Pacific Theater

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/3/2020
  

  He Escaped Death as a Kamikaze Pilot. 70 Years Later, He Told His Story.

  "As the generation who lived through the war fades away, Japan’s opposing political sides are vying to reinterpret the kamikaze for a public still divided over the conflict’s legacy."

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• 9/13/2020
  

  Making History with Music

  by Jason Burt

  PFC Richard Burt played the trumpet in a military band tasked with raising morale in the fight to retake the Philippines before a career as a music teacher. His grandson, a history teacher, wants to make him and his bandmates posthumous recording stars.

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• 8/16/2020
  

  The Other Western Front

  by Aimee Liu

  Historical novelist Aimee Liu uncovered the history of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the western front of the Pacific theater in World War II, in the course of plotting her new novel "Glorious Boy."

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• 8/9/2020
  

  75 Years Later, Purple Hearts Made for an Invasion of Japan are Still Being Awarded

  by D.M. Giangreco

  There has been much debate about how close the United States was to victory in the Pacific before the atomic bombs were dropped 75 years ago this week. But in 1945, the military ordered so many Purple Heart medals in anticipation of an invasion of Japan that medals from that supply are still being awarded today.

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• 8/9/2020
  

  Unconditional Surrender: The Domestic Politics of Victory in the Pacific

  by Marc Gallicchio

  The terms on which the United States pressed Japan for surrender were shaped by American domestic politics; New Deal Democrats and their liberal allies succeeded in convincing Harry Truman that it was necessary to dramatically rebuild Japan's society along more social-democratic lines. 

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• SOURCE: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
  8/3/2020
  

  What Europeans Believe about Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and Why it Matters

  A European's belief that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a military necessity that ultimately saved lives correlates with less acceptance of nuclear disarmament. History is important for citizens' ability to judge issues related to the dangers of nuclear weapons. 

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• 8/2/2020
  

  Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part I

  by Paul Ham

  Many people, including historians, believe that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused Japan's unconditional surrender, saved a million American lives, and was the least morally repellent way to end World War II. Paul Ham contends that none of this is true. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/9/2020
  

  ‘We Hated What We Were Doing’: Veterans Recall Firebombing Japan

  American airmen who took part in the 1945 firebombing missions grapple with the particular horror they witnessed being inflicted on those below.

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• 3/6/2020
  

  A Price to Be Paid

  by Col. Arthur Shaw (Ret.) and Robert L. Wise

  None of us had any idea how terrible the cost would be before we finished taking Okinawa. The casual observer might have concluded that the landing was so easy, war must be a walk in the park.

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• 3/6/2020
  

  Kamikazes at the Battle of Okinawa

  by Joseph Wheelan

  On May 6, 1945, a twin-engine kamikaze plane’s bomb exploded beside the destroyer Luce, part of the radar picket ship screen surrounding Okinawa, and ripped her starboard side “like a sardine can.”