Free Republic

How a Soviet mole in FDR's inner circle triggered Pearl Harbor – and its dire relevancy to our conflict today. ... On December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft delivered a shocking blow .. Nearly seven years later, Harry Dexter White, a senior official in the Roosevelt Administration, appeared to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities . Numerous witnesses, including Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, had implicated White in involvement with the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. ... Harry Dexter White, a Harvard PhD and Assistant Treasury Secretary, had played a major role in creating the World Bank...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked public uproar when on Wednesday he claimed that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the one who planted the idea of the extermination of European Jewry in Adolf Hitler's mind. The Nazi ruler, Netanyahu said, had no intention of killing the Jews, but only to expel them. In a speech before the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu described a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November, 1941: "Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said,...

(Photo: US Army/Public Domain) What does a travel guide look like when you're part of an occupying army? Thanks to Oxford's Bodleian Library, we can get an idea. In the early 2000s, the library began reissuing a series of pamphlets that had been given to Allied servicemen before their trips to foreign nations.These guides can tell us a lot about cultural attitudes and a little about military strategy during World War II, but more than anything, they highlight shifting priorities in how troops interact with civilians.According to correspondence between the War department and to the headquarters of General Eisenhower in London, the...

[VIDEO DOCUMENTARY] From The Solon Historical Society Achieves - March 24th, 1998 Nelson Bard discusses his personal involvement in the real life "Caine Munity"

During World War II, 30,000 Jewish partisans fought in Eastern Europe, in their own combat units. In Western Europe, where anti-semitism among the conquered gentile population was less severe, Jews were able to participate as individuals in the national resistance, rather than having to fight in separate units. For example, in France, Jews amounted to less than one percent of French population, but comprised about 15 to 20 percent of the French Resistance. One of the most successful battles of the Jewish resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Nearly every Jew who participated was eventually killed — but they were...

The Museum & Library's third annual ON WAR symposium features a full day of programs on military history and affairs, and includes appearances by Pritzker Literature Award winners Gerhard Weinberg, Allan Millett, Antony Beevor, Rick Atkinson, and David Hackett Fischer. Presented in conjunction with the Museum & Library's annual Liberty Gala—to be held Nov. 7 at the Hilton Chicago—ON WAR 2015 includes four distinct programs with discussions by some of the world's preeminent historians and authors on subjects ranging from the infamous Battle of the Bulge to the history and heritage of the United States Marine Corps. Included in the...

<p>Cumberland County man cannot keep his grandfather's World War II rifle because it is an illegal assault firearm, according to a Sept. 15 New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division decision.</p> <p>The New Jersey State Police seized Danny Burt's M1 carbine and 20 other firearms in April 2013 after a temporary restraining order was lodged against him.</p>

Clay Bonnyman Evans knew all there was to know about his grandfather though the two had never met until that moment under several feet of crushed coral rock on a remote island in the Pacific. Evans was polite when requesting the anthropology brush he would use to sweep some of the dust from his grandfather’s remains when they were found in May on the Tawara Atoll. “My whole life I grew up with that medal on the wall and the citation,” Evans said, holding back tears. “He’s always been my hero.”

SEMBACH, Germany, September 18, 2015 — September 1 marked the 76th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war against Germany, setting off World War II. During the period from 1939 to 1945, approximately 400,000 U.S. service members lost their lives. Many of those troops were brought home to be buried in the United States, but more than 73,000 Americans missing from the war still remain unaccounted for and are considered missing in action. Streamlining Recovery Efforts After the war ended in 1945, the U.S. government began an effort to recover those MIA’s...

Warsaw (AFP) - Around 5,000 Polish youths wearing military uniform and carrying Kalashnikov replicas marched through Warsaw Thursday, pledging to come to their country's aid if necessary amid concern over Russian activity in neighbouring Ukraine. The unprecedented rally took place 76 years to the day after the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland at the start of World War II -- just weeks after Nazi Germany attacked the country from the west.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — In a new dispute exposing the complexity of Poland's relations with Russia, Moscow is threatening Warsaw with "most serious consequences" for dismantling a monument to a Soviet World War II general. The removal of the 1970s memorial to Gen. Ivan Chernyakhovsky began Thursday in the northern town of Pieniezno, where the general died of wounds in February 1945. He is buried in Russia.

Longtime Kansas Sen. Bob Dole is planning an ambitious fundraising effort to build the long-debated Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, and he will have help from Tom Hanks, Tom Brokaw and others. Dole told The Associated Press on Friday that he aims to raise $150 million in private funds, if necessary, to build the memorial after more than 15 years of planning. Critics of the memorial's design have stalled funding in Congress. The 92-year-old World War II veteran says it's time to honor "Ike," the 34th president and supreme Allied commander during World War II. Organizers hope to create...

THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER is revealing information about both Donald Trump and Jeb Bush that the so-called mainstream media outlets are keeping from Americans as Election 2016 heats up. In a three part series, front runner Trump reveals his father “turned out to be right” when he put his 13 year old son in a military academy because “military training might be good for me.” What Americans like and trust about Donald Trump is his authenticity, his “what you see is what you get” earnestness; his ability and willingness to speak without teleprompters, handlers, advisers or focus group screenings. The ENQUIRER...

Ben Kuroki, who overcame the American military's discriminatory policies to become the only Japanese American to fly over Japan during World War II, has died. He was 98. Kuroki died Tuesday at his Camarillo, California, home, where he was under hospice care, his daughter Julie Kuroki told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday. The son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Nebraska, farm, Kuroki and his brother, Fred, volunteered for service after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. They were initially rejected by recruiters who questioned the loyalty of the children of Japanese immigrants. Undeterred,...

Richard E. Cole On Monday, one of the last two surviving members of the WWII “Doolitte Raiders” will celebrate his 100th birthday. As one of the original Doolittle Raiders, retired Lt. Col. Richard Coledefied all the odds in what was considered a suicide mission to bomb Japan in 1942. Mr. Cole was co-pilot for Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, who led 16 B-25 bombers on the mission that is considered an event that changed the nation’s morale following the devastating attack on Pearl harbor. He was one of 80 fighters who volunteered for the dangerous, top-secret mission. The Raiders planned...

In 1972 my great uncle sat down and wrote an 80 pg. handwritten personal history of his time in World War II as a prisoner of war of the Japanese. From May of 1942 until August 15th of 1945, 1200 days as a POW, he survived one day at a time. He surrendered with his group on the island of Corregidor, and spent time in Bilibid prison, Cabanatuan, Palawan, and a journey to Japan on the horrible Oyoku Maru near the end of the war. Uncle Bob was a true American hero. A few years ago my father James Blair...

One man from Bishop's Cleeve has a very good and personal reason to be thankful that it's VJ Day today. Seventy years ago, Ken Blake was on a troop ship sailing from India bound for Singapore as part of preparations for an invasion when the Japanese government surrendered to the Allies after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ken, now 88 said: "There was a bloody big cheer on the ship when we heard. We didn't know what was going to happen. But I think if we'd been in any invasion of Japan, every man, woman and child...

"The Japanese surrender at the end of WWII allowed U.S. troops to peacefully enter as an occupation force. What they found and how they transformed their former enemy is told through the work of a team of cameramen who recorded it all on color film. They were among the first to witness the devastation wrought by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They also captured on film the first free elections and the birth of Japanese democracy. It was a remarkable journey." History Channel (2006?)

Japanese Prisoner of War Camps 1942-1945 [includes a Dutch film about the Japanese fake propaganda film]

Lt. Col. James N. Methven, USAF (Ret.) recalls an encounter with Japanese soldiers who are unaware World War II has ended.