World War II

D-Day: Most were just kids...

Have you ever seen a more charming man than Jimmy Stewart? No. I didn’t think so. Not only a wonderful actor, known for his roles in such classics as It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to...

War is a horribly fascinating thing, however much man may hate it.

The following are photos from the Battle of Okinawa from the museum's collection. Narrow Escape (3 May 1945). Photographed at Guam, Army Nurse First Lieutenant Mary Jensen of San Diego, California, looks up through the hole in the concrete and steel deck of the Navy hospital ship Comfort, punctured when a Japanese suicide pilot dive-crashed into the ship off Okinawa with his bomb-laden plane. Nurse Jensen, who had stepped out of the main surgery supply room less than one minute before it was…

amightydirge: “ gunrunnerhell: “ Bayonet Practice The Japanese Imperial Army gained a infamous reputation of absolute brutality at the end of World War II when the scope of their war crimes was...

Chief Machinist James L. Trammell, USN, Beaumont, Texas presents his own Purple Heart (which he earned when he suffered wounds from a German 88 millimeter shell near Geilenkirchen) to Rosa De Greief whose life he saved when he rescued her from her bomb wrecked home in which her mother and sister perished. March 29 1945

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Sailor getting tattooed aboard the USS New Jersey, December 1944.

Part 4 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II

Eastern Front: A German for whom the war has ended did not even have the time to hit the ground; he froze in mid air in temperatures reaching minus 40 degrees Celsius.

[Photo] Burial at sea aboard USS Hancock for those killed by Japanese special attack two days prior, off Okinawa, Japan, 9 Apr 1945 | World War II Database

Determination written on their countenances, Marines start the drive to the interior of Iwo Jima. Running at a crouch, they dart across the table-land in the shadow of Mount Suribachi, taking advantage of the scant protection offered by small rises in the volcanic island. Feb. 1945

These prisoners were photographed along the Bataan Death March in April of 1942. They have their hands tied behind their backs. The estimates of the number of deaths that occurred along the march vary quite a bit, but some 5,000 to 10,000 Filipino and 600 to 650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach Camp O'Donnell. Thousands more would die in poor conditions at the camp in the following weeks.

John Huston in Winter Kills (1979)