[hanamizu]

I taught junior high history for many years. It was hard to find a textbook that did not emphasize the internment of the Japanese. And if you just looked at the illustrations you would be led to believe that very few white males were involved in our war effort at all.

As a very early baby boomer, I grew up surrounded by fresh memories of the war. Everyone very much older than me remembered it. The books I read as a kid—Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Baa Baa Black Sheep, half the movies on TV were all about it. But, time passes and people and events that can never be forgotten are forgotten as they fade from living memory. The battle of Guadalcanal is a good example of this. I doubt that D Day will ever be forgotten as it is a turning point in the war. But much of the rest will fade from popular memory.

I don’t know that is necessarily a failure of the schools as much as it is the inexorable passage of time.

[dfwgator]

And if you just looked at the illustrations you would be led to believe that very few white males were involved in our war effort at all.

The "Ken Burns" Effect.

[Fiji Hill]

When I was in high school, if you asked one of my fellow students to name the Japanese aircraft carriers sunk at Midway, quite a few, perhaps even half of them or more, would be able to do so. Indidentally, they were the Hiryu (flying dragon), Soryu (green dragon), Kaga (red castle) and Akagi (increased joy).