Documents of World War II

Statistics and Operational Research Reports Compiled Post-War

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.

Naval 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.

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.

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)

Luftwaffe Losses in the Battle of Britain (July-October 1940) – Taken from The Narrow Margin

R.A.F. Spitfire/Hurricane Losses in the Battle of Britain (August-September 1940) – Taken from The Narrow Margin

Post-War Publications

British Official Histories of the Second World War – This page contains 100~ PDF files totaling 2.5+ GB of scans of the British Histories.

Canadian Official Histories of the Second World War – Links are provided to the (Current) Canadian Government sites where you can download digital copies.

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Marine Corps Historical Reference Series #32: United States Marine Corps Parachute Units (1962) (5.2 MB PDF)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 HTML link above is to the HyperWar Website)

The Conduct Of The War At Sea: an Essay by Admiral Karl Doenitz (15 January 1946) (11.8 MB PDF)

Post-War Monographs/Papers

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)

Post-War Speeches

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)