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A Moment in a Very Big War

  World War II will soon slip from living memory except for a handful of people who have surpassed the century mark.  An eighteen year old enlistee in 1945 is now 98.  World War II is so vast that we...

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Remember the One Hundredth

  On June 12, 1942, the 100th Infantry Battalion was activated. The 100th was a racially segregated unit, comprised of more than 1,400 second generation Japanese Americans, known as Nisei. Initially,...

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Pearl Harbor Lessons

  The attack on Pearl Harbor, the date which will live in infamy in F.D.R.’s ringing phrase, happened 82 years ago today.  Less than 100 of the 42,000 sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen stationed...

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December 7th

    Directed by John Ford and produced by the US Navy, this is a stunningly good film on the attack on Pearl Harbor, winning an academy award.  Released in 1943, the film asks hard questions about why...

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Wow

   

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Christmas “Nuts!” at Bastogne

    Seventy-nine years ago at Christmas the American and German armies were fighting it out in the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive of the War.   Patton’s Third Army fought its way...

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Quotes Suitable for Framing: Admiral William Halsey, Jr.

There are no great men, there are only great challenges, which ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet. Admiral William Halsey, Jr. Back in 2016 I was watching the movie The...

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February 22, 1943: Execution of Members of the White Rose

  The resistance of The White Rose was completely ineffective and lethal to most of those who participated in it.  But God does not judge by human standards, and always rewards those who stand against...

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Lent and the Lion: Part II

Neither praise nor threats will distance me from God. Blessed Clemens von Galen       (Lent is a good time to repost my series on the Lion of Munster. Lent is a time for confronting the evil within us...

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Lent And the Lion: Part IV

Neither praise nor threats will distance me from God. Blessed Clemens von Galen   (Lent is a good time to repost my series on the Lion of Munster. Lent is a time for confronting the evil within us and...

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Lent and The Lion: Part V

Neither praise nor threats will distance me from God. Blessed Clemens von Galen (Lent is a good time to repost my series on the Lion of Munster. Lent is a time for confronting the evil within us and...

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Band of Brothers

  Something for the weekend.  Theme song for Band of Brothers.  I have been re-watching this.  Hard to believe the miniseries is 23 years in the rear view mirror.  Back then the men were in their...

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Kohima Background

Mountbatten was the commander of the Southeast Asia Theater for the Brits from 43 to the end of the war.  The true victor however in the long struggle in Burma, 42-45, was General, later Marshal, Bill...

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Death of Captain Haldane

  Capt. Andy Haldane wasn’t an idol. He was human. But he commanded our individual destinies under the most trying conditions with the utmost compassion. We knew he could never be replaced. He was the...

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We Happy Few

Kicking around Band of Brothers   Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts has a mammoth look at a miniseries from over two decades ago:  Band of Brothers: We broke out the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers over...

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Father Ranger

  The men of the 5th Ranger Battalion could barely keep from laughing when they first saw their chaplain, Lieutenant Joe Lacy, a week before D-Day.  These were young men, in peak physical condition....

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D-Day Factoids

  Random observations on D-Day. Churchill and the King– Churchill had begun his career in the days of Queen Victoria in the Army, and had fought in India, the Sudan and in the Boer War.   In World War...

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Groves

Leslie Groves was not a pleasant man to work for, but if you wanted to get something done, he was the man to accomplish the seemingly impossible.  He demonstrated this twice during World War II:...

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July 30, 1945: Last Voyage of the Indianapolis

    Hours after the successful test of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945, the USS Indianapolis left San Francisco with a top secret cargo that mystified the crew.  The cruiser delivered Little...

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Beer Run Paratrooper Dead at 98

Go here to read about him.  Even the youngest of WWII soldiers are approaching the century mark.  All too soon the memories of those who fought the greatest war will be a thing for books, videos and...

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Saint of the Assumption

  Since the time of the Reformation, the lack of devotion to the Mother of God has been a sign of the dying of Christendom.  Saint Maximilian Kolbe had been dedicated to the Virgin Mother since he had...

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Looks Like He is Ready to Go Another Round With the Nazis and the Commies

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September 15, 1944-November 27, 1944: Battle of Peleliu

    The Pacific War was replete  with hell holes with odd names to American ears that American troops wrote into American history with their blood.  One of the worst was Peleliu, invaded on MacArthur’s...

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Requiescat In Pace: Wanda Poltawska

  A giant has left us too soon at the age of 102.  Wanda Poltawska was arrested by the Nazi occupiers of Poland in 1941 for aiding the Polish resistance.  She survived four years at Ravensbruck...

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September 9, 1942: Lookout Air Raid

One of the more daring air raids of World War II, on September 9, 1942 a Japanese float plane piloted by Warrant Office Nobou Fujita took off from the I-25 , a Japanese submarine, that was off Cape...

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Ted Williams Patriot

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The Stilwell Road and Merrill’s Mauraders

Congress finds that-- (1) in August 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other Allied leaders proposed the creation of a ground unit of the Armed Forces that would engage in a ``long-range...

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Masters of the Air

  During World War II one of the most dangerous assignments for any US serviceman was to fly with the Eighth Air Force in the European Theater.  The Eighth sustained 47000 casualties, of which a...

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February 3, 1943: The Four Chaplains

      John Washington first saw the light of day on July 18, 1908 in Newark, New Jersey. One of seven kids in a poor immigrant family, John as a boy had a newspaper route to help bring in money for the...

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Lest We Forget

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Ken Burns Explains It All

  Dave Giffey at Daffey Thoughts explains how Ken Burns is to history as Joe Biden is to sentience:   Ken Burns is what we call White Noise That is, just another annoying blip in the noisy static....

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Endurance

  The Queen of England was happy when Buckingham Palace was bombed in 1940.  “Now I can look the women of East London directly in their faces.”  The King and Queen often visited bombing victims as did...

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Kiss Off

Outrage routed, this time, the forces of wokeness.   The wild joy at VJ Day meant that no more American boys had to go over seas to fight and die, and that those who lived and were overseas would be...

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