Japanese

Joe Foss and Charles Lindbergh

Joseph J. Foss (April 17, 1915–January 1, 2003) was born on a farm near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Read more

Japanese

Sgt. John Basilone: Marine Hero of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima

“Banzai! Banzai!” screamed the Japanese at the top of their lungs as they launched a ferocious night attack against Marines dug in on Guadalcanal. Read more

Japanese

The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center

The American Infantry’s illustrious history, which is older than that of the country, comes alive in an impressive, $100,000,000, 190,000-square-foot museum located just outside Fort Benning, Georgia. Read more

Japanese

The Arisaka Rifle: Weapons for the Imperial Japanese Army Way of War

As militarism grew in Japan in the early 1930s, conscription began at the age of 19, and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) cadet entered military service. Read more

Japanese

WWII Aircraft: Nakajima Ki-43

At the start of World War II, Japanese airpower ruled the skies over China and the Pacific. Read more

Japanese

Coming of Age at Tarawa

It was with great anticipation that I sprang up the snowy steps of a Milwaukee building in January 1942 and entered the Marine Corps Recruitment Center. Read more

Japanese

Defending Bataan

In 1941, the Philippine Islands, 7,000 in number, an American-controlled mandate, formed a natural barrier between Japan and the rich resources of East and Southeast Asia. Read more

Japanese

Silver Salvage in Caballo Bay: Japan’s Sabotaged Treasure Hunt

Early in the morning of July 8, 1942, in the calm waters of Caballo Bay south of Corregidor Island in the Philippines, a casco, a 12-foot by 60-foot flat-bottomed wooden diving barge, bobbed placidly in the open water 120 feet above the ocean floor. Read more

Japanese

Silver Screen Surprise: Norvald Flaaten Recalls His Wartime Careers

Norvald Flaaten never expected he would appear in a movie when he signed up with the Canadian Army during World War II, but the subject of the movie and what he had to do was too good to pass up. Read more

Japanese

The FCC’s RID and Japan’s Surrender

George Sterling received a teletype message from the War Department just after 5:15 am on August 15, 1945. Read more

Japanese

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

Japanese

Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

Lieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo.  Read more

Japanese

The Japanese Raid on Sydney Harbor: “One in a Thousand Chance”

The year 1942 was one of crisis for the Allied cause in the Pacific. Until May, almost everything had gone in favor of Imperial Japan. Read more

Japanese

Wingate’s Operation Thursday: Genius or Ineffectual?

The interest in Brigadier Orde Wingate, founder and leader of the Commonwealth Chindits or Special Force, persists to this day, more than 75 years after his fiery death after his B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed in the hills of India. Read more

Japanese

Seaplane Destroyers in the Pacific

The Fletcher-class destroyer was one of the finest, most versatile warships of World War II. More than 170 of them were built, a figure that far exceeds the total of any other type of warship of the era. Read more

Japanese

The Port Chicago Disaster: The Largest Mutiny Trial in U.S. History

After sundown on July 17, something happened at a small port town 40 miles northeast of San Francisco that has never been fully explained…

The 7,500-ton Liberty ship SS E.A. Read more

Japanese

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

Japanese

Hero to the End: Airman William “Ed” Dyess on the Philippines

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot and squadron commander, was considered a hero by men who served under him in the Philippines and who felt they owed their own lives to Ed’s sacrifice. Read more

Japanese

Bloody Encounter at Hell’s Point: The Story of Al Schmid

As the light of a sickly green flare shot skyward, three Marines from the 11th Machine Gun Squad, H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment crouched in the hole awaiting the Japanese onslaught on Guadalcanal. Read more

Japanese

The USS Houston and the Battle of Sunda Strait

The heavy cruiser USS Houston ventured into the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java on the dark night of February 28, 1942, and was never heard from again. Read more