WW2 - less with us
The final surviving Medal of Honor awarded US Marine from the Pacific Campaign of World War II. CWO4 Hershel "Woody" Williams, USMCR Retired. Semper Fidelis Gunner.
According to Wikipedia, three US Army soldiers who were awarded the MOH in the Pacific are still alive.
Sadly we are losing these treasures far too quickly.
Naomi Parker Fraley, the real "Rosie the Riveter," died Saturday, the New York Times reports.
Though Fraley's name remained obscure for most of her 96 years, her likeness became an iconic symbol during World War II.…
Donald (Don) Pleines Shaub was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1923. … He served in the U. S. Army in World War II in the European Theater. On December 24, 1944, Don was serving with the 66th Infantry Division and while being transported from Southampton, UK to Cherbourg, France survived the torpedoing of his transport ship, the SS Leopoldville, by jumping onto the deck of the HMS Brilliant, which had come to the aid of his sinking ship. That night 763 other soldiers on board lost their lives.… As recently as October of this year, he was still using the riding mower on the lawn and helping his daughter move into the home he and Pat vacated this summer to move into Green Country Village in Bartlesville.…
Alistair Urquhart, who has died aged 97, was a prisoner of the Japanese from 1942 to 1945, surviving both the infamous Death Railway and the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki; his memoir, The Forgotten Highlander, became a bestseller in 2009.…
Greta Friedman gained fame when a photographer captured the moment when a soldier grabbed her in Times Square and planted a kiss on her as America celebrated the end of World War II. It quickly became an iconic picture.
Her son Joshua confirmed the 92-year-old nurse passed away this morning.…
…A survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi death camps, Wiesel dedicated much of his life to Holocaust education and promoting tolerance around the world.… Netanyahu said that “in the darkness of the Holocaust, in which our sisters and brothers were killed – six million – Elie Wiesel served as a ray of light and example of humanity who believed in the goodness in people.”…
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — One of the two remaining Doolittle Raiders died Wednesday morning in Missoula. David Thatcher was 94. …corporal during the 1942 mission and was an engineer/gunner in the back end of a B-25 bomber and a member of Flight Crew No. 7.… There is now just one surviving Doolittle Raider — Lt. Col. Richard Cole — of the 80…
The last Catholic Priest to survive the Nazi labor camp in Dachau passed away earlier this month. He was a few weeks away from his 103 birthday.
Imprisoned in 1940, Father Hermann Scheipers escaped in 1945 during a death march.…
The oldest living American World War II veteran, and oldest living man in the US, has passed away at the age of 110. Frank Levingston died Tuesday afternoon in Shreveport, Louisiana.…
Jesse M Baltazar, a survivor of the notorious Bataan Death March during World War II, has died from cancer aged 95.
The Filipino native joined the US military after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and was wounded in the leg by Japanese bombing during the three-month Battle of Bataan in March of 1942.…
For more than a half-century, David Stoliar remained a silent witness to the worst civilian maritime disaster of World War II, the only survivor among nearly 800 Jews fleeing the Holocaust in Romania aboard a refugee ship that was barred from Palestine, interned by Turkey for months, set adrift without power and torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea in 1942.… The doomed voyage of the Struma might have been a forgotten footnote to Holocaust history had it not been for Mr. Stoliar’s survival and his willingness years later to attest to the indifference and brutal decisions that put Palestine out of reach and led to the deaths of hundreds at the hands of nominal allies against Hitler.…
Sir Nicholas Winton, who has died at the age of 106, is credited with rescuing 669 children - mostly Jewish - from the impending Nazi holocaust in 1939. …it is poignant that he died on the anniversary in July 1939 of the train carrying the largest number of children - 241 - to leave Prague. … Winton kept quiet about his exploits for 50 years, not even telling his wife, and it was not until 1988 that the true story of his selflessness in the face of evil came to light, bringing plaudits, honours and, best of all, reunions with those children who, without him, would undoubtedly have been destined for the gas chamber. …
The last of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers of World War II has died. ChesterNez, died this morning [Jun 7] age of 93. RIP
Mary Doyle Keefe, the model for Norman Rockwell's iconic 1943 Rosie the Riveter painting that symbolized the millions of American women who went to work on the home front during World War II, has died. She was 92. …in Simsbury, Connecticut, after a brief illness, …not to be confused with a poster by a Pittsburgh artist [shown here] depicting a woman flexing her arm under the words "We Can Do It" — would later be used in a nationwide effort to sell war bonds.
The country's oldest woman veteran has died at home in Texas at the age of 108. …
She was 37 and working at a Dallas grocery store when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and quit to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. She rose to the rank of sergeant, earning two bronze stars during her service and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon during the Battle of Luzon.
After her discharge in 1945, Coffey continued to work as an Army civilian in Okinawa, Japan, for 13 years, before returning to Texas. She worked in the procurement office at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio until her retirement in 1971. …
Chester Nez, last of original Navajo code talkers of World War II, dies. … After the war, the Japanese chief of intelligence, Lt. General Seizo Arisue, admitted they were never able to crack the Navajo code used by the Marines and Navy, according to the Navy. … "I could understand when they sent the message and received on the other end," Nez said. "I could understand, and I could sit there and write it down myself. I still remember it." It was a far cry from his childhood, when he was forced to attend a boarding school and punished by the teachers for speaking Navajo…
The former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz must be preserved so future generations can learn lessons from the horrors of the Holocaust, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently appealed for international donations to preserve the facilities and exhibits at Auschwitz, now a museum comprising 155 camp buildings and 300 ruined facilities.
A lost Soviet bomb from World War II has been found just outside the Berlin apartment of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, triggering a city-centre lockdown as bomb-disposal experts defused it. The 100-kilogram bomb was discovered just 10 centimetres below the sandy surface of a museum forecourt.