Whereas the German, Italian, and Japanese armies still issued bolt-action rifles as the standard for their infantry, the M1 was semi-automatic and retained high accuracy. Among the obvious advantages this provided, it led to the Japanese strategy of a “banzai charge” being far less effective, since they now faced an enemy with a high rate of fire. The M1 could also be accessorized with a bayonet or even a grenade launcher.

 

The Colt 1911 was developed by Browning during the Philippine-American War because troops needed more stopping power from their weapons. The .45 caliber rounds of the Colt offered just that. It was a reliable and powerful sidearm for U.S. infantry during World War II.

 

The Hellcat accomplished great speeds (50 mph, or 80 km/h) due to its extremely light armor which was never more than one inch thick (25 mm). It also had a roofless turret. Together with the M4 Sherman-based M10 tank destroyer, and the highly efficient, 90mm gun-armed M36 tank destroyer, the Hellcat served in all American theaters of world war 2 – both in Europe and the Pacific.

During World War II the Elco Naval Division of the Electric Boat Co., in Bayonne, N.J., built nearly 400 patrol torpedo, or PT, boats for the U.S. Navy. Of those, 326 were 80 feet long—the largest in their class. These fast, light vessels, their hulls made of double-planked mahogany, have been portrayed on-screen torpedoing larger Japanese warships in daring night raids in the Pacific. In reality, they seldom succeeded in such attacks. An exception was PT-137, which during the Battle of Surigao Strait on Oct. 25, 1944, landed a disabling hit on the Japanese light cruiser Abukuma, which fell behind its fleet and was sunk by B-24 bombers the next morning. But perhaps the best known of the Elco boats was the ill-fated PT-109, skippered by Lt. j.g. John F. Kennedy, future 35th president of the United States. On the night of Aug. 2, 1943, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri caught PT-109 idling in a strait off the Solomon Islands and rammed the smaller vessel, killing two crewmen and injuring Kennedy.