World War 2 In View

American tankers clean the bore of their M4 Sherman’s 76mm gun during a pause in the Battle of the Bulge.

Artillerymen dig a gun emplacement into the frozen soil of a Belgium farm near the village of Freyneux. The .50 cal. machine gun is set up for aerial defense.

Infantrymen ride into battle atop a foliage-covered M4 Sherman tank near Freyneux in December 1944.

A 3-inch (76mm) M5 antitank gun in action during the Bulge, December 23, 1944.

With its turret and 75mm main gun reversed, a German Panzer V Panther tank burns after being struck by a tank round from an M4 medium tank during fighting in Belgium in December 1944. Chunks of stone and masonry on the tank’s back deck indicate it may have crashed through a wall or a building.

A German Me 410, less than 25 feet from a B-17 Flying Fortress, banks sharply away from the American bomber after pressing home its attack over Czechoslovakia on May 12, 1944. The 50mm autocannon can be seen protruding from the Me 410's nose.

Horton Ho 229 V2. clocked through gaps in cloud by technicians from Rechlin at 795 kph (493 mph) at an altitude of about 2000 meters (6,500 feet). Unfortunately, the aircraft then crashed, killing the pilot Erwin Ziller. The Ho 229 V1 was a glider and the Ho 229 V3 was unfinished and its parts are in the process of restoration in the Udvar-Hazy Center since 2014. V4 to V6 were in several early stages of prototyping and were lost to history.

An artist's rendering as no photo of the Ho 229 in flight is known to exist.

Film star and U.S. naval officer Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., confers with a British soldier on the beach at Gela, Sicily, in 1943.

Brigadier General Horace Fuller (left) of the 41st Division confers with two of his staff officers.

LCI ships unload infantry at a makeshift wharf along the Biak shore, May 1944.

A Japanese tank, knocked out in the Biak fighting.

Brigadier General Jens Doe confers on the beach on Biak with Lieutenant Colonel Miller.

Soviet tanks and infantrymen move forward together to rout German defenders from several strongpoints. Note the Red Army soldier lying prone atop a tank’s hull, his automatic weapon at the ready. The tanks are an American M3 light tank in the foreground and two M3 medium tanks in the background received through Lend Lease.

A pair of German panzergrenadiers manning a defensive position pause as a mammoth Panzer VI Tiger I tank rumbles past during the Battle of Kursk.

Two German Panzer IVs roll forward warily as pillars of smoke rise from disabled armored vehicles during the Battle of Kursk.

Soviet T-34 enters a village, passing a burning farmhouse.