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World War II

PFC Harold Agerholm, U.S. Marine Corps (1942-1944) – Medal of Honor Recipient

PFC Harold Agerholm, U.S. Marine Corps (1942-1944) – Medal of Honor Recipient

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PFC Harold Agerholm had a quiet start to his life. After qualifying from school in Racine, Wisconsin, he worked as a multigraph operator for the Ranch Manufacturing Company. Then in July 1942, he joined the Marine Corps Reserve. Upon completing his recruit training in San Diego, California, Harold Agerholm was sent to the Headquarters and Service Battery, 4th Battalion, 10th Marines, and 2nd Marine Division. He received further training for eleven months with his battalion in Wellington, New Zealand. In January 1943, Agerholm was promoted to Private First Class. In November 1943, a year and a half after first signing up, the young marine took part in the war, engaging with Japanese forces on Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll. It was the first time American forces faced serious opposition to a landing. The 4,500 Japanese soldiers on the island were well prepared and fought to the last man. They extracted a high price for their deaths. Throughout the incredibly intense battle, which lasted...

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A Leadership Lesson From a Janitor

A Leadership Lesson From a Janitor

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William "Bill" Crawford was an unimpressive figure, one you could easily overlook during a hectic day at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Crawford, as most of us referred to him back in the late 1970s, was our Squadron janitor. While we Cadets busied ourselves preparing for academic exams, athletic events, Saturday morning parades, and room inspection, or never-ending leadership classes-Bill quietly moved about the squadron mopping and buffing floors, emptying trash cans, cleaning toilets, or just tidying up the mess 100 college-age kids can leave in a dormitory. Sadly, and for many years, few of us gave him much notice, rendering little more than a passing nod or throwing a curt, "G' morning!" in his direction as we hurried off to our daily duties. Why? Perhaps it was because of the way he did his job - he always kept the squadron area spotlessly clean, even the toilets and showers gleamed. Frankly, he did his job so well; none of us had to notice or get involved. After all, cleaning...

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Killing The SS by Bill O’Reilly

Killing The SS by Bill O’Reilly

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As the true horrors of the Third Reich began to be exposed immediately after World War II, the Nazi war criminals who committed genocide went on the run. A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the worst Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann. Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world,...

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WW2 – Doolittle Raid and the Brutal Japanese Reprisals (1942)

WW2 – Doolittle Raid and the Brutal Japanese Reprisals (1942)

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Everyone knows about Pearl Harbor and Japan dragging the USA into World War II. Still, fewer are aware of the American Doolittle raid and the brutal Japanese reprisals to this daring counterpunch. Approximately five months after the Japanese attempt to cripple the American Pacific fleet, an unprecedented strike on the heart of the Japanese Empire was launched by the intrepid pilot Lt. Col. James Doolittle of the United States Army Air Force. While the United States boosted the American people's morale through the Doolittle raiders’ successful air raid on Japanese industrial strength, the Japanese army underwent a sickening rampage of reprisal in the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign that killed 250,000 Chinese civilians. Jimmy Doolittle and the Tokyo Raiders Strike Japan After the sneak attack on America’s main Pacific naval base, President Roosevelt pushed for a response that would underscore the Japanese people's danger of the situation that their leadership had put them in. While...

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Famous Military Unit: USCGC Tamaroa

Famous Military Unit: USCGC Tamaroa

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The sky was red above Gloucester, MA, when fishermen on the swordboat Andrea Gail set out from their harbor with ominous flashes of lightning far away to the northwest that late autumn of 1991. At the 1 hour and 21-minute mark in the movie "The Perfect Storm," the first distress call to USCGC Tamaroa (portrayed by CGC Vigorous) is transmitted from USAF Pave Hawk "Jolly 110" assigned to the NYANG 106th Rescue Wing.  Sailing from her homeport at Newcastle, NH, Tamaroa had been coordinating air and sea operations looking for vessels caught in three violent Atlantic storms converging south of Nova Scotia when it was diverted. On a fourth HC-130 refueling sortie, 30 attempts to meet the drogue failed due to extreme turbulence of up to 100 knots; the Jolly 110 went dry and was forced to ditch. The Satori yacht passengers had been brought safely into a USCG rescue helicopter by then; at no time were they set aboard the Tamaroa. After five hours adrift in the tempest, seas sometimes reaching...

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WW2 – The Great Raid On Cabanatuan

WW2 – The Great Raid On Cabanatuan

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Within weeks of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Imperial Army pushed American and Filipino troops out of Manila. They were forced into the jungles of the Bataan Peninsula and the Island of Corregidor where they were cut off from supplies. Hungry and suffering from tropical disease, the troops were promised by the commanding Gen. Douglas MacArthur that "thousands of planes" with food, medicine, and reinforcements were on their way. But no help had arrived by March when MacArthur was ordered to leave and set up a command in Australia.  Over 25000 American Soldiers Surrendered Into Captivity During the Raid On Cabanatuan By April, Allied losses and the lack of supplies in Bataan were so bad that Maj. Gen. Edward King, the local commander, ordered the surrender of 70,000 troops (Filipinos and Americans); the largest American army in history to surrender. Having made plans to accept the surrender of about 25,000 soldiers, the Japanese were overwhelmed with POWs. Food, water, and...

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Col Frank Capra, U.S. Army (1918-1945)

Col Frank Capra, U.S. Army (1918-1945)

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Frank Capra, who served in the US Army between 1918 and 1945, is perhaps most well-known for his direction of classic Americana films It’s A Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. However, his greatest contribution to American culture may be the documentary series he produced during World War II for the Allied forces: Why We Fight. Born in Bisacquino, Sicily, in 1897, Francesco Rosario Capra was the youngest of seven children born to the Capra household: humble fruit growers. In 1903, the family emigrated to the United States, spending 13 days in the degrading squalor of steerage. This experience profoundly affected young Francesco. On arriving in the US, the Capras moved to the East Side of Los Angeles. Capra’s father worked as a fruit picker, and Capra himself sold newspapers after school for 10 years, until graduation. Instead of entering the workforce, he enrolled in the California Institute of Technology. Sadly, his father died in 1916, so to avoid draining too much of...

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Spearhead by Adam Makos

Spearhead by Adam Makos

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Have you read Spearhead by Adam Makos? When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter. At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit. After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater. But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle...

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WW2 – The Battle of Monte Cassino

WW2 – The Battle of Monte Cassino

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Allied forces landed in the Italian peninsula in September 1943. The Apennine Mountains divided the peninsula, and Allied troops split and advanced on both sides. They took control of Naples and continued the push towards Rome. Monte Cassino was the gateway to Rome. It towered above the city and provided unobstructed views. German troops occupied lookouts on the hillside but agreed to stay out of the abbey because of its historical importance. The precious manuscripts and antiquities housed in the abbey had been removed to Vatican City for safekeeping (although some works of art were stolen by German troops and transported north). The First Phase of The Battle of Monte Cassino The first phase of the operation began on January 17 with an Allied attack on German positions. Thomas E. McCall, a farm boy from Indiana, found himself in the crosshairs of the battle of Monte Cassino. On January 22, 1944, during heavy fighting, he was accidentally struck by friendly fire. After all his men...

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Lt Tom Ewell, U.S. Navy (1942-1945)

Lt Tom Ewell, U.S. Navy (1942-1945)

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Tom Ewell, of the United States Navy between 1942 and 1945, interrupted a successful career as a stage actor in order to protect the merchant shipping vital to the country’s war effort as part of the US Navy Armed Guard. Born Samuel Yewell Tompkins in Kentucky during the year 1909, he was expected to join the family professions (either law or tobacco and whiskey dealing) but instead pursued acting. In 1928, he began acting in summer stock while attending the University of Wisconsin. Determined to defy the Depression and make a success of himself, in 1931, at the age of 22, he moved to New York and enrolled in the Actors Studio. Making ends meet while waiting for his break was rough going. He washed dishes, sold cigars and magazines and operated elevators while looking for work on the stage. He eventually made his Broadway debut in 1934 with the production They Shall Not Die, and began accumulating more credits from there. Tom Ewell’s Military Career Ewell had built momentum as a...

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Famous Military Unit: 100th Infantry Battalion

Famous Military Unit: 100th Infantry Battalion

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With much of the world already at war, December 7, 1941 proved not only a day that would live in infamy but for most Americans, an event that would redefine their world. This impact was no more significant or immediate than for US citizens of Japanese ancestry and in particular second-generation Americans, or Nisei.  Since 1937 the Japanese invasion of China and atrocities inflicted on civilian populations sickened most of the world, punctuated by the undeclared attack on Pearl Harbor.  Unfairly stricken with the effects of these acts the Nisei refused to be victims of these events, but instead, set a course to undeniably prove both their competence and loyalty.  Driven by this quest, the 100th Infantry Battalion performed with distinction and rose to become the most highly decorated unit for its size in US military history. Remember Pearl Harbor On December 7th, many Americans of Japanese Ancestry lived in Hawaii and served in the 298th and 299th Infantry Regiments.  Following the...

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Col Pierre Julien Ortiz, U.S.Marine Corps (1942-1954)

Col Pierre Julien Ortiz, U.S.Marine Corps (1942-1954)

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The first thoughts that come to mind when one thinks about World War II Marines is them landing on bloody beaches and fighting in steamy jungles of the Pacific. But this was not the role of Marine Pierre Julien Ortiz, who served in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. His exploits and dare-devil attitude were things of fiction yet they were all real. He was an American and a Frenchman with a Spanish name and he lived in remarkable times and did remarkable things. His life was a series of rousing adventures that were the basis for several Hollywood screenplays. He was a ship's mate, a race car driver, a decorated French Foreign Legionnaire with two awards of the Croix de Guerre, a World War II Marine officer with two Navy Crosses and two Purple Hearts, a member of the covert Office of Strategic Services and captured by the Germans only to escape and three years later be captured again - and he was a Hollywood movie actor. He spoke five languages including French, German and Arabic....

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