Teruo Nakamura: The Unbeaten Soldier of World War II

Teruo Nakamura: The Unbeaten Soldier of World War II PDF Author: Robert P. Gardnett
Publisher: Bluebird Publications
ISBN: 3754668013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 8

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Book Description
World War II has given birth to many events in the history of the world. On the one hand brutal and hellish slaughter, on the other hand the desire for human survival. It was as if everything came together at one point. So, as expected, some amazing and heartbreaking things have happened on this huge battlefield. At the same time the worst and the best of humanity; Both sides tell different stories of the world war. In addition to many special events, World War II also introduced us to a number of 'special' characters.This book is about one such special character who remains unbeaten till 1974. Read this fascinating and thrilling true story of the unbeaten soldier of second world war.

Teruo Nakamura: The Unbeaten Soldier of World War II

Teruo Nakamura: The Unbeaten Soldier of World War II PDF Author: Robert P. Gardnett
Publisher: Bluebird Publications
ISBN: 3754668013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 8

Get Book Here

Book Description
World War II has given birth to many events in the history of the world. On the one hand brutal and hellish slaughter, on the other hand the desire for human survival. It was as if everything came together at one point. So, as expected, some amazing and heartbreaking things have happened on this huge battlefield. At the same time the worst and the best of humanity; Both sides tell different stories of the world war. In addition to many special events, World War II also introduced us to a number of 'special' characters.This book is about one such special character who remains unbeaten till 1974. Read this fascinating and thrilling true story of the unbeaten soldier of second world war.

Phantom Warrior

Phantom Warrior PDF Author: F. B. Johnson
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This is the story of an extraordinary man. John McKinney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery, but his story has never been told. The son of a Georgia sharecropper, he learned to hunt and survive in the wilderness while helping to feed his family in the Depression. Then came World War II, and he was sent to the Pacific. Before dawn, May 11, 1945, his unit, camped in the Philippines, was attacked by the Japanese. Alone in his foxhole, McKinney returned fire. Out of bullets, he swung his rifle as a club. Then he switched to his knife, then his fists. At the end of the battle, his uniform cut to ribbons, McKinney was alive--with over one hundred Japanese bodies before him. His courage and fortitude in battle saved many American lives, but his legacy has been sadly forgotten by all but a few.--From publisher description.

Homecomings

Homecomings PDF Author: Yoshikuni Igarashi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154135X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Soon after the end of World War II, a majority of the nearly 7 million Japanese civilians and serviceman who had been posted overseas returned home. Heeding the call to rebuild, these veterans helped remake Japan and enjoyed popularized accounts of their service. For those who took longer to be repatriated, such as the POWs detained in labor camps in Siberia and the fighters who spent years hiding in the jungles of islands in the South Pacific, returning home was more difficult. Their nation had moved on without them and resented the reminder of a humiliating, traumatizing defeat. Homecomings tells the story of these late-returning Japanese soldiers and their struggle to adapt to a newly peaceful and prosperous society. Some were more successful than others, but they all charted a common cultural terrain, one profoundly shaped by media representations of the earlier returnees. Japan had come to redefine its nationhood through these popular images. Yoshikuni Igarashi explores what Japanese society accepted and rejected, complicating the definition of a postwar consensus and prolonging the experience of war for both Japanese soldiers and the nation. He throws the postwar narrative of Japan's recovery into question, exposing the deeper, subtler damage done to a country that only belatedly faced the implications of its loss.

Blue Skies and Thunder

Blue Skies and Thunder PDF Author: Virgil W. Westdale
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440182574
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
In 1942, Virgil Westdale was a successful young flight instructor when the government ousted him from the Air Corps and demoted him to army private. Having grown up as a Japanese American midwestern farm boy, Westdale had his first taste of Japanese culture when he was sent to train with the all Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was ultimately transferred to the 522nd Artillery Battalion, where, as a member of the Fire Direction Center, he helped push the Germans out of Italy, rescue the Lost Battalion in France, and free prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. After the war, Westdale went on to pursue a career in research and development with large corporations. He received twenty-five U.S. patents and earned an international award for his work with photocopier components. In retirement, he has been working for the TSA, returning to the worlds of aviation and national security. Written for the lay reader as well as the history buff, Westdale's stories of World War II challenge preconceived notions of what we think we know about a soldier's life in Europe and offer images that go beyond the history books. ---"Spanning over ninety years, Virgil's amazing and complex life story vividly reflects America's history from the early 1900s to our current fight against terrorism. His book reads if he were sitting before me casually sharing his life. A highlight of my career both as an Army officer and a Federal Civil Servant has been the honor of working with and getting to know Virgil Westdale, a great American. This is a truly fascinating and memorable autobiography." John H. Mumma, Colonel, US Army Retired Federal Security Director, Transportation Security Administration ---"Virgil Westdale's Blue Skies and Thunder tells a story that is both unique in American history and uniquely American. After growing up as a Midwestern farm boy whose Japanese father had largely assimilated into the local community, he found himself after Pearl Harbor viewed with suspicion by the very government he wanted to serve in the Second World War. Denied a chance to serve as a military pilot, or even as a pilot trainer, he eventually found his way into a newly created Japanese American artillery unit and served with distinction in Italy, France and Germany. Back in the United States, he completed college and made a career for himself as an engineer with multiple patents to his credit, and eventually served his country a second time, as an airport security officer. His account is highly readable and offers insights into a wide range of aspects of both his own life and the world around him." Dr. James Smither, Director Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project

A Spy in Their Midst

A Spy in Their Midst PDF Author: Wayne S. Kiyosaki
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1568330448
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
The incredible true story of a Japanese American captured by the enemy while working as a U.S. Army spy during World War II reveals unspeakable torture, narrow escape from death, and acquisition of valuable military information for MacArthur. IP.

The Storm on Our Shores

The Storm on Our Shores PDF Author: Mark Obmascik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451678398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This “engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) national bestseller and true “heartbreaking tale of tragedy and redemption” (Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers) reveals how a discovered diary—found during a brutal World War II battle—changed our war-torn society’s perceptions of Japan. May 1943. The Battle of Attu—called “The Forgotten Battle” by World War II veterans—was raging on the Aleutian island with an Arctic cold, impenetrable fog, and rocketing winds that combined to create some of the worst weather on Earth. Both American and Japanese forces tirelessly fought in a yearlong campaign, with both sides suffering thousands of casualties. Included in this number was a Japanese medic whose war diary would lead a Silver Star–winning American soldier to find solace for his own tortured soul. The doctor’s name was Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Hiroshima native who had graduated from college and medical school in California. He loved America, but was called to enlist in the Imperial Army of his native Japan. Heartsick, wary of war, yet devoted to Japan, Tatsuguchi performed his duties and kept a diary of events as they unfolded—never knowing that it would be found by an American soldier named Dick Laird. Laird, a hardy, resilient underground coal miner, enlisted in the US Army to escape the crushing poverty of his native Appalachia. In a devastating mountainside attack in Alaska, Laird was forced to make a fateful decision, one that saved him and his comrades, but haunted him for years. Tatsuguchi’s diary was later translated and distributed among US soldiers. It showed the common humanity on both sides of the battle. But it also ignited fierce controversy that is still debated today. After forty years, Laird was determined to return it to the family and find peace with Tatsuguchi’s daughter, Laura Tatsuguchi Davis. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mark Obmascik “writes with tremendous grace about a forgotten part of our history, telling the same story from two opposing points of view—perhaps the only way warfare can truly be understood” (Helen Thorpe, author of Soldier Girls).

Heitai

Heitai PDF Author: Agustín Sáiz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788496658318
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Once the seemingly invincible conquerors of nearly all of East Asia, today relatively little is known of the exact weapons, uniforms, and lifestyle of World War II Japanese soldiers (the Heitai). In this lavishly illustrated book, readers and historians alike can finally glimpse the precise personal effects of the Imperial infantryman. Thanks to a collection carefully nurtured through the decades, every aspect of the Heitai's daily existence is shown in detail with superb color photography accompanied by informative descriptions. Items range from weapons to clothing (both tropical and arctic), eating implements, communications equipment, awards, helmets, insignia, visual devices, gas masks, canteens, cameras, tents and footwear. Also included are propaganda leaflets and simple reading material issued to the Heitai during long, slow periods of service on isolated (sometimes bypassed) Pacific islands. By examining the exact possessions of a Japanese soldier--from dagger to toothbrush, from hand grenade to undergarments--one is able to see history come to life in a way no cinema or text alone could convey. At the same time, it is of interest to note both the differences between an Imperial fighter's equipment with that of a GI, and how in many ways it was similar. As a companion volume to the bestselling Deutsche Soldaten, this over-sized, one-of-a-kind work on the Imperial Heitai provides a uniquely illuminating view of the Japanese fighting man who was once America's most fearsome enemy.

Japan's Imperial House in the Postwar Era, 1945-2019

Japan's Imperial House in the Postwar Era, 1945-2019 PDF Author: Kenneth J. Ruoff
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684176166
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
"With the ascension of a new emperor and the dawn of the Reiwa Era, Kenneth J. Ruoff has expanded upon and updated The People’s Emperor, his study of the monarchy’s role as a political, societal, and cultural institution in contemporary Japan. Many Japanese continue to define the nation’s identity through the imperial house, making it a window into Japan’s postwar history. Ruoff begins by examining the reform of the monarchy during the U.S. occupation and then turns to its evolution since the Japanese regained the power to shape it. To understand the monarchy’s function in contemporary Japan, the author analyzes issues such as the role of individual emperors in shaping the institution, the intersection of the monarchy with politics, the emperor’s and the nation’s responsibility for the war, nationalistic movements in support of the monarchy, and the remaking of the once-sacrosanct throne into a “people’s imperial house” embedded in the postwar culture of democracy. Finally, Ruoff examines recent developments, including the abdication of Emperor Akihito and the heir crisis, which have brought to the forefront the fragility of the imperial line under the current legal system, leading to calls for reform."

No Surrender

No Surrender PDF Author: Hiroo Onoda
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612515649
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In the spring of 1974, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal. Hunted in turn by American troops, the Philippine police, hostile islanders, and successive Japanese search parties, Onoda had skillfully outmaneuvered all his pursuers, convinced that World War II was still being fought and that one day his fellow soldiers would return victorious. This account of those years is an epic tale of the will to survive that offers a rare glimpse of man's invincible spirit, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. A hero to his people, Onoda wrote down his experiences soon after his return to civilization. This book was translated into English the following year and has enjoyed an approving audience ever since.

Why the Samurai Lost Japan

Why the Samurai Lost Japan PDF Author: John D Beatty
Publisher: Jdb Communications, LLC
ISBN: 9781642543711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Beginning in the late 19th century, Imperial Japan embarked on a program of aggressive military overseas adventures in Asia and the Pacific. From 1904 to 1941, Japan's desire for resource independence had driven them to conquer Korea, Manchuria, large parts of China, and French Indochina, and to occupy large swaths of Pacific islands. These conquests provided tremendous resources, but still, they needed more. All these conquests were driven by the Samurai: the ancient warriors of Japan, answerable only to the needs for resources, an ill-defined bushido code, and their Emperor. They led Japan into a horrible war stretching across a third of the Earth's surface, knowing full well they could not defeat their enemies. Their plan was the uncertain hope that the West would falter and offer an olive branch, accepting Japanese hegemony in the Pacific and East Asia and granting them the resources they needed. This was a miscalculation driven by a folly of epic proportions. Four months of early and easy victories in 1941 convinced them of their invincibility. They refused to believe that their fighting spirit could be defeated by superior firepower and the sheer numbers of opponents. And the samurai had no Plan B.