When the troop ship he was aboard in the North Atlantic began sinking, Rabbi Alexander Goode and his fellow chaplains sacrificed themselves so that others could live.

An estimated 9,000 American Jews were held as POWs by the Germans. Their Jewish identity was a source of both pride and peril.

A stalemate on the Gustav Line in January 1944 brought about one of the more controversial Allied decisions of Italian campaign.

Brigadier General Charles “Chuck” Yeager was best known as the first man to break the sound barrier, but during World War II Yeager was a decorated fighter ace.

A small notebook by Charles Don Page records the defining moment in 212 men’s lives under the Imperial Japanese Army.

Seeing the cemetery for the German war dead at Futa Pass was a stark reminder of the human cost of defeating fascism.

Even while held as POWs by the Germans in the POW camp Stalag Luft IV, American servicemen exercised their civic duty and made their voices heard, at least to each other, when they held a straw vote for the 1944 presidential election.

Pursuing his passion for flight, William Holloman II enlisted in the only unit that would let him fly—the Tuskegee Airmen. He joined as a fighter pilot with the famous “Red Tails” of the 332nd Fighter Group.

At the end of the war, more than 12,000 American POWs were scattered in camps across the Pacific in desperate shape. From August 30-September 20, 1945, in Operation Swift Mercy, B-17s and B-29s flew 1,000 missions and dropped 4,500 tons of supplies to American troops no longer prisoner, but still trapped.

Willa Brown may not be a household name, but her accomplishments and legacy are nothing short of astounding. The first African American woman to hold a commercial pilot’s license in the United States and teacher of hundreds of future Tuskegee Airmen has a fascinating and inspiring life story.