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In Whitefish, Montana, the spectacular view from anywhere on Big Mountain up to its summit over 6,800 feet overlooks placid Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, and the Valley below, while its slopes have attracted skiers for decades. Near Glacier National Park, this hardly seems a place where a battle goes on over a statue called “Big Mountain Jesus.” The statue has stood on a tiny 25-foot-by-25-foot piece of leased land high up on the mountain for over 60 years as a memorial honoring soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division who lost their lives fighting...

A World War II fighter pilot received an extra special present when vintage aircraft flew over Boeing Field, about five miles south of downtown Seattle, honoring Dorothy Olsen's 99th birthday, NBC Station KING reports. She was one of about 1,000 female pilots during the war and flew 22 different types of fighter planes from factories to U.S. Army Air Force bases from 1943 to 1945. After Olsen delivered the plane, male pilots would fly them overseas to combat destinations. Dorothy Olsen, left, watches the sky as vintage aircraft fly over Boeing Field, honoring her 99th birthday. "I've been lucky," Olsen...

Twenty-five army, navy and coast guard men -- the entire crew and passenger list of a converted Flying Fortress carrying the homeward-bound servicemen from Gander, Newfoundland -- were killed last night when the plane crashed against 1200-foot Mount Tom. Salvage crews summoned to the scene of New England's worst air disaster

The party started early on VJ Day. Though the official announcement that World War II ended wasn't made until closer to 7pm on Aug. 14, 1945, a scientific assessment of the famous photo of the couple kissing in celebration, called "VJ Day in Times Square" and widely known as "The Kiss," reveals the duo actually locked lips before then—at 5:51pm Eastern, to be precise. So reports a team of scientists that includes a physicist and astronomer in the August issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. While they can't say with certainty who the couple is, they've used clues in the...

The bodies of 36 US Marines have been found on a remote Pacific island more than 70 years after they died in a bloody World War II battle [Tarawa], a member of the recovery team said...

Wessex Archeology says it has in recent years found remains from World War II mess kitchens in the area.Archeologists say they have unearthed several tins filled with U.S. Army bacon and sunscreen at Salisbury Plain, England, home of the famous Stonehenge ruins. Wessex Archeology shared the find on its website in celebration of American Independence Day. Salisbury Plain has been a British military training ground since the early 20th century, but U.S. military forces staged there in preparation for the 1944 invasion of Nazi-occupied France during World War II. "The military has been on Salisbury Plain for decades so it's...

German soldiers grappled for nine hours with an unusual task: trying to remove a Second World War tank found in the cellar of a villa. Almost 20 soldiers struggled to remove the tank from a villa on Thursday in a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany, after police searching the property discovered the tank, a torpedo, an anti-aircraft gun and other weapons in the cellar on Wednesday. Police raided the home in the town of Heikendorf under instructions from prosecutors, who suspected that the villa's 78-year-old owner held the weaponry illegally under a law controlling the possession of instruments...

When he was 5 years old, Kevin Wheatcroft received an unusual birthday present from his parents: a bullet-pocked SS stormtrooper’s helmet, lightning bolts on the ear-flaps. He had requested it especially. The next year, at a car auction in Monte Carlo, he asked his multimillionaire father for a Mercedes: the G4 that Hitler rode into the Sudetenland in 1938. Tom Wheatcroft refused to buy it and his son cried all the way home. When Wheatcroft was 15, he spent birthday money from his grandmother on three WWII Jeeps recovered from the Shetlands, which he restored himself and sold for a...

YouTube video of German World War II Era Wehrmacht Howitzer Used By Syrian Rebels On The Battlefield In Idlib

Night Witch commemorative stamps (Photo: toysworld.od.ua)In the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union, German soldiers had a very real fear of witches.Namely the Night Witches, an all-female squadron of bomber pilots who ran thousands of daring bombing raids with little more than wooden planes and the cover of night—and should be as celebrated as their male counterparts.This month marks the 73rd anniversary of the start of their pioneering service. In June of 1941, the Axis powers pushed into the Soviet Union using the largest invading force in the history of warfare. The infamous Operation Barbarossa saw over four million troops wade into Russia from...

'The numbers are staggering: up to three million Bengalis were killed by famine, more than half a million South Asian refugees fled Myanmar (formerly Burma), 2.3 million soldiers manned the Indian army and 89,000 of them died in military service. South Asia was transformed dramatically during the war years as India became a vast garrison and supply-ground for the war against the Japanese in South-East Asia. Yet, this part of the British Empire's history is only just emerging. By looking beyond the statistics to the stories of individual lives the Indian role in the war becomes truly meaningful. Has the...

Beneath the panes of Perspex in her floor, the daisy-strewn runway falls away as fast as 80 years of history. The Blenheim’s snout lifts skywards, her twin engines casting a heat haze behind the propellers’ silver blur. At 200mph, she throttles towards a patchwork of cumulus and sun, quiet, quick and deft. Inside she is bare of today’s technology. Her khaki flight deck contains pedals as delicate as a piano’s, a joystick, and a small black bank of antique instruments. I am perched in the navigator’s place on a circular seat the size of a dinner plate. Above me and...

Originally published on June 11, 2015 11:30 am Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Transcript RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: The Magna Carta has a big birthday coming up. That document, establishing the foundation of the modern judicial system, will turn 800 years old on Monday. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: At the British Library in London, an exhibition displays the Magna Carta alongside original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Bill of Rights. Both of those documents were inspired by the Magna Carta. A couple of months ago, I visited the British Library for a story on the...

The Defense Department announced in April that the remains of up to nearly 400 unaccounted for service members tied to the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor will be exhumed. That process began on Monday. “This was the first set of remains from the USS Oklahoma to be disinterred,” said Jim Horton, the director of the Punchbowl cemetery. Disinterment ceremonies were held when the bones of Korean War veterans were exhumed for identification. Now, hundreds who served on USS Oklahoma during World War II may also be identified. The attacked happened at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. But many bodies...

casualty count of WWII in graphic format

Late on the night of June 5, 1944, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain commanded by Lt. Col. John M. Donalson launched with 15 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division on board. They were the very tip of the Allied invasion spear, leading a formation of hundreds of aircraft carrying thousands of troops. Just after midnight on June 6, That’s All, Brother navigated through intense German fire and low clouds to drop the first Allied troops to land in Normandy, France, on D-Day, commencing Operation Overlord. Seven decades later, Staff Sgt. Matt Scales of the Alabama Air National Guard was researching Donalson’s...

Documents recently discovered and Japanese scientist acknowledge that Japan had a nuclear weapons program in WW2. The Japanese had made big strides toward creating their own atomic bomb. Very interesting documentary.

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard...

A 99-year-old World War II veteran who wants to move from a Minnesota veterans' home to one in California is frustrated by a state law that requires six months of residency first. George Vandersluis grew up in Minneapolis and eventually settled in Fresno, California, where he raised his sons after the war. He returned to Minnesota after suffering a heart attack eight years ago to live in a Veterans Affairs facility in Hastings. KSTP first introduced you to Vandersluis, who is one of the last Pearl Harbor survivors, on Memorial Day.

U.S. Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers from the USS Hornet about to attack the burning Japanese cruiser Mikuma for the third time on 6 June 1942 REMEMBER: June 4–7, 1942: the Battle of Midway, a turning point in World War II in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one. Timeline of the Battle of Midway (acc. to William Koenig) 4 June 04:30 First Japanese takeoff against Midway Islands 04:30 10 planes (Yorktown) begin to search for the Japanese ships 05:34 Japanese ships detected by Yorktown...