When Americans woke up Sunday morning on December 7, 1941, they were stunned to learn Japanese naval aircraft had attacked Pearl Harbor. What they would soon find out that was only the beginning. Pearl Harbor was just one part of the Japanese plan for the day. Within hours, Japanese naval and ground forces attacked and invaded Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Singapore, Honk Kong, Thailand and Burma. The Onset of War: The Angels of Bataan Face Their First Test Ten hours after the devastating...
The Christy Collection
Military Stories and Articles
Service Reflections of LCDR Leroy Jones, U.S. Navy (1954-1975)
I was 7 years old when Pearl Harbor was hit. I grew up wishing I could get involved. We did in the ways kids could, collecting scrap medals and tinfoil (from cigarette packs) and learning and practicing the “Scout Run” to be able to act as messengers as Scouts in England, if necessary.
When graduating from high school I couldn’t wait to join. Korea was going then (1954). I missed Korea but, made the Navy a career and was involved in Vietnam.
No one person influenced me to join the Navy. World events played that role.
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
In August 1944, the War Ministry in Tokyo had issued a directive to the commandants of various POW camps, outlining a policy for what it called the 'final disposition' of prisoners. A copy of this document, which came to be known as the 'August 1 Kill-All Order,' would surface in the war crimes investigations in Tokyo. The document read in part that POWs are to be destroyed individually or in groups and whether it is accomplished by means of mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning,...
WW2 – The Great Raid On Cabanatuan
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...
WW2 – Bataan and Corregidor
Within hours of their December 7, 1941, attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Japanese military began its assault on the Philippines, bombing airfields and bases, harbors and shipyards. Manila, the capital of the Philippines, sits on Manila Bay, one of the best deep-water ports in the Pacific Ocean, and it was, for the Japanese, a perfect resupply point for their planned conquest of the southern Pacific. After the initial air attacks, 43,000 men of the Imperial...