The cigarette camp “Camp Lucky Strike” was a bustling tent city of 58,000 impatient American troops awaiting transportation back to the United States after Victory in Europe. Lucky Strike was described as both “seventh heaven” and complete chaos.
On May 16, 1944, when SS men arrived in the Romani section of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Roma refused to leave their barracks and armed themselves for a fight to the death.
A dozen years after the opening of the institution that would become The National WWII Museum, President and CEO Nick Mueller spoke to a Junior Achievement Hall of Fame banquet on “The American Spirit: What Does It Mean?”
Pilot Officer Billy Fiske was the first US citizen to travel to the United Kingdom at the onset of World War II to join the Royal Air Force, and was one of seven American pilots to take part in the Battle of Britain.
For extraordinary heroism and acts above and beyond the call of duty during World War II, the United States Congress awarded 473 Medals of Honor. To date, 3,534 have been awarded since the inception of the Medal during the US Civil War. Only one has ever been awarded to a US Coast Guardsman.
The 102nd Cavalry was a New Jersey Army National Guard unit that was activated and mechanized just prior to America’s entry into World War II.
Early on December 7, 1941, citizens and servicemembers alike in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, faced terror as Japanese planes rained fire on the island in a stunning surprise attack. The assault quickly plunged the United States into a world-changing war. Each year, The National WWII Museum commemorates those who lost their lives on that fateful December day.
A panel discussion of historians from members of The Institute for the Study of War and Democracy in The National WWII Museum’s US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center