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Concentration Camps
Concentration camps were ceated in the 1930's. The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA (Sturmabteilungen; commonly known as Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy. -
George Marshall
Just before World War II, Marshall was promoted from a one-star general to a four-star general. On September 1, 1939, George C. Marshall realized his life-long dream and was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff, this was also the same day hitler attacked Poland. -
George S. Patton
Patton became the General of the First Armored Corps for World War II in 1940. Later, in the spring of 1943, Patton was put in charge of the Seventh Army and given the task of invading Sicily. -
Holocaust
The holocaust was the mass murder of some 6 million European Jews (as well as members of some other persecuted groups, such as Gypsies and homosexuals) by the German Nazi regime during the Second World War. The leader over all this was Adolf Hitler. This lasted from 1941-9145. -
Flying Tigers
The Flying Tigers were officially called the American Volunteer Group, and were known for their planes with iconic shark faces on them. They were equipped and recruited in the spring and summer of 1941, with the express purposed of aiding the Chinese in theater against the Japanese. -
Liberty Ships
Liberty Ships were mass-produced cargo ships built during World War II to provide the Allies with much needed merchant tonnage. Initially designed to last five years, many Liberty Ships continued to ply the seaways into the 1970s. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Army Air Forces established several African American organizations, including fighter and bombardment groups and squadrons. Between 1941 and 1946, roughly 1,000 black pilots were trained at a segregated air base in Tuskegee, AL. The Tuskegee Airmen flew hundreds of patrol and attack missions for the Twelfth Air Force, flying P-40 and P-39 airplanes, before they were reassigned to the 15th Air Force to escort B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers, using P-47 and P-51 airplanes. -
Bataan Death March
The Battle of Bataan ended on April 9, 1942, when U.S. General Edward P. King surrendered to Japanese General Masaharu Homma. At that point 75,000 soldiers became Prisoners of War: about 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos. -
The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Japanese Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto moved on Midway in an effort to draw out and destroy the U.S. -
Island Hopping
After the Battle of Midway, the United States launched a counter-offensive strike known as "island-hopping," establishing a line of overlapping island bases, as well as air control. This was to capture certain key islands, one after another, until Japan came within range of American bombers. -
Merchant Marines
The United States Merchant Marine provided the greatest sealift in history between the production army at home and the fighting forces scattered around the globe in World War II. Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, "kamikaze," and the elements. -
Chester W. Nimitz
Nimitz was the commander of the Pacific Fleet during World War II. He directed the U.S. victories at Midway, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Nimitz was promoted to the newly-created rank of fleet admiral in 1944 and became the naval equivalent to the army's General Dwight D. Eisenhower -
Omar Bradley
During World War Two, Omar Bradley was the most senior commander of American ground troops in Europe from the time of D-Day in 1944. In 1944, -
D-Day Invasion
The invasion was the largest air, land, and sea operation undertaken before or since June 6, 1944. The landing included over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and over 150,000 service men. -
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code-name given to the Allied invasion of France scheduled for June 1944. The overall commander of Operation Overlord was General Dwight Eisenhower. -
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur was born in 1880. MacArthur was America’s senior military commander in the Far East during World War Two. In World War Two, after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the Philippines where he had to defend the islands against an attack by the Japanese. -
Potsdam Conference
On 16 July 1945, the "Big Three" leaders met at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. In this, the last of the World War II heads of state conferences, President Truman, Soviet Premier Stalin and British Prime Ministers Churchill and Atlee discussed post-war arrangements in Europe, frequently without agreement. -
Navajo Code Talkers
Marine Corps military code which, when transmitted in their own language, would completely baffle their Japanese enemies. The code's words had to be short, easy to learn, and quick to recall. -
Atomic Weapons
Little Boy was a weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima. Another Little Boy weapon would not have been ready for months, for this reason only one Little Boy unit was prepared. In contrast many Fat Man bomb assemblies were on hand (without plutonium), and the actual "Fat Man bomb" delivered against Japan only existed when assembly of the Fat Man unit with the plutonium core was completed shortly before the mission. -
Congressional Gold Medal
Quitman County, was finally officially recognized with a Congressional Gold Medal — the highest civilian award from Congress for distinguished achievement. He served in the Marines from 1944 to 1946, rising to master sergeant, and was deployed overseas to the Solomons in the South Pacific and to Hawaii. -
Dwight Eisenhower
Eisenhower commanded the Allied forces in the last great counter-attack by the Germans in World War Two. He was one of the most important generals of World War Two and one who went on to greater success as president of America from 1953 to 1961.
