World War 2

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  7/21/2021
  

  Why Japan Forfeited Hosting the 1940 Games

  by Paul Droubie

  Japan's forfeiture of the games amid rising international and internal tensions shows that the Olympics have always been a vehicle for the promotion of national elites' agendas, often at the expense of popular domestic concerns. 

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• 7/11/2021
  

  Reflecting on the 80th Anniversary of the Nazi Invasion of Russia

  by Rick Halperin

  The Nazi invasion of Russia unleashed unprecedented brutality against civilians along the eastern front; those horrors should reinforce a commitment to human rights.

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• SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  7/8/2021
  

  Obituary: Henry Parham, Last of A Black Unit that Fought at D-Day, Dies at 99

  “'We landed in water up to our necks,' Mr. Parham said, recalling a shorter man in his unit who had to be carried onto the beach because the water was over his head and he couldn’t swim."

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/5/2021
  

  A Story Of War, Theft And A Beautiful Woman, Back In The U.S. After 70+ Years

  Botticelli's portrait of Simonetta Vespucci had a wild ride through World War II, including being stored in a Nazi salt mine. 

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• 6/27/2021
  

  Ambitious for War: How German-Soviet Collaboration Set the Course for WWII

  by Ian Ona Johnson

  After the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik Revolution, Germany and the Soviet Union forged a partnership of pariah governments to industrialize and arm their nations, and making inevitable the slaughter that unfolded in the eastern front of the second world war.

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• SOURCE: BBC
  6/14/2021
  

  Hideki Tojo's Ashes Scattered By US, Documents Reveal

  "Japanese lecturer Hiroaki Takazawa at Tokyo's Nijon University found the declassified documents at the US National Archives in Washington DC."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/6/2021
  

  How a WWII Japanese Sub Commander Helped Exonerate a U.S. Navy Captain

  Captain Charles McVay took the fall for the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the last days of the second world war, finally taking his own life. An appeal by the Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of the sub to US Senator John Warner cleared the way for a legislative exoneration. 

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• SOURCE: Hawaii Public Radio
  6/7/2021
  

  USPS Unveils Stamp Honoring Japanese American WWII Veterans

  “A picture is worth a thousand words,” said Lynn Heirakuji, president of the Nisei Veterans Legacy and co-chair of the Stamp Our Story Hawaii Organizing Committee.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  5/27/2021
  

  Japanese American Soldiers in World War II Fought the Axis Abroad and Racial Prejudice at Home

  by Susan H. Kamei

  The USPS has just released a stamp commemorating the service of the Japanese-American 100th/442nd combat unit in Europe during World War II. It's equally important to remember the way that veterans of that unit fought remaining racial prejudice after the war. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The War Beat, Pacific: How the American News Media Went to War Against Japan

  by Steven Casey

  Censorship, technological limitations, and competition with news from Europe in World War II made the early part of the Pacific theater a "shrouded war," but not for lack of effort by war journalists. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The Enduring Fascination – And Challenge – Of World War II

  by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

  This Memorial Day offers the chance to read about and reflect on World War II, particularly the stories of ordinary people trying to understand world-changing events, and consider our time's connections to past and future. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  Review: Lesley Blume's “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World”

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Journalist Lesley Blume's book "Fallout" ably tells the story about how John Hersey and the New Yorker navigated government censorship and political opposition to publish Hersey's "Hiroshima," a foundational work in later movements to prevent nuclear war.

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/26/2021
  

  The History the Japanese Government Is Trying to Erase

  by Chelsea Szendi Schieder

    An academic involved in the recent "comfort women" controversy while teaching in Japan warns "In failing to teach what the wartime state did, the Japanese government only emboldens the forces of misogyny and racism and cultivates new generations of violence."

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• SOURCE: KRDO
  5/25/2021
  

  We Bought a World War II Ship on EBay

  A Welsh couple has undertaken the repair and refurbishment of a 72-foot Royal Navy harbor defense vessel. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  Preserving the Stories of the Second World War

  by Colin Heaton

  Colin Heaton's latest book of oral history (with Anne-Marie Lewis) is based on oral histories he conducted with five significant Allied Airmen from World War II. Here, he discusses his work collecting veterans' stories from all sides of the airborne war and why those stories matter. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  5/17/2021
  

  Narrative Napalm: Malcolm Gladwell's Apologia for American Butchery

  by Noah Kulwin

  Reviewer Noah Kulwin argues Malcolm Gladwell's book on the rise of American air power misrepresents the military history of World War II, wrongly elevates Curtis LeMay to the status of a heroic genius, and blithely passes over the vast carnage of incendiary and atomic bombings. 

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• SOURCE: 60 Minutes
  5/9/2021
  

  The Ritchie Boys

  Stories from members of the Ritchie Boys, a secret U.S. WWII intelligence unit bolstered by German-born Jews.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  5/10/2021
  

  Gaming The System: KU Professor Says 'Call Of Duty' Can Help Teach History

  Historians should recognize that many of their students are exposed to views of the past informed by video games and explore how to build on that interest while correcting errors, says University of Kansas historian Andrew Denning. 

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• SOURCE: Vimeo
  5/8/2015
  

  The Fallen of World War II

  by Neil Halloran

  On the anniversary of V-E Day, an animated video from 2015 demonstrates the human toll of war. 

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• 5/9/2021
  

  Reflections on Russia's "Victory Day"

  by Nadya Williams

  Russia's observance of Victory Day prompts reflection on the ways Holocaust survivors and their descendants lived lives shaped by this trauma.