Pacific Theater 
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/3/2020
He Escaped Death as a Kamikaze Pilot. 70 Years Later, He Told His Story.
"As the generation who lived through the war fades away, Japan’s opposing political sides are vying to reinterpret the kamikaze for a public still divided over the conflict’s legacy."
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9/13/2020
Making History with Music
by Jason Burt
PFC Richard Burt played the trumpet in a military band tasked with raising morale in the fight to retake the Philippines before a career as a music teacher. His grandson, a history teacher, wants to make him and his bandmates posthumous recording stars.
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8/16/2020
The Other Western Front
by Aimee Liu
Historical novelist Aimee Liu uncovered the history of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the western front of the Pacific theater in World War II, in the course of plotting her new novel "Glorious Boy."
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8/9/2020
75 Years Later, Purple Hearts Made for an Invasion of Japan are Still Being Awarded
by D.M. Giangreco
There has been much debate about how close the United States was to victory in the Pacific before the atomic bombs were dropped 75 years ago this week. But in 1945, the military ordered so many Purple Heart medals in anticipation of an invasion of Japan that medals from that supply are still being awarded today.
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8/9/2020
Unconditional Surrender: The Domestic Politics of Victory in the Pacific
by Marc Gallicchio
The terms on which the United States pressed Japan for surrender were shaped by American domestic politics; New Deal Democrats and their liberal allies succeeded in convincing Harry Truman that it was necessary to dramatically rebuild Japan's society along more social-democratic lines.
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SOURCE: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
8/3/2020
What Europeans Believe about Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and Why it Matters
A European's belief that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a military necessity that ultimately saved lives correlates with less acceptance of nuclear disarmament. History is important for citizens' ability to judge issues related to the dangers of nuclear weapons.
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8/2/2020
Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? – Part I
by Paul Ham
Many people, including historians, believe that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused Japan's unconditional surrender, saved a million American lives, and was the least morally repellent way to end World War II. Paul Ham contends that none of this is true.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/9/2020
‘We Hated What We Were Doing’: Veterans Recall Firebombing Japan
American airmen who took part in the 1945 firebombing missions grapple with the particular horror they witnessed being inflicted on those below.
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3/6/2020
A Price to Be Paid
by Col. Arthur Shaw (Ret.) and Robert L. Wise
None of us had any idea how terrible the cost would be before we finished taking Okinawa. The casual observer might have concluded that the landing was so easy, war must be a walk in the park.
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3/6/2020
Kamikazes at the Battle of Okinawa
by Joseph Wheelan
On May 6, 1945, a twin-engine kamikaze plane’s bomb exploded beside the destroyer Luce, part of the radar picket ship screen surrounding Okinawa, and ripped her starboard side “like a sardine can.”
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