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, Douglas MacArthur
American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. -
George Marshall
was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II,[4] Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and as the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, his name was given to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 -
Chester W. Nimitz
a five-star admiral of the United States Navy. He held the dual command of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), for U.S. naval forces and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CinCPOA), for U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.[2] He was the leading U.S. Navy authority on submarines, as well as Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Navigation in 1939. He served as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 1945 until 1947. He was the United States' last surviv -
Conventional Weapons
refer to weapons that are in relatively wide use that are not weapons of mass destruction (e.g. nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons). Conventional weapons include small arms and light weapons, sea and land mines, as well as (non-nuclear) bombs, shells, rockets, missiles and cluster munitions. These weapons use explosive material based on chemical energy, as opposed to nuclear energy in nuclear weapons.
The acceptable use of all types of conventional weapons in war time is governed by the G -
Dwight Eisenhower
the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.[2] -
Omar Bradley
was a senior U.S. Army field commander in North Africa and Europe during World War II, and a General of the Army in the United States Army. From the Normandy landings through the end of the war in Europe, Bradley had command of all U.S. ground forces invading Germany from the west; he ultimately commanded forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a U.S. field commander. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration and became -
Island Hopping
is a term that refers to the means of crossing an ocean by a series of shorter journeys between islands, as opposed to a single journey directly across the ocean to the destination. -
Navajo
A Native American people inhabiting extensive reservation lands in Arizona, New Mexico, and southeast Utah. The most populous of contemporary Native American groups in the United States, the Navajo are noted as stockbreeders and skilled weavers, potters, and silversmiths. -
Concentration Camps
"concentration camp" as: "a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.", and, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as: "A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions." -
Merchant Marines
is the fleet of merchant vessels that are registered in a country, which varies in capacity. Seafarers on merchant vessels, who hold various military-like ranks and responsibilities and are sometimes members of various maritime trade unions, are required by the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers to carry Merchant Mariner's Documents. -
code takers
were United States soldiers during the world wars who used their knowledge of Native-American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular there were approximately 400-500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted these messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formal or informally developed codes built upon their native languages. Their service improv -
Tuskagee 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 (United States Army Air Forces after 20 June 1941).
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States armed forces. During World War II, African Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws.[N 1] The American military was racially seg -
Liberty Ships
were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build,[3] and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease deliveries of war material to Britain and to the Soviet Union via deliveries through Iran. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Libertys -
Flying Tigers
the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, famously nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC), recruited under presidential authority and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The ground crew and headquarters staff were likewise mostly recruited from the U.S. military, along with some civilians. -
Death March
is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees with the intent to kill, brutalize, weaken and/or demoralize as many of the captives as possible along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Death marches usually consist of harsh physical labor and abuse, neglect of prisoner injury and illness, deliberate starvation and dehydration, humiliation and torture, and execution of those who are unable to keep up the marching pace. Th -
D-Day Invasion
s a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar terms. On the same principle, equivalent terms are Час Ч (Russian), Dagen D[citation needed] (Swedish), Dan D (Slovenian), E eguna (Basque), Jour J (French), Lá L (Irish), Tag X (German), and Ziua-Z (Romanian) -
Operation Overlord
was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune, commonly known as D-Day). A 12,000-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving almost 7,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June; more than three million troops were in France by the end of August.[12] -
Holocaust
was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, throughout German-occupied territory.[3][4] Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed.[5] Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.[6][7] -
Potsdam Conference
was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945. (In some older documents it is also referred to as the Berlin Conference of the Three Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and UK [2][3]) Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill,[4] and, later, Clement Attlee -
Atomic Weapons
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. The first fission ("atomic") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT.[1] -
Multiple Front War
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. -
George S. Patton
was a general in the United States Army most well known for his command of the Seventh United States Army, and later the Third United States Army, in the European Theatre of World War II. -
Congressional Medal of Honor
the original and official title is the "Medal of Honor".[1][5][6][7] There are three versions of the medal, one for the Army, one for the Navy, and one for the Air Force. Members of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard receive the Navy version.