World War II Photo Gallery

This collection of photographs from the National Archives provides a pictoral history of a select group of events from World War II. To enlarge the image, simply click on it.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur wades ashore during the initial landings at Leyte in the Pacific, in October, 1944.


A U.S. Infantry anti-tank crew fires on Nazis who machine-gunned their vehicle in Holland in 1944.


This captured Japanese photograph shows the December 7, 1941, attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.


The U.S. Navy ship Shaw explodes during the Pearl Harbor attack against the American base by Japanese planes.


The USS Arizona burns after an explosion during the Pearl Harbor attack.


These Allied prisoners are photographed during the 1942 March of Death from Bataan to a prison camp in Cabanatuan, the Philippines.


On June 30, 1943, American troops huddle behind tree trunks during a heavy rainstorm on Rendova Island in the Solomon chain.


A U.S. Marine wears the grime of battle on his face after two days and nights of fighting on the beach of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.


U.S. Marines pose in front of a Japanese dugout on Cape Totkina on Bougainville, Solomon Islands, after they cleared it of defenders in January, 1944.


The American flag is raised on Iwo Jima in his photo taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press.


A U.S. Marine takes aim at the enemy during fierce fighting on Okinawa in 1945.


Marine Maj. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd, commanding general of the 6th Marine Division, consults a map on an Okinawan ridge in June, 1945.


Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay, waves from the cockpit of the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb in history.


New York City's Times Square became the focus of celebrations and sudden affections in the immediate aftermath of World War II.


A dense column of smoke rises over Nagasaki, Japan, after the second atomic bomb was dropped by the U.S.


The defendants' dock is shown here during the post-war trials for war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany.


Gaunt prisoners of war at Aomori camp near Yokohama cheer rescuers from the U.S. Navy on August 29, 1945.


Two Coast Guardsmen pay silent homage to the memory of a fellow Coast Guardsman in an American cemetery in the South Pacific.


Gen. Douglas MacArthur signs as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Pacific Theater during formal surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay.


Two U.S. officers plant the American flag on Guam minutes after Marines and Army assault troops landed there in July, 1944.