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World War II (1930-1945) |
This page is intended to hold information and data relating to World War II, starting in 1930 as the world slowly re-armed and stumbled towards a Second Great War with the rise of Fascism across the world.
Encyclopedia of WWIIThis section holds statistical information and analyses related to WWII. It is intended to be a "potpourri" of useful information. Planning US Pacific Theater of Operations Timezones, circa April 1945 – This document is a reproduction of a 1945 timezone chart, enabling you to figure out what time US forces were using where during mid-1945. Units German Division Count by Type (1939-1945) by Ron Klages & John Mulholland – This shows the rough number of German divisions by type by month from 1939 to 1945. German Division Count by Theater (1939-1945) – This shows the rough number of German divisions by deployment area per month from 1939 to 1945. German Tank Deployments (1939-1945) – This shows the rough AFV count by major type (Pz I/II/III/etc) for several major German operations from the invasion of Poland in 1939 to the final counts in March 1945. U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Organization – This details the basic TO&E and number of Tank Destroyer units in the US Army from 1941-1945. U.S. Army Air Forces Basic Organizational Concepts – This details the basic organization of the US Army Air Forces in World War II (Air Force -> Command -> Division -> Wing -> Group. Also includes a rough sketch of early B-36 organizational concepts. U.S. Army Air Forces Group Organization (as of 20 February 1945) U.S. Army Air Forces Squadron Organization (as of 1 August 1945) U.S. Marine Corps Squadrons of WWII – Lists approximately 90% of all USMC Aviation Squadrons during WWII, with designation, nickname, dates active and types of aircraft flown. Soviet Air Force (VVS) WW2 Organization Soviet Airborne (VDV) WW2 Organization Production Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Production Plans (1931-1945) – This page details the programmed ships called for in every major IJN naval construction program from 1931's Circle One program to the 1944-45 War Program. German Tank Monthly Acceptances – This contains acceptance rates for most major German AFV families. German V-Weapon Monthly Acceptances – This contains acceptance rates for the V-1 and V-2. |
U.S. Navy Reading RoomNaval Aviation Combat Statistics, World War II – This is a complete, HTMLed copy of this seminal, infamously hard to get document, along with both copies (1997 and 2005) in PDF format of previous Naval Historical Center scans. This is the book for US Navy World War II Carrier Aviation Statistics. U.S. Navy Aeronautic Schedules, 1930-1946 – This page contains copies of the Naval Aeronautical Schedules, which detail how the USN's aviation arm was organized from 1930 to 1946. Also includes (where possible) common air group organizations. Record of [USN Ammunition] Expenditures, World War II - Addenum No. 1 to (3 April 1946) (36.7 MB PDF) – This document details USN ammunition expenditure for most of WWII; but for certain subjects, it's only for 1944 or 1945 as detailed reports were not available or done in earlier years. OEG 741 Defense Against Kamikaze Attacks in World War II and its Relevance to Anti-Ship Missile Defense, Volume I, CNA; 1971. (4.8 MB DTIC PDF, 12.7 MB USNA PDF) – This document, written in the 1970s, details the 1944-45 Kamikaze campaign against the USN with a lot of meaty statistics. Summary Report to OSRD from ORG, 1 December 1945 (11.7 MB PDF) – This report contains a listing of all the Operational Research Reports, Memoranda, Studies, etc done by Admiral King's in-house Operational Research Group during World War II, with titles such as: Bombing Accuracy of SBD and F4U, Aircraft Countermeasures to the Type XXI U-Boat, Surface Craft Tactical Countermeasures to Type XXI U-Boat etc. BIG NOTE: I don't actually have these; but as with many things, simply knowing they exist is half the battle. |
British Empire Reading RoomBritish Official Histories of the Second World War – This page contains 100~ PDF files totaling 2.5+ GB of scans of the British Official Histories. These books are relatively rare in the United States. Canadian Official Histories of the Second World War – Links are provided to the (Current) Canadian Government sites where you can download digital copies. |
(To Be Added Later, as time permits)
Chemicals in War: A Treatise on Chemical Warfare (1937) (149.8 MB PDF) – This book was written by (then) Lt. Colonel Augustin M. Prentiss; who would be the commander of Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas from 30 September 1941 to retirement in August 1946.
Major Strategic Plans
The Victory Plan – 11 September 1941 – This was the US's “worst case” war plan – done in the late Autumn/early Fall of 1941, and assumed that the Germans would conquer the Soviet Union and knock them out of the war by the close of 1941. Accordingly, the US would have to build up a massive army of 800 Allied divisions (of which 200 would be American) to face a German Army of 400~ divisions by 1943. Famously, it was leaked three days before Pearl Harbor by the Chicago Tribune. More information is available at the link.
AWPD-42: Requirements for Air Ascendancy – 24 August 1942 (38.9 MB PDF) – This plan was written in Fall 1942 by Muir S. Fairchild, laying out how strategic bombardment would defeat both Germany and Japan. AWPD-42 has been widely cited since it became declassified, but the full text has remained obscure; with only snippets or excerpts being republished – for example, Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II by Phil Haun reprints a heavily cut down version of AWPD-42 (missing all of the annexes) as an appendix. This version is the most complete that I've managed to put together.
Combined Bomber Offensive April 1943 Version (54.7 MB PDF) – This version was sent by Eaker to Eisenhower in April 1943, and it differs in several minor and major ways from the final CBO paper approved at TRIDENT.
Combined Bomber Offensive May 1943 Version (7.87 MB PDF) – This version was approved on 15 May 1943 by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the TRIDENT Conference.
THE EASTERN FRONT AT THE TURNING POINT – Review of a Logistics Estimate (700~ kb PDF) – This paper was published in the CIA's Studies in Intelligence journal (Vol 6, No 4) in 1993 and contains a condensed summary of a 166-page report titled The German Supply Problem on the Eastern Front (June 22 - December 6, 1941) which was prepared during the winter of 1941-1942 (December to March 1942).
Statistics and Operational Research Reports Compiled Post-WarBattle of Britain Loss Statistics – Taken from The
Narrow Margin |
U.S. Army
Fighting Divisions, Infantry Journal (December 1945) (7.95 MB PDF)
U.S. Marine Corps
The United States Marines in North China 1945-1949 (7.3 MB PDF)
Special Marine Corps Units of World War II (1972) (3.98 MB PDF)
Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II (2.75 MB PDF)
Marine Corps Historical Reference Series #32: United States Marine Corps Parachute Units (1962) (5.2 MB PDF)
U.S. Navy
P-474: Glossary Of U.S. Naval Code Words, Second Edition (Revised March 1948) (1.8 MB PDF)
Project HULA: Secret Soviet-American Naval Cooperation in the War against Japan by Richard A. Russell (13.5 MB PDF)
From Dam Neck to Okinawa: A Memoir of Anti-Aircraft Training in World War II by Robert Wallace (45.2 MB PDF)
The Conduct Of The War At Sea: an Essay by Admiral Karl Doenitz (15 January 1946) (11.8 MB PDF)
Related to “Secret Weapons”
Naval Aviation News: The Armed Robots (January 1973) (3.7~ MB PDF) – This is an article written in NAN shortly after the first “smart bombs” were used in Vietnam, describing previous “smart bomb”attempts from WWI to the 'present day'.
Radio Proximity Fuzes – Excerpted from A Century of Excellence in Measurements, Standards, and Technology – A Chronicle of Selected NBS/NIST Publications 1901-2000 (NIST SP-958, January 2001) (33.7 MB PDF)
A Case History of Azon: An Azimuth Guided Bomb by Major Grant D. Gordon III (1987) (3~ MB PDF)
Radar Against Ground Targets (Coast Artillery Journal, March-April 1946) (2.3 MB PDF)
PASTEL: Deception in the Invasion of Japan by Dr. Thomas M. Huber; U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Related to Aviation
Republic Aviation Corporation's Response to the Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program (18 Oct 1945) (1~ MB PDF) – This is Republic's reply to the Senate, entered into the Congressional Record. It has detailed cost breakdowns by month for P-47 Thunderbolt production, as well as a selection of man-hours required to produce them.
The P-51 Mustang as an Escort Fighter: Development beyond Drop Tanks to an Independent Air Force by Karen Daneu (1.4~ MB PDF)
The P-51 Over Berlin by Mark E. Bradley in Aerospace Historian, Fall September 1974, Air Force Historical Foundation. (3.26 MB pdf)
A Tribute to Dutch Kindelberger: The Mustang—A Great War Horse by Ed Rees, North American Aviation, Inc; The Airpower Historian; VOLUME IX, NUMBER 4, OCTOBER, 1962, AF Historical Foundation. (11.2~ MB pdf)
Headaches of Strategic Bombing (Coast Artillery Journal, March-April 1946) (5 MB PDF)
Flak versus Heavy Bombers (Coast Artillery Journal, March-April 1946) (3.4 MB PDF)
Related to War Crimes / Holocaust
Discrediting the Leuchter Report (Unknown) (1990s) – This is an article written by a group of authors and posted by the late Stuart Slade onto a series of various internet boards in the late 1990s about the Holocaust-denying Leuchter Report, and in turn analyzing it's claims and proving they're bunk.
Related to Airborne Operations
Airborne Operations: A German Appraisal (DA Pamphlet 20-232) (October 1951) (1.57 MB PDF)
Related to Doctrine
Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II by Christopher R. Gabel (Leavenworth Papers No. 12) (15.4 MB PDF)
Related to Naval Matters
Ultra and the Campaign against the U-Boats in World War II by CDR Jerry C. Russell, USN (May 1980)
Admiral Nimitz's speech before the National Geographic Society (25 January 1946) (3~ MB PDF)
Admiral Nimitz's speech before the Women's Patriotic Conference on National Defense (26 January 1946) (1.7 MB PDF)
Seminar on Air Anti-Tank Warfare (May 1978) (the HTML version only has the Second Day) (19.9 MB PDF)
Conversations with a Stuka Pilot – A conference with Paul-Werner Hozzel (November 1978) (8.3~ MB PDF)