Thanks to a manuscript Beck wrote while hiding out in France in 1944, we know much of the story of this American fighter pilot.

From January 1943 to June 1945, writer Kurt Vonnegut served in the US Army. His experiences with the 106th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge and then later as a prisoner of war in Dresden imprinted his life and provided traumatic (and sometimes comedic) material for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five and other works.

The stories of the American airmen in Romania should never be forgotten.

In European prisoner of war camps, boredom became as fearsome an enemy as the Nazis themselves. These Americans fought it with inspiring creativity.

On November 3, 1943, Adolf Hitler called for a fundamental reorientation of German strategy to strengthen the west in preparation for an Anglo-American landing.