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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:16:31 GMT -5
Veterans Day - November 11th Veterans Day originally was held every November 11th, and though it typically falls on this day, officially the holiday is now observed on the weekday that falls closest to November 11th every year. It was first incorporated as by President Wilson as Armistice Day in 1919. Other countries today also still recognize November 11th as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in honor of the Armistice treaty which ended WWI. It was in 1938 that Armistice Day was enacted as an official American holiday. But eventually after WWII, citizens felt that the veterans of all wars should be recognized, not just those of WWI. So in 1954 Congress changed the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day. In America, the holiday now celebrates the approximate 2.9 million U.S. veterans with parades and ceremonies among other events.
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:17:45 GMT -5
World War I (abbreviated WWI or WW1; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars) was a global war which took place primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918.[2] Over 40 million casualties resulted, including approximately 20 million military and civilian deaths.[3] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilized from 1914 to 1918 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on Nov. 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect (PICTURE) History of Veterans Day World War I – known at the time as “The Great War†- officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.†In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…" The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11 a.m. The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926,
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:20:28 GMT -5
90th Anniversary of the End of the First World War Makes a great screen saver
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:22:30 GMT -5
World War I Hero (Sergeant Alvin York York at ChatelChehery After the War Though a would-be conscientious objector, drafted at age thirty, York in many ways typified the underprivileged, undereducated conscript who traveled to France to "keep the world safe for democracy." With great reservations, York embarked for Camp Gordon, Georgia to receive his basic training. A member of Company G in the 328th Infantry attached to the 82nd Division (also known as the "All American Division) York established himself as a curiosity--an excellent marksman who had no stomach for war. After weeks of debate and counseling, York relented to his company commander, G. Edward Buxton, that there are times when war is moral and ordained by God, and he agreed to fight. York's role as hero went beyond his exploit in the Argonne and continues to both inspire and confound. On October 8, 1918, Corporal Alvin C. York and sixteen other soldiers under the command of Sergeant Bernard Early were dispatched before sunrise to take command of the Decauville railroad behind Hill 223 in the Chatel-Chehery sector of the Meuse-Argonne sector. The seventeen men, due to a misreading of their map (which was in French not English) mistakenly wound up behind enemy lines. A brief fire fight ensued which resulted in the confusion and the unexpected surrender of a superior German force to the seventeen soldiers. Once the Germans realized that the American contingent was limited, machine gunners on the hill overlooking the scene turned the gun away from the front and toward their own troops. After ordering the German soldiers to lie down, the machine gun opened fire resulting in the deaths of nine Americans, including York's best friend in the outfit, Murray Savage. Sergeant Early received seventeen bullet wounds and turned the command over to corporals Harry Parsons and William Cutting, who ordered York to silence the machine gun. York was successful and when all was said and done, nine men had captured 132 prisoners. Sergent Alvin Yorks story can be read in entirety at www.worldwar1.com/heritage/sgtayork.htm
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:24:42 GMT -5
World War I Hero Special Skills Required Cpl. Francis Pegahmagabow Cpl. Francis Pegahmagabow Photo: VACAboriginal-Canadian soldiers brought special skills to the army during the First World War. The traditional hunting and trapping lifestyles that many led in Canada often made them particularly skilled to work as snipers (military sharpshooters) and scouts (soldiers who quietly crossed the front lines to gather information about the enemy). They also served as dispatch carriers quickly running across great distances to deliver messages. Francis Pegahmagabow was an Ojibwa-Cree from Ontario who served in the war. He was so skilled at reconnaissance it was said that he used to "go behind enemy lines, rub shoulders with the enemy forces and never get caught." "Peggy," as he was called by his fellow soldiers, served bravely during almost the entire First World War and would become one of Canada's most-decorated soldiers.
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:26:46 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:28:41 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:30:49 GMT -5
WWIIThe modern world is still living with the consequences of World War 2, the most titanic conflict in history. Just under 69 years ago on September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland without warning sparking the start of World War Two. By the evening of September 3rd, Britain and France were at war with Germany and within a week, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa had also joined the war. The world had been plunged into its second world war in 25 years. Six long and bloody years of total war, fought over many thousand of square kilometres followed. From the Hedgerows of Normandy to the streets of Stalingrad, the icy mountains of Norway to the sweltering deserts of Libya, the insect infested jungles of Burma to the coral reefed islands of the pacific. On land, sea and in the air, Poles fought Germans, Italians fought Americans and Japanese fought Australians in a conflict which was finally settled with the use of nuclear weapons. World War 2 involved every major world power in a war for global domination and at its end, more than 60 million people had lost their lives and most of Europe and large parts of Asia lay in ruins.
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:37:58 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:39:56 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:41:28 GMT -5
Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) was a life-long cartoonist: in high school in Springfield, Massachusetts; in college at Dartmouth (Class of 1925); as an adman in New York City before World War II; in his many children's books, beginning with To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street (1937). Because of the fame of his children's books (and because we often misunderstand these books) and because his political cartoons have remained largely unknown, we do not think of Dr. Seuss as a political cartoonist. But for two years, 1941-1943, he was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM (1940-1948), and for that journal he drew over 400 editorial cartoons. The Dr. Seuss Collection in the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego, contains the original drawings and/or newspaper clippings of all of these cartoons. This website makes these cartoons available to all internet users. The cartoons have been scanned from the original newspaper clippings in the UCSD collection. Dr. Seuss Goes to War by historian Richard H. Minear (The New Press, 1999) reproduced some two hundred of the PM cartoons. That means that two hundred of the cartoons available here have received no airing or study since their original appearance in PM. The cartoons Dr. Seuss published in other journals are even less known; there is no mention of them in Dr. Seuss Goes to War. Dr. Seuss also drew a set of war bonds "cartoons" which appeared in many newspapers as well as in PM. They are the following:
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:43:17 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:44:45 GMT -5
U.S. ARMY DIVISIONS RECOGNIZED AS LIBERATING UNITS BY THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND THE CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY INFANTRY DIVISIONS: 1st Infantry Division Liberated Falkenau an der Eger (Flossenbürg subcamp) 2nd Infantry Division Liberated Leipzig-Schönefeld (Buchenwald subcamp) Spergau (labor education camp) 4th Infantry Division Liberated Dachau subcamp 8th Infantry Division Liberated Wöbbelin (Neuengamme subcamp) 26th Infantry Division Liberated Gusen (Mauthausen subcamp) 29th Infantry Division Liberated Dinslaken (civilian labor camp) 36th Infantry Division Liberated Kaufering camps (Dachau subcamps) 42nd Infantry Division Liberated Dachau 45th Infantry Division Liberated Dachau 63rd Infantry Division Liberated Kaufering camps (Dachau subcamps) 65th Infantry Division Liberated Flossenbürg subcamp 69th Infantry Division Liberated Leipzig-Thekla (Buchenwald subcamp) 71st Infantry Division Liberated Gunskirchen (Mauthausen subcamp) 80th Infantry Division Liberated Buchenwald Ebensee (Mauthausen subcamp) 83rd Infantry Division Liberated Langenstein (Buchenwald subcamp) 84th Infantry Division Liberated Ahlem (Neuengamme subcamp) Salzwedel (Neuengamme subcamp) 86th Infantry Division Liberated Attendorn (civilian labor camp) 89th Infantry Division Liberated Ohrdruf (Buchenwald subcamp) 90th Infantry Division Liberated Flossenbürg 95th Infantry Division Liberated Werl (prison and civilian labor camp) 99th Infantry Division Liberated Dachau subcamps 103rd Infantry Division Kaufering subcamp 104th Infantry Division Liberated Dora-Mittelbau ARMORED DIVISIONS: 3rd Armored Division Liberated Dora-Mittelbau 4th Armored Division Liberated Ohrdruf (Buchenwald subcamp) 6th Armored Division Liberated Buchenwald 8th Armored Division Liberated Halberstadt-Zwieberge (Buchenwald subcamp) 9th Armored Division Liberated Falkenau an der Eger (Flossenbürg subcamp) 10th Armored Division Dachau subcamp 11th Armored Division Liberated Gusen (Mauthausen subcamp) Mauthausen 12th Armored Division Liberated Dachau subcamp 14th Armored Division Liberated Dachau subcamps 20th Armored Division Liberated Dachau AIRBORNE DIVISIONS: 82nd Airborne Division Liberated Wöbbelin (Neuengamme subcamp) 101st Airborne Division Liberated Dachau subcamp ONLINE EXHIBITIONS: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:46:49 GMT -5
The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II was roughly 72 million people, making it the deadliest and most destructive war in human history. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including 20 million deaths due to war-related famine and disease. The military toll was about 25 million, including the deaths of about 4 million prisoners of war in captivity. The Allies lost approximately 61 million people, and the Axis powers lost 11 million
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:48:19 GMT -5
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:49:48 GMT -5
Often ignored by history is the story of the women prisoners of war taken captive during World War Two. Sixty seven Army nurses and sixteen Navy nurses spent three years as prisoners of the Japanese. Many were captured when Corregidor fell in 1942 and were subsequently transported to the Santo Tomas Internment camp in Manila, in the Philippines. Santo Tomas was not liberated until February of 1945. Five Navy nurses were captured on Guam and interned in a military prison in Japan. Here is a rare WWII poster featuring the Nurses on Corregidor in a Japanese POW camp. One seriously doubts that they would be in whites with red and blue capes while prisoners but the point was being made to appeal to defense workers. Two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 5 Navy nurses on Guam were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Lieutenants (jg) Leona Jackson, Lorraine Christiansen, Virginia Fogerty and Doris Yetter, under the command of Chief Nurse Marion Olds. Later in 1942 their captors transported them to Japan. They were held for three months in Zentsuji Prison on Shikoku Island and were then moved to Eastern Lodge in Kobe. They were repatriated in August of 1942. Clara Gordon Main, a stewardess on the SS President Harrison, captured by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, while rescuing U.S. Marines from China, was among the first American Prisoners of War. For more about women in the U.S. Maritime Service please visit: www.usmm.org/women.html In May of 1943 Navy Lieutenants (jg) Mary Chapman, Bertha Evans, Helen Gorzelanski, Mary Harrington, Margaret Nash, Goldie O'Haver, Eldene Paige, Susie Pitcher, Dorothy Still and C. Edwina Todd, under the command of Chief Nurse Laura Cobb, were sent to the prison camp at Los Banos. They established an infirmary although they had virtually no medicine or supplies and continued to nurse the sick until Los Banos was liberated in February of 1945.
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:52:11 GMT -5
Canadains in Hong Kong Remembering their sacrifice Those Canadians who fought in the defence of Hong Kong sacrificed much in their efforts to help bring peace and freedom to the people of Asia and the Pacific. Their task was a difficult and costly one, but their sacrifice would serve as an example of the kind of effort that would be required to eventually triumph. The survivors' ordeal that followed as prisoners of war serves as an additional reminder of the great cost of war. Yokohama British Commonwealth War Cemetery. These combattants were among the more than one million men and women who served in Canada's Armed Forces during the Second World War. More than 42,000 Canadians gave their lives in the war. Canada and the world recognize the sacrifices and achievements of all Canadians, like those who fought in the defence of Hong Kong, who accomplished so much and left a lasting legacy of peace. A memorial has been erected at the Sai Wan Bay War Cemetery on the island of Hong Kong to honour those who died in its defence. On this memorial, made of white granite, are inscribed the names of over 2,000 people, 228 of them Canadian, who died in Hong Kong and who have no known grave. Included is the name of Company Sergeant-Major John Robert Osborn, Winnipeg Grenadiers, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Sai Wan Bay War Cemetery. Below the memorial, the Sai Wan Bay War Cemetery slopes toward the sea, with a magnificent view of the coastline and distant hills. Here 283 soldiers of the Canadian Army are buried, including 107 who are unidentified. Stanley Military Cemetery is situated just beyond the small fishing village of Stanley in the southern part of Hong Kong island, on the Tai Tam Peninsula. Twenty Canadians are buried here, including one unknown. The Yokohama British Commonwealth War Cemetery, located at Hodogaya near Yokohama, is the only British Commonwealth Cemetery in Japan. Here 137 Canadian dead, most of whom died as prisoners-of-war in Japanese internment camps, lie with their New Zealand comrades beneath a Cross of Sacrifice in one of the four sections of the cemetery. We had a man named Murdo MacArthur who lived in Milan when I was a teen-ager. He was a surviver of the Japanese prison camps Mr.MacArthur was in a wheel chair and very sick from his ordeal. I REMEMBER YOU
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:53:36 GMT -5
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman on August 6 and 9, 1945. After six months of intense fire-bombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday,August 6, 1945 2nd, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs.In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians. Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II. (Germany had signed its unavoidable Instrument of Surrender on May 7, ending the war in Europe.) The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding that nation from nuclear armament. (Panoramic view of the monument marking the hypocentre, or ground zero, of the atomic bomb explosion over Nagasaki.) The surviving victims of the bombings are called Hibakusha a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people". The suffering of the bombing has led Japan to seek the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world ever since, exhibiting one of the world's most firm non-nuclear policies.
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Post by bluerose on Nov 8, 2008 21:55:02 GMT -5
The peace symbol This symbol was originally used for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain, and originally was used by the British nuclear disarmament movement. It was subsequently adopted as an international emblem for the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist in Britain for the April 4 march planned by DAC from Trafalgar Square, London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England. The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament. In semaphore the letter "N" is formed by a person holding two flags in an upside-down "V," and the letter "D" is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. These two signals imposed over each other form the shape of the peace symbol. In the first official CND version the spokes curved out to be wider at the edge of the circle which was white on black
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