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Charles Norman Shay
Charles Norman Shay, a Penobscot Indian from Maine, was just 19 when he waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. As a combat medic with the...
Read Full Story →Stories You Won't Find on Google
Obscure heroes, forgotten battles, and personal accounts from the Second World War — curated for the curious mind.
Forgotten Heroes
Bravery overlooked by history books
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Havildar Lachhiman Gurung
On May 12-13, 1945, near Taungdaw, Burma, Havildar Lachhiman Gurung single-handedly defended his forward post against 200 Japanese soldiers. When the ...
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Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker, smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation, savi...
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John R. Fox
On Christmas Day, 1944, First Lieutenant John R. Fox, an African American artillery observer with the 598th Field Artillery Battalion, found himself s...
Read Full Story →Obscure Battles
The campaigns history forgot
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Battle of the Hurtgen Forest
The Battle of the Hurtgen Forest was the longest battle on German soil during WWII and one of the most costly for the U.S. Army. American forces attac...
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Operation Biting
Operation Biting was the first British paratrooper raid of WWII, targeting a German Würzburg radar installation near Bruneval, France. The mission wa...
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Operation Tonga
Operation Tonga was the British 6th Airborne Division's D-Day mission to capture the bridges over the Orne River and Caen Canal (Pegasus Bridge), dest...
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Battle of the Scheldt
The Battle of the Scheldt was one of the most crucial yet overlooked battles of the Northwest European campaign. Its objective was to open the port of...
Read Full Story →Personal Stories
Letters, diaries, and testimonies
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LETTER
The Last Letter from Oradour-sur-Glane
My dearest Geneviève, I write this from the church of Oradour where we have been gathered with all the village. The soldiers say it is for an identity check, but something is wrong. I see fear in th...
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DIARY
Field Surgeon's Diary: Omaha Beach
D-Day + 1 I operated for 22 hours yesterday. This morning I find I cannot remember the faces of the men I saved, only the ones I could not. We have no plasma left. The blood is caked on my surgical g...
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TESTIMONY
Warsaw Uprising Radio Operator's Log
We broadcast from the fourth floor of the Post Office building on Świętokrzyska Street. The Germans know our location—they have shelled us three times today—but the antenna still stands. I am re...
Read Full Story →Deep Dive Articles
Investigations into forgotten chapters
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Spy Operations
The Ghost Army: America's Secret Weapon of Deception
22nd Headquarters Special Troops - 1,100 artists, designers, and sound engineers who saved thousands of lives through inflatable tanks and fake radio ...
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Women at War
The Women Who Flew Spitfires: ATA Pilots
The Air Transport Auxiliary employed 168 women pilots who delivered every type of aircraft from factories to airfields—unarmed, unarmored, and often...
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Spy Operations
The Paperclip Conspiracy: Operation Paperclip
How America recruited Nazi scientists—rocket engineers, chemical weapons experts, and medical researchers—while hiding their war crimes from the p...
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Spy Operations
The Ritchie Boys: German Jews Who Interrogated Nazis
2,000 German Jewish refugees trained at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, then sent back to Europe to interrogate POWs and liberate their former homeland....
Read Full Article →Think You Know WWII?
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