We are pleased to announce that we’ve added the Gail S. Halvorsen “Candy Bomber” Collection to our archives. Fold3® is honored to be the official archive of the personal papers, journals, photographs, and videos of the late Col. Gail Seymour Halvorsen, also known as the Candy Bomber. At the end of WWII, the Allies divided…
“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you…” With these words, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the “Order of the Day” just before the 1944 Allied assault…
During WWII, the US Fifth Army liberated Rome on June 4, 1944. Rome had been considered the heart of Fascist Italy under Mussolini’s rule, and the liberation dealt a blow to Nazi Germany’s morale. Rome was one of three Axis capitals and had been under German control since 1943. Not only was the liberation symbolically…
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation declaring April 9th as National Former POW Recognition Day. The day commemorates the capture of nearly 25,000 U.S. troops that were surrendered by their commander on Bataan in the Philippines on April 9, 1942. Though this day has special significance for the “Battling Bastards of Bataan,” as…
On March 28, 1942, British forces rammed an obsolete destroyer laden with explosives into heavily defended dry docks at St Nazaire in German-occupied France. The state-of-the-art dry docks were the base of operations for the German U-Boat fleet and the only docks big enough to service the largest German ships, including the battleship Tirpitz, which…
By the time WWII ended in 1945, the Holocaust claimed the lives of more than 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe. In addition to Jews, Nazi Germany also engaged in the systematic killing of 11 million others, including POWs and those from different ethnic, social, political, or religious backgrounds. In 2005, the United Nations General…
Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power, he ordered the construction of the New Reich Chancellery just south of the Brandenburg Gate in East Berlin. The Chancellery was a showpiece of the Third Reich and designed to project a sense of power and grandeur. The project also contained an extensive underground complex with a bunker…
