"Six-pounder guns are being turned out in large numbers in one of the Royal Ordnance factories in England. Most of the workers who make them are women. The gun is highly mobile and is said to have a high rate of fire and remarkable armor penetration." "Soon after Pearl Harbor Americans began hearing about a Japanese warplane called called the Zero. It had an unusual name, it was virtually unknown, even to aircraft experts, and almost immediately it began to take on an air of sinister mystery. Information now available shows there is no good reason for the mystery, although the plane has been a big factor in the Jap drive... The Zero has no secret weapons or engineering developments. It is simply a pretty good pursuit or fighter." This article was written by the war correspondent Fairfax Downey (1894 - 1990) for a magazine that catered to American veterans of W.W. I, and it seemed that he simply could not contain his enthusiasm for the U.S. infantry's newest rifle: the M-1 Garand:
"What a gun it is! Its nine pound weight swings easily through the manual of arms. The eight-round clip (three more shots than the we used to have with the '03 Springfield) slips in easily and the breech clicks closed. The old range scale slide has vanished; range and windage adjustments are made simply by turning two knobs... The new semi-automatic means, among other things, that the fire power of troops armed with it has increased at least two and a half times over the old Springfield."
For further magazine reading about John Garand and his rifle, click here.
Attached is the sweetest conte crayon illustration ever to depict a Tiger tank is accompanied by some vital statistics and assorted observations that were recorded by the U.S. Department of War and printed in one of their manuals in March of 1945: "This tank, originally the Pz. Kpfw. VI, first was encountered by the Russians in the last half of 1942, and by the Western Allies in Tunisia early in 1943..." Click here to read about the German King Tiger Tank.
Click here to read a 1944 article about the Tiger Tank.
The first use of napalm in the Second World War was by the U.S. Army Air Corps flying over Germany. This article reported that it was used by Navy over Saipan, the Army over Tinian and the Marines over Peleliu:
"Now it is possible to tell one of the more dramatic fire-bomb stories: [During an eight day period] last October, on a section of Peleliu no bigger than a city block, the Death Dealer Squadron of the Second Marine Air Wing dropped more than 32,000 gallons of flaming gasoline on Jap cave positions and wiped them out."
Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic. | 
