The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by American forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major land offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations.
The Aleutian Islands campaign was a military campaign fought between 3 June 1942 and 15 August 1943 on and around the Aleutian Islands in the American Theater of World War II. It was the only military campaign of World War II fought on North American soil.
General Alexander McCarrell Patch was a senior United States Army officer who fought in both world wars, rising to rank of general. During World War II, he commanded U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific, and the Seventh Army on the Western Front in Europe.
Guadalcanal Diary is a memoir written by war correspondent Richard Tregaskis and originally published by Random House on January 1, 1943. The book recounts the author's time with the United States Marine Corps on Guadalcanal in the early stages of the pivotal months-long battle there starting in 1942. It was the first book published by Random House to sell more than 100,000 copies.
Banzai charge or Banzai attack is the term that was used by the Allied forces of World War II to refer to Japanese human wave attacks and swarming staged by infantry units. This term came from the Japanese battle cry tennōheika banzai, and was shortened to banzai, specifically referring to the tactic used by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War. This tactic was used when the Japanese commanders of infantry battalions foresaw that a battle was about to be lost, as a last ditch effort in thwarting Allied forces.
Private Joseph Pantillion Martínez born in Taos, New Mexico, was a United States Army soldier who posthumously received the Medal of Honor — the United States' highest military decoration —- for his actions on the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Private Joseph P. Martínez was the first Hispanic-American and first Coloradan to receive the Medal of Honor during World War II. His posthumous award was the first act for combat heroism on American soil since the Indian Wars.
Robert M. Citino is an American military historian and the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum. He is a leading authority on modern German military history, with an emphasis on World War II and the German influence upon modern operational doctrine.
Richard William Tregaskis was an American journalist and author whose best-known work is Guadalcanal Diary (1943), an account of just the first several weeks of the U.S. Marine Corps invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands during World War II. This was actually a six-month-long campaign. Tregaskis served as a war correspondent during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in the American Civil War and in every conflict which the United States has been involved since World War I. In World War II, more than 65,000 Puerto Rican service members served in the war effort, including the guarding of U.S. military installations in the Caribbean and combat operations in the European and Pacific theatres.
Dr. Roscoe Conkling Brown Jr. was one of the Tuskegee Airmen and a squadron commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group.
Hispanic Americans, also referred to as Latinos, served in all elements of the American armed forces in the war. They fought in every major American battle in the war. Between 400,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, out of a total of 16,000,000, constituting 3.1% to 3.2% of the U.S. Armed Forces. The exact number is unknown as, at the time, Hispanics were not tabulated separately, but were included in the general white population census count. Separate statistics were kept for African Americans and Asian Americans.
The Battle of Attu, which took place on 11–30 May 1943, was fought between forces of the United States, aided by Canadian reconnaissance and fighter-bomber support, and Japan on Attu Island off the coast of the Territory of Alaska as part of the Aleutian Islands campaign during the American Theater and the Pacific Theater. Attu is the only land battle in which Japanese and American forces fought in snowy conditions, in contrast with the tropical climate in the rest of the Pacific. The battle ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.
Robert Lee Sherrod was an American journalist, editor and writer. He was a war correspondent for Time and Life magazines, covering combat from World War II to the Vietnam War. During World War II, embedded with the United States Marine Corps, he covered the battles at Attu, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. He also authored five books on World War II, including Tarawa: The Story of a Battle (1944) and the definitive History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (1952). He was an editor of Time during World War II and later editor of The Saturday Evening Post, then vice-president of Curtis Publishing Company.
Major General Eugene M. Landrum was a senior United States Army officer. He is known primarily for defeating the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands Campaign at the start of World War II, being relieved as commander of the 90th Infantry Division shortly after the D-Day landings, and organizing the Pusan Perimeter to blunt the North Korean offensive during the Korean War.
First Lieutenant Shelby F. Westbrook was a Tuskegee Airman active during World War II.
The 376th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the German Army during World War II, active from 1942 to 1944 in two separate instances.
George Hardy is an American retired pilot and military officer. In World War II Hardy served with the Tuskegee Airmen and flew 21 combat missions. In the Korean War he flew 45 combat mission as the pilot of a bomber. In the Vietnam War Hardy flew 70 combat missions piloting an AC-119K gunship.
Charles Blakesly "Buster" Hall was an American combat fighter pilot and U.S. Army Air Force/U.S. Air Force officer with the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen or "Red Tails".
Charles Phillip Bailey Sr. was a U.S. Army Air Force officer and one of the Tuskegee Airmen's most decorated combat fighter pilots. He was Florida's first African American fighter pilot. He flew 133 missions over Europe and North Africa, and was credited with shooting down two enemy aircraft.
