Episode 3: A Deadly Calling from The War (2007)
The War (2007), directed by Kevin Burns, is the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four American towns.
Recommended Online Resources
- Georgia World War II Oral History Project (GPB) Oral history recorded video links for Georgia World War II veterans.
- Mail Call: V-Mail (National World War II Museum) National World War II Museum display about the Victory Mail system used during World War II.
- US Army Center of Military History Overview of the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II, including operations undertaken by the US Sixth Army
- US Army Heritage & Education Center The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center engages, inspires, and informs the Army, the American people, and global partners with a unique and enduring source of knowledge and thought. The Center is an integral part of the War College, and maintains the knowledge repositories that support scholarship and research about the U.S. Army and its operating environment. To optimize our patron centered, digitally enabled organization, the Center is comprised of three functional areas interconnected through day-to-day operations, but each with a primary focus.
- US Army South (Sixth Army) Overview of the US Army South's history, including the history of the US Sixth Army.
- Victory Mail (USPS) United States Postal Service PDF document about the Victory Mail system of World War II.
- Victory Mail Exhibit (Smithsonian) Information about the Victory Mail system from the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, including how it worked and the effects of the program on the military's logistical system.
- World War II Asia-Pacific Maps (Westpoint) List of combat operations map hyperlinks from the United States Military Academy West Point.
- World War II Records (NARA) Military service records from WWI - present are held in the National Military Personnel Records Center (NPRC), in St. Louis, Missouri. This guide offers a comprehensive overview of NARA's World War II Holdings
- WW2 US Medical Research Centre Information about the US Army Medical Department during World War II, including the organizational structure used during the war.
Other World War II Manuscript Collections
All collections are held by the Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections Department at Georgia Southern University
Recommended Government Documents
- Blood program in World War II : [supplemented by experiences in the Korean War] by Medical officers who, like myself, served overseas in World War ll, and who observed the management of casualties with and without the use of whole blood, are peculiarly qualified to appreciate the achievements of the whole- blood program. Its results unfolded before our eyes. In forward hospitals, we saw men saved from death and sometimes, almost brought back from the dead. In fixed hospitals, we received wounded men who once would have died in forward hospitals, or even on the battlefield. We received casualties with the most serious wounds in good condition. With the aid of more blood, we performed radical surgery upon them, and we watched them withstand operation and, with still more blood, recover promptly from it. There are more than the usual reasons for the preparation and publication of this volume on the whole-blood program. A major reason, of course, is the impact this therapeutic advance has had upon medical care, civilian as well as military. Another reason is to keep faith with the multiple personnel who planned and operated the whole-blood program, and with the millions of American citizens whose gifts of their own blood saved the lives of so many American soldiers, who otherwise would have died.
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Call Number: 27732510Publication Date: 1989 - Leyte--the return to the Philippines by "World War II 50th anniversary commemorative edition"--Cover. Originally published: Washington : Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1954. (United States Army in World War II. The War in the Pacific). Includes bibliographical references (pages 383-388) and index. Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2011. Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. Description based on online resource, PDF version; title from PDF title page (CMH, viewed August 21, 2018). Series: United States Army in World War II. The War in the Pacific Series: CMH pub ; 5-9-1
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Call Number: 893972129Publication Date: 1993 - The Medical Department of the United States Army in World War II by Editor-in-chief: 1952- C.H. Goddard; 1955-65, J.B. Coates; 1965-66, A.L. Ahnfeldt; 1966-69, R.S. Anderson; 1970- W.S. Mullins. Prepared by the Historical Unit, Army Medical Service, under the direction of the Surgeon General, United States Army. Half-title: 1955- Medical Department, United States Army in World War II.
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Publication Date: 1952 - Medical statistics in World War II by Includes index. Includes bibliographical references and index. Series: Medical Department, United States Army, in World War II
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Call Number: 02633288Publication Date: 1975 - War in the Pacific, Triumph in the Philippines by Reprint. Originally published: Washington : Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1963. (United States Army in World War II. The War in the Pacific). Shipping list no.: 91-192-P. Includes bibliographical references (pages 695-713) and index. Series: CMH pub ; 5-10
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ISBN: 0160238102Publication Date: 1963-12-31
Recommended Readings
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In November 1942, Paul Andrew Kennedy (1912--1993) boarded the St. Elena in New York Harbor and sailed for Casablanca as part of Operation Torch, the massive Allied invasion of North Africa. As a member of the US Army's 2nd Auxiliary Surgical Group, he spent the next thirty-four months working in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, in close proximity to the front lines and often under air or artillery bombardment. He was uncomfortable, struck by the sorrows of war, and homesick for his wife, for whom he kept detailed diaries to ease his unrelenting loneliness. In Battlefield Surgeon , Kennedy's son Christopher has edited his father's journals and provided historical context to produce an invaluable personal chronicle. What emerges is a vivid record of the experiences of a medical officer in the European theater of operations in World War II. Kennedy participated in some of the fiercest action of the war, including Operation Avalanche, the attack on Anzio, and Operation Dragoon. He also arrived in Rome the day after the Allied troops, and entered the Dachau concentration camp two days after it was liberated. Despite the enormous success of the popular M*A*S*H franchise, there are still surprisingly few authentic accounts of military doctors and medical practice during wartime. As a young, inexperienced surgeon, Kennedy grappled with cases much more serious and complex than he had ever faced in civilian practice. Featuring a foreword by Pulitzer Prize--winning World War II historian Rick Atkinson and an afterword by U.S. Army medical historian John T. Greenwood, this remarkable firsthand account offers an essential perspective on the Second World War.
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ISBN: 9780813167237Publication Date: 2016-05-20
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Nearly four years of brutal Japanese occupation in WW2 has dimmed Manila's lustre. The Philippine capital, surrounding an old Spanish fortress, was once a glittering jewel among America's overseas possessions. And now a vast Allied army led by the indomitable MacArthur is ready to take it back from the Japanese. It is a necessary mission and an urgent one for trapped within the old University of Santo Tomas are thousands of ailing prisoners: men and women, young and old, at risk of torture and death by their captors.But the token Japanese garrison has other ideas as desperate units of the Japanese navy dig in to fight to the death against the advancing Americans. Caught in this cruel vice are thousands of Filipinos still trapped in the metropolis, with no hope of escape. From the closing days of January until early March 1945, Manila is to endure the most bitter fighting in the Pacific theatre, leaving it a charred wasteland littered with the bodies of the dead, soldier and civilian alike, the latter deliberately targeted by Japanese death squads. Such is the carnage and conquest of Manila.
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ISBN: 9781526729057Publication Date: 2019-05-16
Desperate Surgery in the Pacific War by
Caring for the wounded in the World War II Pacific Theater posed serious challenges to doctors and surgeons. The thick jungles, remote atolls and heavily defended Japanese islands of the Pacific presented dangers to medical personnel never before encountered in modern warfare, as did the devastating new kamikaze attacks. Sophisticated treatments, including complex surgery, were by necessity far removed from the fighting, requiring front line doctors to do the minimum--often under fire--to stabilize patients until they could be evacuated: "damage control," it would later be called. Navy doctors responsible for thousands of sailors aboard fleets in battle found caring for the wounded daunting or nearly impossible. Yet to save lives, medical resources had to be kept as close as possible to the action. This book systematically details the efforts and innovations of the doctors and surgeons who worked to preserve life under extreme peril.
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ISBN: 9781476664217Publication Date: 2017-01-04
The End of World War II by
The end of six years of bloodshed ended on September 2, 1945, when official Japanese representatives signed a capitulation document aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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ISBN: 9781422238981Publication Date: 2017-01-01
The GI War Against Japan by
Choice Outstanding Academic Title Even in the midst of World War II, Americans could not help thinking of the lands across the Pacific as a continuation of the American Western frontier. But this perception only heightened American soldiers' frustration as the hostile region ferociously resisted their attempts at control. The GI War Against Japan recounts the harrowing experiences of American soldiers in Asia and the Pacific. Based on countless diaries and letters, it sweeps across the battlefields, from the early desperate stand at Guadalcanal to the tragic sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at war's very end. From the daunting spaces of the China-India theater to the fortress islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Schrijvers brings to life the GIs' struggle with suffocating wilderness, devastating diseases, and Japanese soldiers who preferred death over life. Amidst the frustration and despair of this war, American soldiers abandoned themselves to an escalating rage that presaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The GI's story is, first and foremost, the story of America's resounding victory over Japan. At the same time, however, the reader will recognize in the extraordinarily high price paid for this victory chilling forebodings of the West's ultimate defeat in Asia'and America's in Vietnam.
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ISBN: 0814798160Publication Date: 2002-05-01
History of the United States Army Medical Service Corps by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 0160453534Publication Date: 1997-09-01
MacArthur at War by
The definitive account of General Douglas MacArthur's rise during World War II, from the author of the bestseller The Admirals. World War II changed the course of history. Douglas MacArthur changed the course of World War II. Macarthur at War will go deeper into this transformative period of his life than previous biographies, drilling into the military strategy that Walter R. Borneman is so skilled at conveying, and exploring how personality and ego translate into military successes and failures. Architect of stunning triumphs and inexplicable defeats, General MacArthur is the most intriguing military leader of the twentieth century. There was never any middle ground with MacArthur. This in-depth study of the most critical period of his career shows how his influence spread far beyond the war-torn Pacific. A Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History at the New York Historical Society
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ISBN: 9780316405324Publication Date: 2016-05-10- The Pacific War, 1941-1945 by John Costello's The Pacific War has now established itself as the standard one-volume account of World War II in the Pacific. Never before have the separate stories of fighting in China, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies, the Phillipines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Aleutians been so brilliantly woven together to provide a clear account of one of the most massive movements of men and arms in history. The complex social, political, and economic causes that underlay the war are here carefully analyzed, impelling the reader to see it as the inevitable conclusion to a series of historical events. And the bloody fighting that indelibly recorded names like Midway and Iwo Jima in the annals of human conflict is described in detail, through its ominous conclusion in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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ISBN: 0892562064Publication Date: 1981-12-01 
To Foreign Shores by
This is the first single source to cover the entire development of U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps amphibious operations during World War II. The whole spectrum of modern seaborne assaults, ships and landing craft, ship-to-shore movement, command relationships, air and gunfire support, mine countermeasures, and salvage are covered.
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ISBN: 1557505209Publication Date: 1995-04-01
War in the American Pacific and East Asia, 1941-1972 by
Before 1940, the Japanese empire stood as the greatest single threat to the American presence in the Pacific and East Asia. To a lesser degree, the formerly hegemonic colonial powers of Britain, France, and the Netherlands still controlled portions of the region. At the same time, subjugated peoples in East Asia and Southeast Asia struggled to throw off colonialism. By the late 1930s, the competition exploded into armed conflict. Japan looked like the early victor, but the United States eventually established itself as the hegemonic power in the Pacific Basin by 1945. Yet when it comes to the American movement out into the Pacific, there is more to the story that has yet to be revealed. In War in the American Pacific and East Asia, 1941--1972, editor Hal Friedman brings together nine essays that explore lesser known aspects and consequences of America's military expansion into the Pacific during and after World War II. This study explores how the United States won the Pacific War against Japan and how it sought to secure that victory in the decades that followed, ensure it never endured another Pearl Harbor--style defeat, and saw the Pacific fulfill a Manifest Destiny--like role as an American frontier projected toward East Asia. The collection explores the role of the US military in the Pacific Basin in different ways by presenting essays on interservice rivalry and military advising as well as unique topics that are new to military history, such as the investigations of strategic communications, military public relations, institutional cultures of elite forces, foodways, and the military's interaction with the press. Together, these essays provide a path for historians to pursue groundbreaking areas of research about the Pacific and establish the Pacific War as the pivotal point in the twentieth century in the Pacific Basin.
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ISBN: 9780813176550Publication Date: 2019-02-22
World War II in the Pacific by
This compilation of facts, overview analysis, and primary sources gives an in-depth look at World War II in the Pacific.
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ISBN: 9781627128698Publication Date: 2014-08-01
The World Within War by
Tells of the experiences of United States soldiers during World War II, including their preparation for battle, interaction with one another, perceptions of the enemies they faced and reaction to combat. The author's intention is to show the terrible, dehumanizing effects of combat.
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ISBN: 0684827972Publication Date: 1997-11-15
