Across the nation that unforgettable Sunday, as the news of the Japanese early morning attack blared from the radios, and later some of the photos appeared in newspapers, the grim reality of the devastating death and destruction came to be realized. But where was this Pearl Harbor? Over the years, when interviewing WWII veterans, one …
Veteran’s Day – A Time To Give Thanks You might not recognize them walking the street, sitting beside them in at a church service, or quietly reading in a retirement home. A veteran’s response to duty is their own story, sometimes shared, other times very private. Yet, their sacrifices provided us our freedom.Veteran’s Day is …
The Ni’ihau Incident – A Small Battle with a Big Impact that Continued in Hawaii for 7 days after Pearl Harbor While America pushed for isolationism after WWI, Japan pushed for their imperial expansionism under their goal of creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. These ideals would collide when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor …
On September 20, 1940, Genevieve Grotjan, a former railway annuity statistician and mathematician, broke the Japanese diplomats code which the U.S. would entitle ‘Purple’. This Purple code was essential for the Allied forces, especially at the Battle of Midway and tracking the movements of Admiral Yamamoto enabling the United States Army Air Forces to shoot …
Victory over Japan Day On Friday, August 10, 1945, Emperor Hirohito urged Japan’s War Council to submit a formal declaration of surrender through ambassadors to the Allies. Even though Japan’s war causalities had been great, most of their fleet destroyed and their people were starving, it took a second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, three …
During World War II, when women stepped forward to serve, a new branch of the military was born, the SPAR. The motto for the U.S. Coast Guard, Semper Paratus, is the Latin term for always ready. The ingenious Dorothy C. Stratton, who took leave from the faculty at Purdue University to first serve as a …
Victory Mail Keeping Loved Ones Connected During WWII In this modern day of instant connectivity via email, text, twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, Facetime, etc. it is hard to envision what it would have been like to wait weeks, even months, to hear from your loved ones or to receive news from back home. WWII had …
The very few living survivors of the ‘First Wave’ at D-Day all concur on one thing—tragic mistakes were made that morning of June 6, 1944, costing thousands of Allied lives.
While the debate on when and where the first Decoration Day/Memorial Day was held in America still rages, one fact remains–the day set aside to honor and remember those fallen in battle, those who bravely fought for our freedom, was originally the concept of women. The custom of decorating the graves of soldiers harkens back …