Search & discovery
Find a person, battle, citation, article, book or episode. Start with a name or identifier, then explore the connections.
Showing 19–36
Less than a week after the D-Day landings in Normandy, paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division fought their way into the town of Carentan. On June 12th, 1944, after days of brutal combat across causeways and among hedgerows, airborne infantry entered and secured the battered town, which sat at a vital road and rail junction between Utah and Omaha Beaches.
The Illinois division’s wartime service led through Hawaii, New Guinea and Morotai to northern Luzon, where difficult terrain, combined operations and widely separated small-unit actions defined its contribution.
Two years into the Revolution, Congress resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States would consist of thirteen stripes, alternating red and white, with thirteen stars on a blue field. This decision on June 14th, 1777 formalized a symbol that Continental soldiers and sailors could rally around as they marched and sailed under a single national standard.
On February 13th, 1945, Allied bombers began a series of attacks on the German city of Dresden that would continue into the following days and become one of the most debated episodes of the air war in Europe. Dresden had been a cultural center with limited heavy industry compared to some other German cities, but by early 1945 it also served as a transportation hub feeding the German Eastern Front.
A story of a risky carrier ambush, frantic searches, and a sudden shift in the Pacific war.
A story of firepower, protection, and situational awareness told through the soldiers who rode into battle inside the Bradley’s armored hull.
On this date, the Second Continental Congress voted to adopt the New England militia forces already besieging British-held Boston and to form them into a Continental Army. Before this decision, the men surrounding Boston answered primarily to their individual colonies, making coordination and supply uneven and uncertain.
Two days later, early June turned into one of the most famous dates in world history. On June 6th, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in northern France in the opening phase of Operation Overlord. United States troops landed primarily at Utah and Omaha Beaches, facing a mix of flooded terrain, beach obstacles, and entrenched German defenders.
Just eight years after the Wright brothers’ first powered flight, naval officers were already asking what airplanes might do for fleets at sea. On January 18th, 1911, civilian pilot Eugene Ely approached the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay, aiming at a temporary wooden deck built over the ship’s stern.
Just one day after creating a Continental Army, Congress turned to the problem of who should lead it and selected George Washington of Virginia as commander in chief. Washington had experience from the French and Indian War, a reputation for personal courage, and the political advantage of coming from a southern colony at a moment when most fighting was in New England. His appointment helped weld together regional in
In the Central Pacific, United States forces opened a new phase of the war against Japan with the amphibious assault on Saipan in the Mariana Islands. On June 15th, 1944, Marines of the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions, supported later by soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division, hit the beaches under fire from well-prepared Japanese defenses dug into coral, caves, and ridges.
Three weeks after seizing Saipan, American forces returned to Guam, reclaiming a prewar United States possession that had been lost in the dark days of 1941. Marines and soldiers from the Third Marine Division, the First Provisional Marine Brigade, and the Seventy-Seventh Infantry Division went ashore under heavy fire, forced to slog through surf, coral, and fortified jungle slopes.
Two years later to the day, early June marked a turning point in another long and bitter conflict. On June 8th, 1969, President Richard Nixon met South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island in the Pacific to discuss the future of the Vietnam War. There he announced that the United States would begin withdrawing combat troops from South Vietnam, starting with a contingent of thousands of soldiers, as
In June 1918, United States Marines and soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces were committed to stopping a German drive toward Paris near a patch of forest called Belleau Wood. On June 11th, 1918, Marine units launched renewed assaults into the dense, shell-torn woods after earlier attacks had been thrown back with heavy losses.
During the American Civil War, these two masonry forts guarded the lower Mississippi River approach to New Orleans, anchoring Confederate defenses along the Gulf Coast. After a fierce bombardment and a daring nighttime run past their guns by Flag Officer David Farragut’s fleet, the forts were isolated and demoralized. Mutiny broke out among the Confederate enlisted men, and their officers were forced to concede that
A story of a silent campaign against merchant ships and how it helped choke an island empire’s war effort.
On that same June weekend, United States soldiers were fighting on the ground in Italy. On June 4th, 1944, elements of the United States Fifth Army entered Rome after months of hard campaigning up the Italian peninsula, past Salerno, Cassino, and the Anzio beachhead. The capture of Italy’s capital marked the first time an Axis capital city fell into Allied hands, a powerful symbol of progress in a campaign sometimes
After the experience of two world wars, during which women had served in large numbers in temporary or auxiliary roles, the United States took a major step toward making that service permanent. On June 12th, 1948, the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act was signed into law, granting women the right to serve as regular and reserve members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and newly independent Air Force.