Vernon Baker was one of seven African Americans to receive the Medal of Honor for service in World War II, an award delayed decades by bias and discrimination. In both war and peace, Baker served as an inspirational leader for the soldiers that served under his command and for generations to come.

The US 79th Infantry Division led the way in assaulting Cherbourg’s Fort du Roule on June 25, 1944, and two Americans would receive Medals of Honor for their heroic conduct.

During a trip to Alexandria, Louisiana in 1970, Maurice P. "Pete" Bowler returned to Camp Claiborne to visit the base where he had trained with the 103rd Infantry Division in 1942.

Thousands of men and women wrote memoirs detailing their experiences in World War II. Here are four lesser known examples that merit a second look.

Walter Jacobs talks about encountering a wounded Japanese soldier during the fighting on Ie Shima and how he believes that his sparing of an enemy soldier’s life resulted in him surviving the fighting there and later on Okinawa.

When World War II ended in Europe, American soldiers feverishly began calculating how soon they might go home based on a newly instituted point system.

William S. Jones describes his experiences during the fight to recapture Attu in the Aleutian Islands in May 1943.

Operation Dragoon was the successful Allied invasion of southern France that also highlighted the intense Allied disagreements over strategy.