Download or read book Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor written by Berry Craig and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the air raid alarm sounded around 7:55 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Gunner's Mate Second Class James Allard Vessels of Paducah was preparing to participate in morning colors aboard the USS Arizona. In the scramble for battle stations, Vessels quickly climbed to a machine gun platform high atop the mainmast as others descended below decks to help pass ammunition up to gunners. At 8:06, a bomb exploded and the Arizona sank. Vessels's lofty perch saved his life, but most of his shipmates were not so lucky. In Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor, Berry Craig employs an impressive array of newspapers, unpublished memoirs, oral histories, and official military records to offer a ground-up look at the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt said would "live in infamy," and its aftermath in the Bluegrass State. In a series of vignettes, Craig uncovers the untold, forgotten, or little-known stories of ordinary people -- military and civilian -- on the most extraordinary day of their lives. Craig concludes by exploring the home front reaction to this pivotal event in American history. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor swept away any illusions Kentuckians had about being able to stay out of World War II. From Paducah to Pikeville, people sprang to action. Their voices emerge and come back to life in this engaging and timely history.

Download or read book BattleFire written by Arthur L. Kelly and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “From Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf and Okinawa to Iwo Jima, the stories are presented as the individual soldiers, sailors, and marines lived them.” —Gun Week Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941: High on the bridge of the USS West Virginia Sfc. Lee Ebner was looking forward to the end of his watch and a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast. But the two low-flying planes painted with rising sun insignia and bearing down on the ship had other plans for him and his fellow seamen. Ten hours later, at Clark Field in the Philippines, Pfc. Jack Reed felt the brunt of another Japanese air attack and within weeks found himself a part of the gruesome Bataan Death March that was to claim the lives of hundreds of his comrades. On another continent, four years into the war, Capt. Benjamin Butler led his exhausted company up a steep, fog-shrouded Italian mountain toward a well entrenched German defensive position. The odds against their survival were appalling, though worse was to come in the months ahead. Such were the experiences of many young men-plucked from their local communities all across America, trained for war, and hurled into the strange reality of combat thousands of miles from home. In this stunning collection of World War II oral histories, Arthur Kelly recreates the experiences of twelve young men from Kentucky who survived the seemingly unsurvivable, whether in combat or as prisoners of war. “A fascinating collection . . . A story of men at their best in the worst of times.” —Louisville Courier-Journal “This excellent book continues the current trend of exploring the individual soldier’s experiences in World War II.” —Military Review

Download or read book The Origins of the Grand Alliance written by William T. Johnsen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “uncommonly astute study” examines the early development of the US-UK military alliance that would eventually lead to victory in WWII (Paul Miles, author of FDR’s Admiral). On December 12, 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the American gunboat Panay outside Nanjing, China. Although the Japanese apologized, President Roosevelt set Captain Royal Ingersoll to London to begin conversations with the British admiralty about Japanese aggression in the Far East. While few Americans remember the Panay Incident, it was the start of what would become the “Special Relationship” between the United States and Great Britain. In The Origins of the Grand Alliance, William T. Johnsen provides the first comprehensive analysis of Anglo-American military collaboration before the Second World War. He sets the stage by examining Anglo-French and Anglo-American coalition military planning from 1900 through World War I and the interwar years. Johnsen also considers the formulation of policy and grand strategy, operational planning, and the creation of the command structure and channels of communication. He addresses vitally important logistical and materiel issues, particularly the difficulties of war production. Drawn from extensive sources and private papers held in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, Johnsen’s exhaustively researched study casts new light on the twentieth century’s most significant alliance.

Download or read book The Sailor written by David F. Schmitz and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Sailor, David F. Schmitz presents a comprehensive reassessment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign policymaking. Most historians have cast FDR as a leader who resisted an established international strategy and who was forced to react quickly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, launching the nation into World War II. Drawing on a wealth of primary documents as well as the latest secondary sources, Schmitz challenges this view, demonstrating that Roosevelt was both consistent and calculating in guiding the direction of American foreign policy throughout his presidency. Schmitz illuminates how the policies FDR pursued in response to the crises of the 1930s transformed Americans' thinking about their place in the world. He shows how the president developed an interlocking set of ideas that prompted a debate between isolationism and preparedness, guided the United States into World War II, and mobilized support for the war while establishing a sense of responsibility for the postwar world. The critical moment came in the period between Roosevelt's reelection in 1940 and the Pearl Harbor attack, when he set out his view of the US as the arsenal of democracy, proclaimed his war goals centered on protection of the four freedoms, secured passage of the Lend-Lease Act, and announced the principles of the Atlantic Charter. This long-overdue book presents a definitive new perspective on Roosevelt's diplomacy and the emergence of the United States as a world power. Schmitz's work offers an important correction to existing studies and establishes FDR as arguably the most significant and successful foreign policymaker in the nation's history.

Download or read book Staff Ride Handbook for the Attack on Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941 written by Jeffrey J. Gudmens and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Pearl Harbor written by Craig Nelson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A valuable reexamination” (Booklist, starred review) of the event that changed twentieth-century America—Pearl Harbor—based on years of research and new information uncovered by a New York Times bestselling author. The America we live in today was born, not on July 4, 1776, but on December 7, 1941, when an armada of 354 Japanese warplanes supported by aircraft carriers, destroyers, and midget submarines suddenly and savagely attacked the United States, killing 2,403 men—and forced America’s entry into World War II. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness follows the sailors, soldiers, pilots, diplomats, admirals, generals, emperor, and president as they engineer, fight, and react to this stunningly dramatic moment in world history. Beginning in 1914, bestselling author Craig Nelson maps the road to war, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, attended the laying of the keel of the USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Writing with vivid intimacy, Nelson traces Japan’s leaders as they lurch into ultranationalist fascism, which culminates in their scheme to terrify America with one of the boldest attacks ever waged. Within seconds, the country would never be the same. Backed by a research team’s five years of work, as well as Nelson’s thorough re-examination of the original evidence assembled by federal investigators, this page-turning and definitive work “weaves archival research, interviews, and personal experiences from both sides into a blow-by-blow narrative of destruction liberally sprinkled with individual heroism, bizarre escapes, and equally bizarre tragedies” (Kirkus Reviews). Nelson delivers all the terror, chaos, violence, tragedy, and heroism of the attack in stunning detail, and offers surprising conclusions about the tragedy’s unforeseen and resonant consequences that linger even today.

Download or read book Committed to Victory written by Richard E. Holl and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-10-09 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When World War II broke out in Europe in September 1939, Kentucky was still plagued by the Great Depression. Even though the inevitably of war had become increasingly apparent earlier that year, the citizens of the Commonwealth continued to view foreign affairs as a lesser concern compared to issues such as the lingering economic depression, the approaching planting season, and the upcoming gubernatorial race. It was only the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that destroyed any lingering illusions of peace. In Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front During World War II, author Richard Holl offers the first comprehensive examination of the Commonwealth's civilian sector during this pivotal era in the state's history. National mobilization efforts rapidly created centers of war production and activity in Louisville, Paducah, and Richmond, producing new economic prosperity in the struggling region. The war effort also spurred significant societal changes, including the emergence of female and minority workforces in the state. In the Bluegrass, this trend found its face in Pulaski County native Rose Will Monroe, who was discovered as she assembled B-24 and B-29 bombers and was cast as Rosie the Riveter in films supporting the war effort. Revealing the struggles and triumphs of civilians during World War II, Holl illuminates the personal costs of the war, the black market for rationed foods and products, and even the inspiration that coach Adolph Rupp and the University of Kentucky basketball team offered to a struggling state. Committed to Victory is a timely and engaging account that fills a significant gap in the literature on a crucial period of American history.

Download or read book Fallen Tigers written by Daniel Jackson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mere months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a volunteer group of American airmen to the Far East, convinced that supporting Chinese resistance against the continuing Japanese invasion would be crucial to an eventual Allied victory in World War II. Within two weeks of that fateful Sunday in December 1941, the American Volunteer Group—soon to become known as the legendary "Flying Tigers"—went into action. For three and a half years, the volunteers and the Army Air Force airmen who followed them fought in dangerous aerial duels over East Asia. Audaciously led by master tactician Claire Lee Chennault, daring pilots such as David Lee "Tex" Hill and George B. "Mac" McMillan led their men in desperate combat against enemy air forces and armies despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Aviators who fell in combat and survived the crash or bailout faced the terrifying reality of being lost and injured in unfamiliar territory. Historian Daniel Jackson, himself a combat-tested pilot, recounts the stories of downed aviators who attempted to evade capture by the Japanese in their bid to return to Allied territory. He reveals the heroism of these airmen was equaled, and often exceeded, by the Chinese soldiers and civilians who risked their lives to return them safely to American bases. Based on thorough archival research and filled with compelling personal narratives from memoirs, wartime diaries, and dozens of interviews with veterans, this vital work offers an important new perspective on the Flying Tigers and the history of World War II in China.

Download or read book Taps For A Jim Crow Army written by Christy McGuire and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many black soldiers serving in the U.S. Army during World War II hoped that they might make permanent gains as a result of their military service and their willingness to defend their country. They were soon disabused of such illusions. Taps for a Jim Crow Army is a powerful collection of letters written by black soldiers in the 1940s to various government and nongovernment officials. The soldiers expressed their disillusionment, rage, and anguish over the discrimination and segregation they experienced in the Army. Most black troops were denied entry into army specialist schools; black officers were not allowed to command white officers; black soldiers were served poorer food and were forced to ride Jim Crow military buses into town and to sit in Jim Crow base movie theaters. In the South, German POWs could use the same latrines as white American soldiers, but blacks could not. The original foreword by Benjamin Quarles, professor emeritus of history at Morgan State University, and a new foreword by Bernard C. Nalty, the chief historian in the Office of Air Force History, offer rich insights into the world of these soldiers.

Download or read book Descent Into Darkness written by Edward C. Raymer and published by Naval Inst Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Navy salvage diver recounts his experience in the effort to save the lives of sailors trapped in sinking ships after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Download or read book Countdown to Pearl Harbor written by Steve Twomey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter chronicles the 12 days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, examining the miscommunications, clues, missteps and racist assumptions that may have been behind America's failure to safeguard against the tragedy, "--NoveList.

Download or read book War and Remembrance written by Thomas H. Conner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "No soldier could ask for a sweeter resting place than on the field of glory where he fell. The land he died to save vies with the one which gave him birth in paying tribute to his memory, and the kindly hands which so often come to spread flowers upon his earthly coverlet express in their gentle task a personal affection."—General John J. Pershing To remember and honor the memory of the American soldiers who fought and died in foreign wars during the past hundred years, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was established. Since the agency was founded in 1923, its sole purpose has been to commemorate the soldiers' service and the causes for which their lives were given. The twenty-five overseas cemeteries honoring 139,000 combat dead and the memorials honoring the 60,314 fallen soldiers with no known graves are among the most beautiful and meticulously maintained shrines in the world. In the first comprehensive study of the ABMC, Thomas H. Conner traces how the agency came to be created by Congress in the aftermath of World War I, how the cemeteries and monuments the agency built were designed and their locations chosen, and how the commemorative sites have become important "outposts of remembrance" on foreign soil. War and Remembrance powerfully demonstrates that these monuments—living sites that embody the role Americans played in the defense of freedom far from their own shores—assist in understanding the interconnections of memory and history and serve as an inspiration to later generations.

Download or read book Pogue s War written by Forrest Pogue and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2001-10-29 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " With a foreword by Stephen Ambrose and a preface by Franklin D. Anderson Forrest Pogue (1912-1996) was undoubtedly one of the greatest World War II combat historians. Born and educated in Kentucky, he is perhaps best known for his definitive four-volume biography of General George C. Marshall. But, as Pogue’s War makes clear, he was also a pioneer in the development of oral history in the twentieth century, as well as an impressive interviewer with an ability to relate to people at all levels, from the private in the trenches to the general carrying four stars. Pogue’s War is drawn from Forrest Pogue’s handwritten pocket notebooks, carried with him throughout the war, long regarded as unreadable because of his often atrocious handwriting. Pogue himself began expanding the diaries a few short years after the war, with the intent of eventual publication. At last this work is being published. Supplemented with carefully deciphered and transcribed selections from his diaries, the heart of the book is straight from the field. Much of the material has never before seen print. From D-Day to VE-Day, Pogue experienced and documented combat on the front lines, describing action on Omaha Beach, in the Huertgen Forest, and on other infamous fields of conflict. He not only graphically—yet also often poetically­­—recounts the extreme circumstances of battle, but he also notes his fellow soldiers’ innermost thoughts, feelings, opinions, and attitudes about the cruelty of war. As a trained historian, Pogue describes how he went about his work and how the Army’s history program functioned in the European Theater of Operations. His entries from his time at the history headquarters in Paris show the city in the early days after the liberation in a unique light. Pogue’s War has an immediacy that much official history lacks, and is a remarkable addition to any World War II bookshelf. Franklin D. Anderson, Forrest Pogue’s nephew by marriage, is a longtime educator. He lives in Princeton, Kentucky.

Download or read book Day Of Deceit written by Robert Stinnett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-05-08 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using previously unreleased documents, the author reveals new evidence that FDR knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and did nothing to prevent it.

Download or read book The Sea and the Second World War written by Marcus Faulkner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sea shaped the course and conduct of World War II, from the first moments of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945. The impact could be felt far beyond the shoreline, as the arms and armies carried across the oceans were ultimately destined to wage war ashore. Populations and industries depended on the raw materials and supplies in a war that increasingly became a contest of national will and economic might. Ultimately, it was the war at sea that linked numerous regional conflicts and theaters of operation into a global war. As the war grew in complexity and covered an increasingly larger geographical area, the organization of the maritime effort and the impact it had on the formulation of national strategy also evolved. This volume illustrates the impact of naval operations on the Second World War by highlighting topics previously neglected in the scholarship. In doing so, it provides new insights into political, strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of the maritime dimension of the war.

Download or read book Lapham s Raiders written by Robert Lapham and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 8, 1941, the day after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippine Islands, catching American forces unprepared and forcing their eventual surrender. Among the American soldiers who managed to avoid capture was twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Robert Lapham, who was to play a major role in the resistance to the brutal Japanese occupation. After emerging from the jungles of Bataan and in the face of daunting odds, Lapham built from scratch and commanded a devastating guerrilla force behind enemy lines. His Luzon Guerrilla Armed Forces (LGAF) evolved into an army of thirteen thousand men that eventually controlled the entire northern half of Luzon's great Central Plain, an area of several thousand square miles. This personal account of the Luzon guerrilla operations is woven into the larger context of the war. Lapham and Norling shed light on the clandestine activities of the LGAF and other guerrilla operations, assess the damages of war to the Filipino people, and discuss the United States' postwar treatment of the newly independent Philippine nation. They also offer a fuller understanding of Japan's wartime failures in the Philippines, the Pacific, and elsewhere in Asia, and of America's postwar failure to fully realize opportunities there.

Download or read book The Fall of Kentucky s Rock written by George G. Humphreys and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth study offers a new examination of a region that is often overlooked in political histories of the Bluegrass State. George G. Humphreys traces the arc of politics and the economy in western Kentucky from avid support of the Democratic Party to its present-day Republican identity. He demonstrates that, despite its relative geographic isolation, the region west of the eastern boundary of Hancock, Ohio, Butler, Warren, and Simpson Counties to the Mississippi River played significant roles in state and national politics during the New Deal and postwar eras. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral history interviews, Humphreys explores the area's political transformation from a solid Democratic voting bloc to a conservative stronghold by examining how developments such as advances in agriculture, the diversification of the economy, and the civil rights movement affected the region. Addressing notable deficiencies in the existing literature, this impressively researched study will leave readers with a deeper understanding of post-1945 Kentucky politics.