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Congressional Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress. -
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George Marshall
George C. Marshall (1880-1959). As chief of staff of the United States Army during World War II, it fell to Marshall to raise, train, and equip an army of several million men. It was Marshall who selected the officer corps and it was Marshall who played a leading role in planning military operations on a global scale. -
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Douglas MacArthur
Born on January 26, 1880, Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.—died April 5, 1964, Washington, D.C. U.S. general who commanded the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II, administered postwar Japan during the Allied occupation that followed, and led United Nations forces during the first nine months of the Korean War. -
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Chester W. Nimitz
Chester William Nimitz was born on 24 February 1885, near a quaint hotel in Fredericksburg, Texas built by his grandfather, Charles Nimitz, a retired sea captain. Young Chester, however, had his sights set on an Army career and while a student at Tivy High School, Kerrville, Texas, he tried for an appointment to West Point. When none was available, he took a competitive examination for Annapolis and was selected and appointed from the Twelfth Congressional District of Texas in 1901. -
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George S. Patton
Born November 11, 1885 in San Gabriel, CA, George Smith Patton, Jr. was the son of George S. Patton, Sr. and Ruth Patton. An avid student of military history, the young Patton was descended from Revolutionary War Brigadier General Hugh Mercer and several of his relatives fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. During his childhood, Patton met former Confederate raider John S. Mosby who was family friend. The old veteran's war stories fueled Patton's desire to become a soldier. -
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This Is Thomas Asuncion
This is Thomas Asuncion -
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Omar Bradley
Born at Clark, MO on February 12, 1893, Omar Nelson Bradley was the son of schoolteacher John Smith Bradley and his wife Sarah Elizabeth Bradley. Though from a poor family, Bradley received a quality education at Higbee Elementary School and Moberly High School. After graduation, he began working for the Wabash Railroad to earn money to attend the University of Missouri. During this time, he was advised by his Sunday school teacher to apply to West Point. -
Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. -
Concentration Camps
The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. In Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime. -
Liberty Ships
"Liberty ship" was the name given to the EC2 type ship designed for "Emergency" construction by the United States Maritime Commission in World War II. Liberty ships were nicknamed "ugly ducklings" by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. -
Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, famously nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, recruited under . -
Island Hopping
Leapfrogging (also called "islandhopping") was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan and the Axis powers during World War II. The idea was to bypass heavily fortified Japanese positions and instead concentrate the limited Allied resources on strategically important islands that were not well defended but capable of supporting the drive to the main islands of Japan. -
Bataan Death March
The Bataan* Death March began as a plea for life. Men were tired, weak, and lacking food. The 70-mile march from Mariveles (on the tip of Bataan) to San Fernando was a trial that tested a man, broke him, or got him killed. The famished men who made the exhausting march in World War II would never be forgotten. -
Navajo Code Talkers
Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima: the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language a code that the Japanese never broke. -
Battle of Midway
he Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this action, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. -
Merchant Marines
The United States Merchant Marine is the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is responsible for transporting cargo and passengers during peace time. In time of war, the Merchant Marine is an auxiliary to the Navy, and can be called upon to deliver troops and supplies for the military. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen is the popular name of a group of African-American pilots who fought in World War II. Formally, they formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Corps. -
D-Day Invasion
June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wou -
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code-name given to the Allied invasion of France scheduled for June 1944. The overall commander of Operation Overlord was General Dwight Eisenhower. Other senior commanders for Overlord included Air Marshall Leigh-Mallory, Air Marshall Tedder, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and Admiral Bertram Ramsey. Operation Overlord required the type of logistical issues that no army had ever had to cope with before and the plan was for the Allies to have landed a vast amount of -
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
As supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower led the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe that began on D-Day (June 6, 1944). In 1952, leading Republicans convinced Eisenhower (then in command of NATO forces in Europe) to run for president; he won a convincing victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson and would serve two terms in the White House (1953-1961). -
Potsdam Conference
On 16 July 1945, the "Big Three" leaders met at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. In this, the last of the World War II heads of state conferences, President Truman, Soviet Premier Stalin and British Prime Ministers Churchill and Atlee discussed post-war arrangements in Europe, frequently without agreement. Future moves in the war against Japan were also covered. The meeting concluded early in the morning of 2 August. -
Conventional Weapons
The terms conventional weapons or conventional arms generally refers to weapons that are in relatively wide use and that are not weapons. -
Multiple Front War
In military terminology, a two-front war is one in which fighting takes place on two geographically separate fronts. It is usually executed by two or more separate forces simultaneously or nearly simultaneously, in the hope that their opponent will be forced to split their fighting force to deal with both threats, therefore reducing their odds of success. Where one of the contending forces is surrounded, the fronts are called interior lines. -
Atomic Weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.