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World War II, spanning from 1939 to 1945, was a global conflict involving most of the world's nations. It began on September 1, 1939, when Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, prompting Britain and France to declare war. The war quickly expanded as Axis powers—primarily Germany, Italy, and Japan—sought territorial expansion.
Key events included the fall of France, the Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, and the brutal Eastern Front battles. The Allies, which included the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, eventually gained the upper hand. Notable milestones included the D-Day invasion in 1944 and the liberation of concentration camps, revealing the horrors of the Holocaust.
The war concluded in Europe with Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, and in the Pacific after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. WWII resulted in an estimated 70-85 million casualties, significant geopolitical changes, the establishment of the United Nations, and the onset of the Cold War, shaping international relations for decades to come.
Stories from If All the Sky Were Paper
Stories from If All the Sky Were Paper
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
He was sent as a POW to Dresden. On February 13, 1945, British and American bombers destroyed the city by dropping high explosives followed by incendiary bombs. The resulting firestorm turned the non-militarized city into an inferno that killed up to 60,000 civilians. Vonnegut and his fellow POWs survived by accident only because they were housed some 60 feet underground in a former meat locker and slaughterhouse.
Vonnegut’s job for weeks after the bombing was to gather up and burn the remains of the dead. His experience at Dresden marked him for life and eventually resulted in his literary masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Wilson Price
Wilson Price
Price was one of the Original Navajo Code Talkers. In 1942, 29 Navajo marines encrypted their Native language to provide fast and secure communications during World War II.
The Navajo language was the answer because it is an unwritten language of extreme complexity After reviewing the language, the Marines recruited the entire 382nd Platoon to develop and memorize the Navajo-coded language. For military terms that were not initially assigned a Navajo word, the Code Talkers would spell them out similar to the NATO phonetic alphabet. For example, one way to say the word “Navy” in Navajo code would be “tsah (Needle) wol-la-chee (Ant) ah-keh-di- glini (Victor) tsah-ah-dzoh (Yucca).”
Major Howard Connor had 6 Navajo Code Talkers working 24/7 during the first two days of the Battle of Iwo Jima. They sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.
The Chapman collection of letters contains Price's correspondence to his family through WWII Korea and the Vietnam
https://nativepartnership.org/code-talkers/?s_src=GGLAdNavajoCodeTalkers&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA88a5BhDPARIsAFj595h0UghkEfVi8vMuVLcQAuAcXi2MQuPELjuhVeuNp-tMm7Q1CmhYmXwaAt7EEALw_wcBhttps://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/whprice_collection/Stories from the Community
Stories from the Community
Marlin Breems:
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