 1944, the long-occupied French capital erupted in celebration as Free French armored columns and American infantry rolled into Paris.
A story of speed, improvisation, and thin armor told through the crews and battles that defined it.
A story of adaptation, reliability, and hard lessons in steel, told through the crews who fought from its turret.
In the western Pacific, Marines of the First Marine Division stepped off amtracs onto the coral beaches of Peleliu on September 15th, 1944.
A Medal of Honor story of courage under fire in the Battle of the Bulge.
Snow hangs heavy in the Ardennes forest, muting sound until a rifle cracks and splinters bark from a nearby tree. Private First Class Melvin Earl Biddle lies pressed into the freezing ground, the lead scout for an American parachute infantry company feeling every heartbeat echo in the stock of his rifle. Somewhere ahead, beyond the dark trunks and tangled undergrowth, German snipers have halted his company’s advance
On August 15th, 1944, Allied forces, including a substantial American component, stormed ashore along the southern coast of France in Operation Dragoon. While public attention and many soldiers’ memories focused on the earlier landings in Normandy, this Mediterranean assault opened a second front on French soil, aimed at seizing ports and driving north to link up with forces advancing from the Normandy beachhead.
Two years after Midway, the United States Army Air Forces were striking deep into Axis-held Europe, and June brought another innovation. On June 2nd, 1944, heavy bombers based in Britain launched the first “shuttle bombing” mission of what became known as Operation Frantic. Instead of returning to their original airfields, the bombers hit rail yards and other targets in Eastern Europe and then continued on to land at
In mid-February 1944, two linked air operations signaled how the United States was using airpower to reshape two different theaters of war. On February 17th, fast carriers of the U.S. Pacific fleet launched Operation Hailstone against Truk Lagoon, a major Japanese base in the Central Pacific. Waves of aircraft struck ships at anchor, airfields, and support installations, sinking and damaging a large portion of the en
On the western coast of Italy, Allied planners launched Operation Shingle with the hope of breaking the stalemate along the Gustav Line and speeding the capture of Rome. In the early hours of January 22nd, 1944, American and British troops came ashore near the small port of Anzio under a protective naval and air umbrella. The initial landings met relatively light opposition, and beachheads were established quickly, r
Before dawn on Leyte, the world was reduced to shadows, muzzle flashes, and the flat crack of Japanese rifles. Company A of the 382nd Infantry had clawed its way to the edge of the enemy‑held Buri airstrip, then stalled. Out in front, less than a hundred yards away, Japanese soldiers were dug into bomb craters and a drainage ditch, their machine guns perfectly sighted on every patch of open ground. Anyone who tried t
A Medal of Honor story of relentless courage under fire in the Italian campaign of World War II.
A Medal of Honor story of courage under fire in the Battle of the Bulge.
While soldiers and sailors fought overseas, the home front carried its own risks. At Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, largely African American enlisted sailors worked dangerous shifts loading ammunition onto ships bound for the Pacific. Shortly before midnight on July 17th, 1944, a massive explosion tore through the pier and two munitions-laden ships, killing three hundred twenty men and injuring many more
In the bitter winter of 1944, the Belgian town of Bastogne became a focal point of the last major German offensive in the West.