United States of America -

25Feb

By WW2No Comments

Ships, Submarines, United States of America Submarines

USS Albacore (SS-218)

USS Albacore (SS-218) USS Albacore (SS-218) was a Gato-class submarine which served in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, winning the Presidential Unit Citation and nine battle stars for her service. During the war, she was credited with sinking 13 Japanese ships (including two destroyers, the light cruiser Tenryū and the aircraft carrier Taihō) and damaging another five; not all of these credits were confirmed by postwar Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) accounting. She also holds the distinction of sinking the highest warship tonnage of any U.S. submarine. She was lost in 1944, probably sunk by a mine off northern Hokkaidō on 7 November. Albacore was the second vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the albacore. Construction and...

19Jan

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Events leading to World War II

USS Panay incident

The USS Panay incident on December 12, 1937, was a Japanese bombing attack on the U.S. Navy river gunboat Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers on the Yangtze River. They strafed survivors in the water. The boats were rescuing U.S. and Chinese civilians fleeing from Japanese invaders attacking Nanking (now spelled Nanjing), China. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. Public outrage was loud in the U.S., but both sides were conciliatory and quickly settled the dispute. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized, and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed. Background A flat-bottomed craft built in Shangh...

The US ski resorts built by WW2 soldiers

18Jan

By WW2No Comments

On News

The US ski resorts built by WW2 soldiers

After fighting Hitler's men in Europe, an elite division of mountain fighters returned to the US to popularise skiing across the country. Located 100 miles west of Denver, the Colorado ski town of Vail is set in a bowl-like valley beneath the surrounding mountains, with cobblestone streets and overflowing flower boxes that wouldn't look out of place in an Alpine village. Today, the town's slopes attract hundreds of thousands of skiers every year to what many consider to be the US' quintessential ski resort. But few know that were it not for veterans of a World War Two mountain warfare division, this town – and many others like it across the country – may never have existed. It all started with a meeting in a Vermont ski lodge. In 1938, Charles Minot "Minnie" Dole founded the ...