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Visitors to the Pacific island of Peleliu can't claim they weren't warned. The sign at the harbour says "Welcome to Peleliu -- Land of Enchantment," but as the boat approaches the quay, a second sign becomes visible. "Remember that WWII ordnance is still dangerous and can injure or kill!"The water glistens in varying shades of turquoise, the sand on the beaches is as fine as dust and a balmy breeze eases the tropical heat. But the beauty is deceptive. The "Land of Enchantment," which belongs to the island nation of Palau, was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles...

WINDOW ROCK — Another Navajo Code Talker has died. Sgt. Jimmie Begay, of Sawmill, died Wednesday afternoon, the Navajo Nation says. He was 86. --------------------- Services are pending.

Edward J. Derwinski Halyard Mission 50th anniversary 1994 Chicago, IL U.S.A. Photo by R. Rebic Aleksandra's Note: Americans and Serbs from all over the United States and Canada gathered together on May 31, 1994 in Chicago to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 'Halyard Mission' rescue operation and pay homage to the American veterans of World War II and the Serbs under the command of General Draza Mihailovich who had saved their lives. The 'Halyard Mission' was the name given to the greatest rescue of American and Allied lives from behind enemy lines in the history of warfare. It was...

Sub Sea Research LLC, a Portland Maine based company located the worlds richest shipwreck, a WWII British Freighter carrying a secret cargo of 71 tons of Platinum sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of Cape Cod. Sub Sea Research (SSR) spent months searching for the elusive ship, the Port Nicholson, torpedoed by German U-boat U87, June 1942. It took two torpedoes and about 7 hours to sink her. U-87 also fired at the troop ship the “Cherokee,” quickly sinking her with a heavy loss of lives. The Port Nicholson is a steel-hulled, 481 ft. merchant ship, coal fired...

It is the little-known battle that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans during World War II. But now black-and-white photographs, captured by Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith, show the everyday horrors for the U.S. soldiers fighting against Japanese forces on the Mariana Island of Saipan between June 15 and July 9, 1944. Faces etched with the pain of their experiences, war-weary men are captured transporting their wounded comrades or forcing Japanese civilians from their hiding places. The photographs were taken during a battle that claimed the lives of 22,000 Japanese civilians - many by suicide - and nearly...

British Nun Who Hid Jews From Nazis On Track For Sainthood The Vatican has taken up the case for sainthood of a British nun who helped to hide scores of Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War. 15 Jan 2012 A file on Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough has been sent to the Vatican to be studied by historians and theologians. Her cause for sainthood was opened in July 2010 by the Diocese of Rome along with that of Sister Katherine Flanagan, marking the first phase of the investigations. In a significant development, the causes of both women have...

In June 1942, Thomas Mann, who was living in exile in California, delivered a commentary on a German-language BBC radio program that decried the sanguinary actions of the Third Reich in avenging the assassination of the leading SS official Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. After Heydrich’s elaborate funeral ceremony at the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler screamed at the Czech president, Emil Hacha, “Nothing can prevent me from deporting millions of Czechs if they do not wish for peaceful coexistence.” It wasn’t an idle threat. “Since the violent death of Heydrich,” Mann lamented, “terror is raging everywhere, in a more...

Keith Little envisioned a place that would house the stories of the Navajo Code Talkers and where people could learn more about the famed World War II group who used their native language as a weapon. His family now hopes to carry out his dream of a museum in Arizona that also will hold wartime memorabilia and serve as a haven for veterans. Little, one of the most recognizable of the remaining Code Talkers, died of melanoma Tuesday night at a Fort Defiance hospital, said his wife, Nellie. He was 87. Little was 17 when he joined the U.S. Marine...

<p>Imagine for a minute that memorial masses were held in two major cities in Germany on the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler. Needless to say, such a ceremony would arouse fury, indignation, and widespread protests not only in Germany, but throughout the entire world. Last week, the local equivalent of such an event took place in Croatia, but instead of anger and demonstrations, not a single word of protest was heard from anywhere in the country.</p>

<p>In Russia, many unaware people dream of a new era of expansion.</p> <p>It won't happen.</p> <p>Stalin is gone. Capitalism is not.</p> <p>Russia is far more inferior by technological and overall societal standards than most Russians are willing to realize.</p> <p>The Soviet Union of the late 1930's and early 1940's were ridiculed in combat by "tiny" Finland.</p>

'Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen - but he wears his medals in secret. Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service. "They would come and get me, yes they would," he said in a frail voice at his home in the docks area of Dublin. And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick,...

CHINLE - Funeral services were held Tuesday for a Navajo Code Talker who used his native language to confound the Japanese and help win World War II. Billy Crosby died last week, according to tribal officials. He was 85. -----

(NATIONAL CEMETERY OF THE PACIFIC – HONOLULU) It looked strange from the moment we pulled up to the Punchbowl, a sacred Hawaiian site once the location for human sacrifice before Cook's arrival to the islands. Our tour bus, filled with 23 WWII Pearl Harbor survivors as part of The Greatest Generations Foundation came to the beautiful location in an old crater above downtown Honolulu for a closing ceremony and presentation. The National Cemetery of the Pacific pays tribute to those veterans of all faiths who served their country, many who lost their lives during WWII. I admit I was not...

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When the Japanese fighters and bombers passed like shadows over the waters of Hawaii, they carried more than bombs and bullets, their fleeting shadows marked the end of over a century of security. The last time an enemy army threatened American territory was in the early nineteenth century, since then the closest thing had been the vicious clowning of Pancho Villa. But in the nineteenth century Commodore Perry had come calling to end Japan's isolation and nearly ninety years later, the Japanese warplanes came to end America's isolation. That isolation had been crumbling throughout the twentieth century as presidents began...

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — A snafu marred the critical moment of silence Wednesday at the Pearl Harbor ceremony observing the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack.... ...But on Wednesday, emcee Leslie Wilcox was still speaking at 7:55 a.m., even as the Hawaii Air National Guard's F-22's roared overhead on schedule 42 seconds later.

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time (12:55 p.m. EST) on December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, launching one of the deadliest attacks in American history. The assault, which lasted less than two hours, claimed the lives of more than 2,500 people, wounded 1,000 more and damaged or destroyed 18 American ships and nearly 300 airplanes. Almost half of the casualties at Pearl Harbor occurred on the naval battleship USS Arizona, which was hit four times by Japanese bombers. As we commemorate the 70th anniversary of this “date which will live in infamy,” as...

by John HillStand With Arizona Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Congress, 12/08/1941 The Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor and those who lost their lives that day are being remembered today on the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack that brought the U.S. into World War II. About 120 survivors will join the Navy Secretary, military leaders and civilians to observe a moment of silence...

Brief audio of the announcement

Nearly half the residents of the German city of Koblenz are being forced to leave their homes this weekend after the discovery of a 2-ton, unexploded World War II bomb, marking the biggest bomb-related evacuation in Germany's post-war history. Some 45,000 residents of the Rhineland city—including those in a jail, two hospitals and several nursing homes and hotels—are under orders to evacuate by Sunday, when a bomb-disposal squad plans to defuse the 10-foot bomb dropped by British fliers, most likely in a 1944 bombing raid. Found lodged in the bed of the ebbing Rhine River earlier this week, the bomb...

Almost half the German city of Koblenz is under evacuation orders as experts prepare to defuse a two-ton ‘Blockbuster’ RAF bomb in the Rhine. The 10ft bomb, one of the biggest in the wartime arsenal of Bomber Command, was discovered after 65 years when the river level dropped during the driest November on record.

My Grandfather was a Marine in the South Pacific in WWII. My Mom has no details as he never talked about his experiences. I would like to know where was posted, etc. Can anybody help me with this? Thanks.

Seventy years ago this month, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into a war that had begun in Europe in 1939. In his masterful new book "December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World," Craig Shirley takes readers back to a very different America. Through hundreds of stories and advertisements culled from newspapers, Shirley not only transports us back to that tumultuous time, but reminds this generation that denial about an enemy's intentions can have grave consequences. Each chapter in the book deals with a single day of December 1941. We go to the movies...

Adolf Hitler stayed in Liverpool for five months before World War I in a flat which was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombers in the Second World War 30 years later, according to a new research. The then 23-year-old shared the flat with his married half-brother Alois Hitler Jnr in Toxteth from November 1912 to April 1913. During his stay, he wandered around the city and relaxed in the Poste House pub relishing pints. NAZI Fuhrer also enjoyed a sightseeing tour of London and was so fascinated by Tower Bridge that he bribed his way into the engine room so he could...

ANAHEIM – He was beaten. Marched before a firing squad. Starved at Buchenwald. Only a small twist of fate saved him – four days before the Nazis planned to execute him. They have survived Buchenwald. But the world isn't ready to hear it. After the war, they are told to not speak about it. The official U.S. stance was that no American POWs went to Buchenwald. "We were still negotiating certain things with the Germans," says Dorsey, of Temecula. "The government didn't want to upset people by saying U.S. servicemen were held in concentration camps."

Thank goodness for those among us who remain vigilant against the lies... Review: “Tito’s War” by John Brown, World War II History Magazine, November, 2011, Volume 10, No. 7, pp. 54-61. Review by Carl Savich In the November, 2011 issue of the military history magazine "World War II History", published in Herndon, Virginia, an article entitled “Tito’s War” by Australian author John Brown purports to chronicle the conflict in Yugoslavia between Draza Mihailovich’s Chetnik guerrillas and Josip Broz Tito’s Communist Partisans during World War II. This account is fake. It is a phony history of World War II. John Brown...

They are the images usually only seen in black and white - a fitting hue for the gloom of a 1940s America engaged in World War II and having just experienced the Great Depression. But these vivid photographs in glorious colour show better than ever what life on the United States home front was really like as war raged in Europe and the Pacific. From a Californian female aircraft worker focused on checking electrical wiring, to children rolling potatoes into a barrel on a farmyard in Maine - the pictures illustrate the significant role of those not on the battle...

When this day rolls around annually, it's difficult to pick a single unit, battle or warrior to honor. And despite all attempts, the story is only fractionally told. Truly all Veterans, from all wars, are to be honored, respected and given heartfelt thanks for their contributions to our freedoms. But this year I decided to zero in on Patton's Tiger's Division, serving in his Third Army, and single out only one of their remarkable accomplishments…Combat Command B's Herculean efforts in WWII's Siege of Bastogne in the war's largest, and bloodiest, battle - the Ardennes-Alsace campaign. Or as it is...

BENBROOK -- Working a .50-caliber gun from the top turret of a B-24 Liberator, Dale Hulsey fought in one of the most dramatic air battles in U.S. history and still the single most decorated mission in Air Force history. He survived the bombing run and the anti-aircraft fire, survived a crash landing when a German fighter jumped his plane, survived a frantic run into the woods to evade the enemy who had seen the bomber go down. He survived 319 days on the run by linking up with Marshal Tito's Yugoslav partisans, survived a brutal winter in the mountains and...

ROME, ITALY, November 4 (CNA/EWTN News) - The Jewish New Yorker who has made it his life's work to clear the name of Pope Pius XII of being anti-Semitic believes the wartime pontiff actually went undercover to save the lives of Jews in Rome. Gary Krupp came across the evidence in a letter from a Jewish woman whose family was rescued thanks to direct Vatican intervention. "It is an unusual letter, written by a woman who is alive today in northern Italy, who said she was with her mother, her uncle, and a few other relatives in an audience with...

World War II is the story of the 20th Century. The war officially lasted from 1939 until 1945, but the causes of the conflict and its horrible aftermath reverberated for decades in either direction. While feats of bravery and technological breakthroughs still inspire awe today, the majority of the war was dominated by unimaginable misery and destruction. In the late 1930s, the world's population was approximately 2 billion. In less than a decade, the war between the nations of the Axis Powers and the Allies resulted in some 80 million deaths -- killing off about 4 percent of the whole...

(Visiting DC)The Obama Administration announced its objection to including President Roosevelt’s prayer on the World War II Memorial in Washington DC. The Obama White House said the prayer would dilute the message of the memorial.Todd Starnes reported: Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.The objection was noted during a congressional hearing on Rep. Bill Johnson’s (R-OH) bill – the “World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011.”“It is unconscionable that the Obama administration would stand...

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The objection was noted during a congressional hearing on Rep. Bill Johnson's, R-Ohio, bill -- the "World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011." "It is unconscionable that the Obama administration would stand in the way of honoring our nation's distinguished World War II veterans," Johnson said. "President Roosevelt's prayer gave solace, comfort and strength to our nation and our brave warriors as we fought against tyranny and oppression."

Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The objection was noted during a congressional hearing on Rep. Bill Johnson’s (R-OH) bill – the “World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011.” "It is unconscionable that the Obama administration would stand in the way of honoring our nation’s distinguished World War II veterans,” Johnson said. “President Roosevelt’s prayer gave solace, comfort and strength to our nation and our brave warriors as we fought against tyranny and oppression.”...

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He was the loyal companion of the Dambusters hero whose extraordinary bravery captured the nation. Now ghost hunters believe the spectre of Nigger the dog, the Dambusters mascot, is still faithfully guarding his master's old quarters. Ghost enthusiasts are convinced that the ghosts of both Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his chocolate–coloured Labrador still haunt the remote Lincolnshire airfield from which the audacious raid was launched.

Kragujevac Memorial Park Introduction by Nebojsa MalicIn March 1941, the Yugoslav government signed a cooperation treaty with Nazi Germany, under threat of invasion. Two days later, it was toppled in a coup. Outraged, Hitler swore to "wipe Yugoslavia off the map," and delayed the planned invasion of the USSR for a stopover in the Balkans. By all military criteria, "Operation Punishment" was a cakewalk, wiping out resistance in seven days. Many willing collaborators eagerly helped the Nazis dismember the dysfunctional state. But within two months, not one but two resistance movements had sprung up, challenging the occupation, albeit in different...

the Pentagon announced Friday that the remains of 10 airmen missing in action from World War II will be buried next week at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. The Department of Defense said in a news release that the crew was on a bombing mission over Berlin in April 1944 when their B-24J Liberator aircraft crashed near East Meitze, Germany. There were no survivors. The crash site was located in 2003 and human remains were turned over to U.S. officials. Additional remains, as well as metal ID tags and a class ring, were gathered over the next few...

Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan prepared to deal one more decisive blow to the U.S. Naval forces in the Pacific. The aim was to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers and occupy the strategically important Midway Atoll, a tiny island nearly halfway between Asia and North America that was home to a U.S. Naval air station. American codebreakers deciphered the Japanese plans, allowing the U.S. Navy to plan an ambush. On June 3, 1942, the Battle of Midway commenced.

Actual Title:FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America Reviews:"FDR Goes to War is a page-turning tour de force -- and a scholarly one, at that -- of the politics and economics of America's involvement in WWII. Be prepared to rethink much of what you think you know about FDR, the war, and the post-Depression U.S. economy." --Don Bordreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University "In New Deal or Raw Deal? Burt Folsom exposed FDR's failed policies during the Great Depression. Now, in FDR Goes...

After World War II, the Allies partitioned the defeated Germany into a Soviet-occupied zone, an American-occupied zone, a British-occupied zone and a French-occupied zone. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four sections. In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good....

All I was snoozing through a cable channel show in World War 2 last night which referred to a network to rescue downed fliers across the Pyrenees to Gibraltar that was run by a twenty year old woman. The story was that she was betrayed eventually, imprisoned and ended her days as a nurse in Africa. I missed her name. Does anybody out there know of her and her story. Thank you.

As a way to solve the national debt crisis, North Carolina Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue recommends suspending congressional elections for the next couple of years. “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover,” Perdue said at a rotary club event in Cary, North Carolina, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

The USS Iowa -- the last surviving World War II battleship without a home -- will head to the Port of Los Angeles to stand as a permanent museum and memorial to battleships... The Navy's decision also comes six years after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted against making a public display of the ship in that city, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things... The Iowa's new home will offer 4 1/2 acres of parking space in North America's busiest seaport, adjacent to the World Cruise Center, where cruise...

Beginning in June of 1940, the North African Campaign took place over the course of three years, as Axis and Allied forces pushed each other back and forth across the desert in a series of attacks and counterattacks. Libya had been an Italian colony for several decades and British forces had been in neighboring Egypt since 1882. When Italy declared war on the Allied Nations in 1940, the two armies began skirmishing almost immediately. An Italian invasion of Egypt in September of 1940 was followed by a December counterattack where British and Indian forces captured some 130,000 Italians. Hitler's response...

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) - A Marine who fought in the Battle of Okinawa urged Americans on Friday to honor those who served in World War II now, while veterans from that conflict are still alive. E. Bruce Heilman, speaking at a ceremony marking the 66th year since the end of the war, noted fewer than 2 million of the 16 million men and women who served in the war are alive. They are dying at a rate of 30,000 per month, he said.

California Capital Airshow coming up Sept. 11th-12th...  Some highlights from last year's event: There are only seven Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft that remain in flying condition out of over 10,000 produced... five of them made this show. This gentleman is Col Bill Harris... now 95 years old.  He came to the even in a wheelchair and had a hard time making the few steps to the plane. But this P-38 was painted to replicate the one Col Harris flew in WWII; you see, Bill Harris is a genuine WWII ace, having scored 15 confirmed aerial kills of Imperial Japanese aircraft....

The False WWII Analogy Obama’s America is more like Attlee’s Britain than Truman’s America. Since 2009, the example of the economic boom following World War II has been used by Keynesians to justify their record “peacetime” levels of borrowing intended to lift the U.S. out of the doldrums. Indeed, the more the contemporary borrowing fails, the more the vast indebtedness of the war years is invoked to reassure us. On occasion a wry lament follows that if only a spaceship full of dangerous aliens were to appear, we might have the requisite excuse to follow our ....

Maria Strobel could not believe it of her Führer. Adolf Hitler and his party—a group of senior Nazis that included Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Reinhard Heydrich—had spent more than an hour in her Munich bierkeller. Hitler had delivered a trademark speech, and, while they listened, Himmler and the others had run up a large beer bill. But the whole group had left in a hurry—leaving the tab unpaid and Strobel untippped.Georg Elser, whose attempt to kill Hitler came within moments of succeeding, commemorated on a stamp. The German phrase means "I wanted to prevent war." Image: Wikicommons Much annoyed,...

American D-Day veterans are crying foul over a French initiative, approved last month by President Nicolas Sarkozy, to construct over one-hundred 525-feet wind turbines just off the Normandy landing grounds. According to Gérard Lecornu, president of the Port Winston Churchill Association of Arromanches, the giant structures, expected to be built seven miles from the beach, will be visible from the Normandy battleground beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. “Three million tourists come from the world over to the landing beaches. The first thing they do is look at the line of horizon from where the landings came,” he...