If the US and its western Allies wanted to win this war as rapidly as possible, they couldn’t sit around and wait: not for a naval blockade, or for strategic bombing to work, or for the Soviets.

On June 5, 13,400 American paratroopers boarded C-47 aircraft for the largest airborne operation in history. Problems began as they crossed into France. 

While the Overlord operation was a combined effort of land, sea, and air forces, the amphibious assault plan was given the code name Neptune.

This column is the first of three D-Day columns written by war correspondent Ernie Pyle describing the Allied invasion of Normandy. 

It’s no secret that many WWII veterans returned home reticent to discuss their wartime experiences, but for members of the Ghost Army, silence was not a choice—it was a mandate. 

When World War II began, both the US Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command developed strategic bombing fleets aimed at destroying Axis morale and its ability to prosecute war.

Stutthof concentration camp was among the sites of horror caught up in this gruesome crescendo to Adolf Hitler’s war for racial supremacy.

One of America’s only women war correspondents reports on the liberation of the concentration camps, Soviet and American troops meeting at Torgau, and Hitler’s burning villa in Berchtesgaden

One of America’s only female war correspondents reported on the aftermath of D-Day, the Battle of Saint-Malo, and the liberation of Paris.

Named for the silkworm caterpillar, which produced the silk originally used to make parachutes, the club encapsulates the precariousness of its member’s experiences with its motto: “Life depends on a silken thread.”