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Maxwell AFB News

  • Key to success: Allied airpower at Normandy

    On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied soldiers from 16 nations stormed ashore onto Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches along a 50-mile stretch of France’s heavily fortified Normandy Peninsula. For months, the Allies had planned this major joint, combined operation, codenamed Overlord, the

  • The ‘Transportation Plan’: Preparing for the Normandy invasion

    By early January 1944, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, or SHAEF, had begun planning for the greatest seaborne invasion in history, Operation Overlord, the invasion of “Fortress Europe,” scheduled for early June. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, was reasonably

  • Operation Tidal Wave: heroic but ineffective

    One of the most heroic air raids occurred 75 years ago during World War II on Aug. 1, 1943.   On that date, 178 B-24 Liberators from five Army Air Forces bomber groups near Benghazi, Libya, conducted a heroic but relatively ineffective low-level raid against the oil refineries around Ploesti,

  • Maxwell Air Force Base and the 42nd Air Base Wing through the Years

    Maxwell Air Force Base is one of the most historic Air Force bases that is still in active status.  Its history spans over a century of aviation in Central Alabama from the Wright Brothers to today.  Since April 1918, a 100 years ago, when the “Air Force” presence began as Aircraft and Engine Depot