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The Role of Women During World War II
contributions of women for war efforts
The Role of Women During World War II
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Diary of a Soldier Fighting Against the Japanese
July 2, 1942
Dear diary,
Another bloody day! I can't wait to get home and take a long bath.
News has it that the Japanese are slowly moving their way down 'ere.
Just recently they took that island Guadalcanal. Hope to god they get
caught up along the way. Our division isn't ready for an attack right
now. The rain keeps hammerin' down and its muddy everywhere. I hope
that everyone else is doing better. Geez I 'aven't heard from Jack in
ages. I wonder what he's doing nowadays. God I miss dem days. These
Japanese just don't give up. They tried to capture Port Moresby but we
fought em off. The Japs will be here soon and then they'll see. We'll
overcome their great numbers and send them back to Japan. We'll show
everyone what these "choco" soldiers can do. That's what their calling
us back home because everyone thinks will melt under the pressure of a
real battle but I'm ready to fight and I will die fighting for
England. Oh gawd I don't like our current situation, nothing has gone
right from the beginning, our uniforms were the wrong color, and our
equipment was limited. It's so boring here, nothing to do but marching
and lookout. Can't see anything at the moment, it's too dark. Half our
platoon are under 30 years. No one here was eager to hear that they
were being dragged off to New Guinea to fight against the Japs. It's
been a while since the last letter Janine sent me and I'm waiting for
the next. The tracks here are sooo steep and walking is a grudge, my
legs are aching and heavy, it's bad enough that we have to carry our
supplies along as well. Most of the track consists of thick walls of
In Joseph Plumb Martin’s account of his experiences in the Revolutionary War he offers unique insight into the perspective of a regular soldier, which differs from the views of generals and leaders such as popular characters like George Washington. Martin’s narrative is an asset to historical scholarship as a primary source that gives an in-depth look at how life in the army was for many young men during the War for Independence. He described the tremendous suffering he experienced like starvation and privation. He did not shy away from describing his criticism of the government who he believes did not adequately care for the soldiers during and after the war. While he may be biased because of his personal involvement as a soldier, he seems to relate accounts that are plausible without embellishment or self-aggrandizement. Overall, “A Narrative of A Revolutionary Soldier” is a rich source of information providing an overview of military experience during the war.
A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.
Bravery can be showed by having strength, being willing to sacrifice, and standing up for yourself and others. Life will not be very fun if you do not try to make it fun. One has to be brave to make life fun. If one is not strong it would make it hard to be brave. If Holling was not strong then he would not have been able to play Ariel in the Shakespeare play. All of his friends showed up when he was was wearing yellow tights and feathers on his butt. He stayed strong and finished the play. “Still ringing in the hands of Danny Humfer, Meryl Lee and Mai Ti who were standing in the very front row.” (Schmidt 86) That moment was when Holling first saw all of his classmates watching him in the play. At first he only saw Danny’s parents, but then
Soldier's Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment
In the early morning of 19 February 1945, United States Marines assigned to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division led the initial assault on the Japanese controlled island of Iwo Jima, with the objective of capturing and securing the island. This was the beginning of one of the fiercest and bloodiest; and more decisively, the most strategically important battles fought during World War II. After the dust had settled, and the smoke had cleared, the causalities and losses were astounding. 6,821 U.S. Marines along with 18,844 members of the Imperial Japanese Army had paid the ultimate sacrifice. A decisive US victory on the island of Iwo Jima later played a pivotal role in the overarching defeat of the Japanese Empire and its Armed Forces (Morison, 1945).
Japanese Internment Camps Ten weeks after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) singed an Executive Order of 9066 that authorized the removal of any people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable”(FDR). The west coast was home of majority of Japanese Americans was considered as military areas. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans was sent and were relocated to the internment camps that were built by the United States. Of the Japanese that were interned, 62 percent were Nisei (American born, second generation) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese) the rest of them were Issai Japanese immigrants. Americans of Japanese ancestry were far the most widely affected.
According to the Indian Times, madness is the rule in warfare (Hebert). The madness causes a person to struggle with experiences while in the war. In “How to Tell a True War Story”, the madness of the war caused the soldiers to react to certain situations within the environment differently. Tim O’Brien’s goal with the story “How to Tell a True War Story” is to shed light on the madness the soldiers face while in the war. Tim O’Brien tells the true story of Rat experiences of the war changing his life.
Pvt. Fraser goes into detail in his journal about the day they were under attack. Fraser felt like there was no escaping the bullets they were flying from all directions and bodies were dropping too. Men were trying to dig in hopes of finding shelter but, this was very difficult to do while being under fire. The saddest story was a Red Cross worker who was attempting to bandage his leg but he died before he could finish due to his wound. Another soldier as he was dying told his fellow mates to tell his parents he died like a soldier. Experiences like this are life changing many soldiers have to live with these images of war every day and I know mentally that it is difficult. Pvt. Fraser story is one of many a lot of soldiers kept journals in hope that it would get back to their family one day. Writing allowed them to express how they really felt about the war and give vital information about there
The Thin Red Line, directed by Terrence Malick, tells a fictional story of the Battle of Mount Austen which occurred during the Guadalcanal Campaign. One goal the film fails to accomplish is depict the battle as it occurred. It is not a documentary of the battle of Guadalcanal and its goal centers on entertaining viewers like any other Hollywood movie. The movie gives off an inaccurate take of the battle and shows how the soldiers immediately moved in and assault the hill. When in reality the American military did not act instantly and waited months after the Japanese had captured it . America wanted to capture Guadalcanal because it offered a strategic position to place a base, sea port, and because it offered communication between the United States and Australia. This is because Guadalcanal served as a mainly as a defensive battle in the early stages of the war. The movie did not follow historical accounts of the real battle and skipped parts of the defensive stage of the battle in order for the film to be more action packed. The director chose to move right away to the defensive in order to entertain viewers like othe Hollywood movies . Although the director did not follow history as it actually happened. We can assume he portrayed the difficulties the soldiers faced during the war. However, Malick’s biggest mistake involved the way he depicted the difficulties soldiers faced. Guadalcanal had been a tropical hell for the soldiers and we can assume they had anything but fun. Men died of living conditions and the film fails to show that12.
My name is Makino Toshio and I am a second generation Japanese-American. My father moved to Hawaii before coming to the mainland, like most Japanese-Americans. Before World War II, I worked on a Japanese truck farm. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, tension was bad for any Japanese-American in the United States. Many people in the United States did not trust people with Japanese ancestry. A store that I usually shop at had a sign in the window saying, “We don’t want any Japs back here-EVER! Within hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor at Hawaii, FBI agents went house to house and rounded up 1,212 Japanese in the U.S. mainland and Hawaii islands. Most of the arrests were prominent leaders in Japanese communities. All of them were taken to unknown destinations and treated as Prisoners of War.
Many people question if Guy Sajer, author of The Forgotten Soldier, is an actual person or only a fictitious character. In fact, Guy Sajer in not a nom de plume. He was born as Guy Monminoux in Paris on 13 January 1927. At the ripe young age of 16, while living in Alsace, he joined the German army. Hoping to conceal his French descent, Guy enlisted under his mother's maiden name-Sajer. After the war Guy returned to France where he became a well known cartoonist, publishing comic books on World War II under the pen name Dimitri.
A “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway is an intriguing story about a man by the name of Krebs who enlists in the Marine Corps during his attendance at a Methodist college in Kansas. After serving for two years at the Rhine, he returned with the second division in 1919 but Krebs wasn’t in the same state of mind as before he left. The reason why Krebs was so distraught when he returned home was not because of the fact that no one wanted to listen to his war stories but because him and other soldiers were without any real benefits such as medical, education, extra remuneration, or anything to help him get back into the real world. This reason stated is the reason that Krebs and soldiers alike came home from war with nothing to show for except for time served and an empty heart.
“Now the bleedin war is over Oh, how happy I was there; Now old Fritz and I have parted, Life’s one everlasting care. No more estaminets to sing in, No mamoiselles to make me gay; Civvie life’s a bleedin failure, I was happy yesterday.”(398). This post-World War II song exemplifies the complexity of soldiers’ feelings towards war. There is no simplicity in how a soldier feels in battle or in the sanity under which they operate; often there is no method to the madness. The extreme conditions of war reveal man’s basic instincts and expose human nature. In an attempt to understand the issues that influence a soldier on the front line, Richard Holmes’s Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle faces the grisly truth about men in war. Holmes addresses soldiers’ motivations in and out of battle. He addresses fear, pain, fatigue, the enemy, and death as a part of battle. Out of the field, he discusses boredom, patriotism, religion, basic training, and family. The main points are well-researched and essential to understanding soldiers’ actions within war. His attention to the unpleasant details, that he deems essential to a soldier’s
Dewitt, J.L., Lt. Gen. to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, June 5,1943, in U.S. Army, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, Final Report; Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942, Washington D.C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1943, pp. vii-x
Life in the internment camp Dear Miss Breed, I am very scared I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, this morning at 5 the American guards asked my parents to evacuate the house in less than 48 hours and take our possessions. I still remember my mom saying, “Xian and Zyanku, get all your belongings now! Because you know that your possessions that we leave behind will be stolen or sold by the US guards. On the 8 December 1941 all Japanese descendants were put in a train carriage, there were 20 people in each of the carriages, the food we got was green stew and beans. lots of the people in our carriage died of malnutrition, the only toilet that we could use was a bucket in the middle of the carriage.