Free Republic

December 15, 1944. All is mostly quiet along the western front in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It's cold, and the nights are dark. So dark that GI Joe, sitting and waiting, can't see his hand in front of his face. Four divisions of the US army are parked at a 75-mile front along the western frontier of Germany. The American commanders believe that the German Wehrmacht is finished and not capable of offensive operations. They either haven't been talking to some of the GI Joes in the front lines, or they aren't taking GI Joe seriously. He has been hearing...

In a recent article titled “Why Hitler Wished He Was Muslim,” the Wall Street Journal draws our attention to two books that reflect the historical Nazi-Islamic supremacist axis. Given the goings-on in Europe, we thought these to be poignant titles adding necessary context to a continent that appears to be a potential powder-keg. Of Stefan Ihrig’s ”Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination,” the Journal writes: Through the 1920s and 1930s, Nazi publications lauded Turkey as a friend and forerunner. In 1922, for example, the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s weekly paper, praised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the “Father of the Turks,” as...

Franklin Delano Roosevelt loved to keep secrets. He didn't want the public to know he was bound to a wheelchair, so he went to elaborate lengths to hide his inability to walk on his own. And when he was dying, his doctors hid it from the public. Even Roosevelt himself didn't want to know. Secrets of a different sort lie at the heart of two new books about Roosevelt the candidate and Roosevelt the president, with a special guest appearance by Adolf Hitler, before he became der fuehrer. David Pietrusza's 1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR--Two Tales of Politics,...

On December 11, 1941, several days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declaration of war against the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, in response to what was claimed to be a series of provocations by the United States government when the US was formally neutral during World War II. The decision to declare war was made almost entirely by Adolf Hitler, without consultation. Hitler had received no advance notice from the Japanese about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although he and his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop had verbally indicated a willingness...

Today is the anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, which brought the United States into World War II. The meticulously planned and devastatingly successful operation was launched from six aircraft carriers and their escorts, which had managed to penetrate to within 200 miles of Oahu without being discovered. Of the eight American battleships in port that day, four were sunk or destroyed, and nine other warships were sunk or severely damaged. Over 2,400 U.S. servicemen lost their lives, including 2.000 sailors, most of whom perished on the USS Arizona (BB-39). The only bright...

Hundreds of strangers paid tribute at a Kentucky funeral home to a “humble” survivor of World War II’s Normandy Invasion whose caregiver had worried that no one would come to his funeral. Vet Warren McDonough was 91 when he died Saturday. He never married and his only known survivor was a nephew in Florida. The big crowd who attended his wake Thursday night at Ratterman’s Funeral Home in St. Matthews showed up in response to a call from Lena Lyons, who runs a boarding home where McDonough spent his final days. Lyons told WHAS-TV McDonough deserved to be remembered because...

The Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive launched towards the end of World War II through the forested Ardennes Mountains region of Belgium (and more specifically of Wallonia: hence its French name, Bataille des Ardennes), France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. The offensive was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (translated as Operation The Guard on the Rhine or Operation "Watch on the Rhine") by the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). This German offensive was officially named the Ardennes-Alsace campaign[5] by the U.S. Army,[6] but it is known to the general public simply as...

A special holiday musical presentation from Union Station in Washington, DC celebrating the service and sacrifices of our nation's World War II veterans and commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.

Patton 360 - Battle of the Bulge by History Channel

Generals At War: Episode 06 The Battle of the Bulge The Greatest battle America ever fought was against Hitler's Army when it staged one of the last offensives of the war in Belgium against American troops who were alone and unprepared for the Nazi onslaught. Despite overwhelming odds American troops defeated the German Blitz preventing history from repeating itself as it did when Hitler first invaded Belgium in the begining of the war.

It sounds like a familiar story: on a bright Sunday in December, nearly 70 years ago, Japanese planes blazed out of the sky to strafe and bomb an American warship while it lay at anchor. The surprise attack caught the crew off-guard, and despite valiant action, the ship was critically damaged, had to be abandoned, and soon sank. If you said December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor, you’d be wrong. The date was December 12, 1937, and the place was the Yangtze River in war-torn China. The vessel? The gunboat USS Panay. It was a sudden and deliberate attack that might...

Norman Alley's Bombing of USS Panay Special Issue 1937 Newsreel (1) Reel 1 - "Nanking" (2) Reel 2 - "Uncensored!!! Unedited!!! The U.S.S. Panay Bombing in its entirey - exactly as photographed!" (this newsreel special is 22 minutes long, with music and narration)

SUNDAY IN HELL: PEARL HARBOR MINUTE BY MINUTE [....] The Sinking of the SS Cynthia Olson [....] The day before sending the SOS, the Cynthia Olson, captained by Merchant Marine Master Berthel Carlsen, was 300 miles off San Francisco, under way at 10 knots, when unknown to her crew, the Japanese submarine I-26, submerged at periscope depth and searching for potential targets, spotted and began tracking her. Commander Minoru Yokota, captain of the I-26, had been ordered to accompany I-10 in reconnoitering the Aleutians, then after 5 December, to deploy to a point between San Francisco and Hawaii to report...

America Declares War on Japan - President Roosevelt Speech [Full Resolution]. On December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt declares war on Japan, the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt gives a speech at a joint session of congress.

The History Channel presents Pearl Harbor. The Definitive documentary of the day that will forever live in infamy.

Cynthia Simison has written a first rate story of Pearl Harbor, gathering information from two 93 yr old survivors of the Japanese attack. CiR has reprinted a portion of Ms Simison’s article and included a link to the remainder. Read and remember the events of this deadly day in America’s history as related by men who lived it. There can be no better lesson in the importance of anticipating the villainy of our enemies rather than reacting to it. “Remember Pearl Harbor. Keep America alert.” For a generation of Americans, they were words by which they, and their children, lived....

What if FDR's speech after Pearl Harbor was given using Obama's attitude?

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.

In honor of the Pearl Harbor anniversary, we look at some interesting facts related to the “date which will live in infamy”. Hosted by Benari Poulten, a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pearl Harbor, Arizona Memorial