Written by Todd DePastino In a special livestream with the Explorer Vessel Nautilus crew of the Ocean Exploration Trust, we heard about the crew's recent deep-sea discovery of the long-lost bow of the USS New Orleans (CA-32) in the waters of Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal. This remarkable find sheds new light on a dramatic
Ila Cole, Navy WAVE, San Francisco I was a Specialist V, 2nd Class, Transport Airman, stationed in San Francisco in 1945. Essentially, I was an airline stewardess. We flew C-54 Skymasters (except in the Navy, we called them R-5Ds) between Moffett Field, California and Honolulu. Sometimes, we flew the Martin Mars aircraft, which was
Hirohito, Emperor Shōwa, 1935. (Public Domain) By Todd DePastino The Atomic Bomb that destroyed Hiroshima effectively ended the Pacific War. Japan’s perfidy at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was fully repaid with the nuclear strike on August 6, 1945. Because of the Bomb, Japan’s surrender was inevitable. That’s the history most
Vietnam veteran Bill Kapito passed along the letter below written by his uncle Pfc. William Silberman, who was killed in Italy on April 12, 1945. Silberman was a member of C Company, 168th Regiment, 34th Division, a unit that saw 517 days in combat in World War II. He had joined the unit in
Written by Alex Wellerstein, Stevens Institute of Technology. Licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. The Manhattan Project was the Anglo-American effort to build nuclear weapons during World War II. It is commonly regarded as one of the most successful, if controversial, mega-projects of the 20th century, bringing together scientific expertise, industrial production, and
Written by Todd DePastino WWII Royal Air Force Veteran and VBC Member Joan Gill just turned 103 years old on June 14! Joan was born in 1922 in Chatham, England, just 30 miles southeast of London and within earshot of the Royal Naval Dockyards. By the time the Battle of Britain raged overhead in
