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Merchant Machines
The fleet of ships which carries imports and exports during peacetime and becomes a naval auxiliary during wartime to deliver troops and war materiel. -
Benito Mussolini
Rose to power in the wake of World War I as a leading proponent of Facism. Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. Mussolini’s military expenditures in Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Albania made Italy predominant in the Mediterranean region, though they exhausted his armed forces by the late 1930s. Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, relying on the German dictator to prop up his leadership during World War II -
Harry Truman
Harry Truman (1884-1972), the 33rd U.S. president, assumed office following the death of President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945). In the White House from 1945 to 1953, Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, helped rebuild postwar Europe, worked to contain communism and led the United States into the Korean War (1950-1953). -
Hidekei Tojo
Wartime leader of Japan’s government, General Tôjô Hideki (1884-1948), with his close-cropped hair, mustache, and round spectacles, became for Allied propagandists one of the most commonly caricatured members of Japan’s military dictatorship throughout the Pacific war. Shrewd at bureaucratic infighting and fiercely partisan in presenting the army’s perspective while army minister, he was surprisingly indecisive as national leader. -
George S. Patton
One of the most complicated military men of all time, General George Smith Patton, Jr. was born November 11, 1885 in San Gabriel, California. He was known for carrying pistols with ivory handles and his intemperate manner, and is regarded as one of the most successful United States field commanders of any war. He continually strove to train his troops to the highest standard of excellence -
Adolf Hitler
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was one of the most powerful and infamous dictators of the 20th century. After World War I, he rose to power in the National Socialist German Workers Party, taking control of the German government in 1933. His establishment of concentration camps to inter Jews and other groups he believed to be a threat to Aryan supremacy resulted in the death of more than 6 million people in the Holocaust. His attack on Poland in 1939 started World War II, and by 1941 German -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
As supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower led the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe that began on D-Day (June 6, 1944). In 1952, leading Republicans convinced Eisenhower (then in command of NATO forces in Europe) to run for president; he won a convincing victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson and would serve two terms in the White House (1953-1961). -
Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley (1893-1981) was one of the towering American military leaders of the first half of the 20th century. After serving as an infantry school instructor, the West Point graduate took charge of the Eighty-second and Twenty-eighth Divisions during World War II. He commanded the Second Corps in the Tunisia and Sicilian campaigns, and as commander of the First Army he was instrumental to the success of the Normandy campaign. Bradley was appointed to head the Veterans Administration -
Vernon Baker
In 1941, Vernon Baker was assigned to the segregated 270th Regiment of the 92nd Infantry Division, the first black unit to go into combat in WWII. Baker, one of the most decorated black soldiers in the Mediterranean Theater, earned a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Distinguished Service Cross. In 1996, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. -
The Holocaust
the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. -
Navajo Code Talkers
The army chose to experiment with Indian code talkers, but only on a limited scale. In autumn 1940, a small group of Chippewas and Oneidas joined the Thirty-second Infantry Division for the express purpose of radio communications. Soon afterward, an Iowa National Guard unit, the Nineteenth Infantry Division, brought several members of the Sac and Fox tribes into its ranks for the same purpose. Their training, and their use in maneuvers in Louisiana, hinted at the successful utilization of India -
Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, comprised pilots from the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC), recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The shark-faced nose art of the Flying Tigers remains among the most recognizable image of any individual combat aircraft or combat unit of World War II. -
Executive Order 9066
Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. Although it is not well known, the same executive order -
Baatan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Battle of Midway
On June 4,U.S discovered the Japanese fleet northeast of Midway. An air battle quickly developed. The turning point came at mid-morning. The Japanese fighters were drawn down to sea level by attacking American torpedo bombers, the vast majority of which were destroyed. Their sacrifice cleared the skies above for the American dive-bombers. Within minutes three Japanese carriers were ablaze. Hiryu, the fourth Japanese carrier retaliated with an air attack sinking the Yorktown. -
Office of War Information
"Uncle Sam wants you!" That's what Americans read on posters during World War II. To attract U.S. citizens to jobs in support of the war effort, the government created the Office of War Information (OWI) on June 13, 1942, some six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. OWI photographers documented American life and culture by showing aircraft factories, members of the armed forces, and women in the workforce. -
D-day invasion
June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. -
Potsdam Conference
The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. After the Yalta Conference of February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had agreed to meet following the surrender of Germany to determine the postwar borders in Europe. -
Atomic Bomb
A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9. -
HIroshima/ Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during World War II, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II -
Nuremberg Trials
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. -
Korematsu vs. U.S.
During World War II, Presidential Executive Order 9066 and congressional statutes gave the military authority to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas deemed critical to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. Korematsu remained in San Leandro, California and violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army.
