Free Republic

The true story of four World War II U.S. Army chaplains who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could live.

Does President Obama ever discuss the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor while he's in Japan? Thousands of American lives lost. #MDW— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016

The remains of a U.S. Marine who was killed in action during World War II finally completed the 70-year journey from a South Pacific atoll to his home in Texas. His body has been missing since 1943. n November 1943, U.S. Marine Corps Private First Class Elmer “Rabbit” Mathies, Jr. was killed during the Battle of Tarawa. Private Mathies was one of 1,200 Marines killed during the 3-day battle battle. His remains were finally identified and have been returned to Hereford, Texas in time for Memorial Day, the Amarillo Globe-News reported.

The P-47 Thunderbolt crashed Friday during a promotion for the American Airpower Museum, which is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the P-47 this weekend. Scuba divers recovered the body of the pilot, 56-year-old William Gordon, of Key West, Florida, about three hours after the crash. Gordon was a veteran air show pilot with more than 25 years of experience, according to promotional material for a Key West air show last month. The website for the April 2-3 air show says Gordon was an "aerobatic competency evaluator" who certified performers to perform low-level aerobatics.

<p>The president of DePaul University likens campus race activists who shut down a conservative event to troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy during World War II.</p> <p>A letter issued by Rev. Dennis Holtschneider said the students were wrong — yet also very much like Allied Forces who fought and died in France on June 6, 1944.</p>

A 91-year-old World War II veteran is recovering after police say his caretaker beat him with his oxygen tank. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that 45-year-old Elena Erickson was charged Thursday with attempted murder for the May 15 beating of Michael Tristano. North Port police say Erickson hit him in the head multiple times with the tank before leaving him on the floor to die. They say she returned to the home the next day, found him still alive and called paramedics. She denied any connection to the beating.

Hugo Jaeger is the former personal photographer of Adolf Hitler. He travelled with Hitler in the years leading up to and throughout World War II and took around 2,000 color photographs of the Austrian-born German politician. Jaeger was one of the few photographers who were using color photography techniques at the time.

It’s an incontrovertible fact that millions of lives were saved because President Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I know because I’m one of them. My father enlisted in the U.S. Navy the day he turned 18 in 1945. He finished his basic training as the Allies were preparing for “Operation Downfall” – the code name for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Experts predicted it would be ten times bloodier than Iwo Jima. Casualty estimates ran into the millions – for both sides. Lest we forget, Imperial Japan was a ruthless warrior culture whose war crimes rivaled the...

MSNBC breaking news host and ex-NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was allowed out on MSNBC’s airwaves early Friday afternoon to discuss President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima so he could resurrect a taped report that aired in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the nuclear bomb’s dropping on the Japanese city. In the course of discussing the event afterward, though, Williams threw some shade in the direction of the U.S. military and then-President Harry Truman by complaining that “we’re the only nation to have used them in anger” against the horrifying Axis Powers member.

An addendum to Larry’s item this morning, which correctly diagnosed Obama’s appearance in Hiroshima as a bit more apologetic than the White House wants observers to believe. If you come to the site of an act that ended four years of horrendous war and insist that a “moral revolution” is needed to ensure that such acts aren’t repeated, you’re obviously making a statement about the morality of that original act. If you want to protest guns, you don’t do it at a place where someone once used one to defend himself successfully from a threat. You do it at a...

All these threads about Hiroshima got me to do some thinking. What would have happened had by some miracle we didn't drop the nukes on Japan and they had surrendered after a the equivalent amount of firebombing but right before an invasion. Some libs would think this would have been the "best Case Scenario" but I think it would have been a disaster! This is why: After the two nukes hit Japan many news reels in the months and years after it showed off to the whole world the absolute horrors of what Nuclear Weapons could do. We saw images...

...So I crawled in the total darkness, and I got to the opening. And by the time I got there, the building was on fire. That meant most of the girls were burnt to death. Although that happened in the morning, it was already very dark, like twilight. And the two other girls managed to come out, and three of us looked around. And in the darkness, I could see some dark moving object approaching to me. They happened to be human beings shuffling from the center part of the city to where I was. They just didn't look like...

The Rape of Nanking and the evil human experiments done by Unit 731 usually come to mind when we think of Japanese war crimes. Unfortunately, those awful incidents weren’t isolated cases. Fueled by racism, fanaticism, and finally desperation as their defeat seemed inevitable, the Japanese in World War II perpetrated several acts on par with Nazi war crimes. 10Laha Airfield MassacreFebruary 1942 This ghoulish event, which killed more than 300 Australian and Dutch POWs, followed the Japanese capture of the Indonesian island of Ambon. Allegedly as an act of reprisal after the Allies destroyed one of their minesweepers, the Japanese...

More than four decades after the fall of Saigon, Washington is still holding on to various classified details about its fight in Southeast Asia. Among the Pentagon media arm’s still-secret records are photos and video of updated World War II-era bombers the U.S. Air Force sent to hit Laos. In May 1966, pilots and crews from the 603rd Air Commando Squadron brought eight B-26K Invaders from their base in Louisiana to Nakhon Phanom Air Base in Thailand. Desperate to stem the flow of troops and supplies flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, the flying branch had...

Full title :Heartwarming moment World War II veteran, 94, is reunited with man he saved from Nazi concentration camp in 1945 A 94-year-old World War II veteran was reunited with one of the prisoners he helped liberate from the Dachau concentration camp. Retired U.S. Army corporal Sid Shafner said he was among the first Allied troops to reach the Nazi camp in April 1945, and that he is the last surviving member of his unit. His tearful reunion with Marcel Levy, 90, who was a teenager when he was liberated, came during a recent tour of Europe and Israel. 'You...

President Barack Obama has signed a bill into law that will again allow the ashes of female World War II pilots known as WASPs to be placed at Arlington National Cemetery. The women served in a unit called Women Airforce Service Pilots. They flew noncombat missions to free male pilots for combat. They were considered civilians during the war, but federal law since 1977 granted them veteran status. …

The White House is trying to tamp down opposition from World War II veterans who view President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima as an apology for using the atomic bomb in Japan to end the war.

"This is incredible actual footage during the 80-minute attack on the USS Laffey. About the best naval footage ever shot by a Navy cameraman. The camera was in the gun turret under attack. The USS Laffey, "the ship that would not die", was hit by 6 Kamikazes and 4 bombs, but remained afloat after an 80 minute battle that included 22 Kamikaze attacks"

I knew the day might come. The news still hurt. The daughter of an amazing war hero called the other night to say her father was dying. An overnight email a day later told me that Norman "Dusty" Kleiss, 100 years old, hero of the Battle of Midway, had died Friday. He was the last surviving dive-bomber from the sea battle that turned the tide of World War II. In discussing Dusty with his daughter, we agreed it was as if the pilot was determined to reach the age of 100 before his health faded. Several weeks ago, there was...

Congress has approved a burial plot in Arlington National Cemetery for women who served as pilots during WWII. The women served as Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP. They flew noncombat and training missions, but their jobs weren't entirely without danger--38 women died in service. Despite this, they weren't considered to be veterans until 1977, when federal law changed to acknowledge their service. Even still, the Army revoked the right of WASP to be buried at Arlington in 2015. Pending President Obama's signature, that will change shortly.The legislation to reinstate their eligibility was introduced by Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ). [...]the...