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During World War II, thousands of volunteer combat aviators trained at places like Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Hancock Field in Santa Maria. Some air cadets and WASPs--young women pilots--lost their lives in training accidents. The graduates would go on to fight in both the Pacific and European theaters. They faced flak bursts and collisions that resulted in horrifying explosions and were sent on strafing runs that made them targets in a lethal shooting gallery. Downed airmen encountered both unexpected kindness and cruel deprivation as prisoners of war. Through interviews and official records, Jim Gregory tells the stories of heroic Central Coast veterans who fought a war that stretched from New Guinea to North Africa.

Spartanburg County gave generously and selflessly to World War II. Local men and women participated in almost every significant engagement, in almost every imaginable capacity, and in every branch of service. Distinguishing themselves with bravery, dignity, and loyalty, county veterans received every commendation, including the Medal of Honor. At Pearl Harbor, Carpenter's Mate Wayne Alman Lewis and Seaman Vernon Russell White died on the USS Arizona and Fire Controlman First Class Hubert Paul Clement died on the USS Oklahoma. Such sacrifices continued from December 7, 1941, through 1945. At home, window banners displayed blue stars for each person who served in the military. Many of the stories of these heroes from Spartanburg County have never before been told.

The small, tightknit island community of Martha's Vineyard was irrevocably transformed by World War II. From rationing and blackouts to a military presence in Chilmark, the war was brought home to the residents of the island. In the air, pilots flew training missions from the Martha's Vineyard Naval Auxiliary Air Facility. At sea, ferryboats served as hospital ships in the D-Day invasion, while enemy submarines lurked offshore. Mock invasions were undertaken by military forces from across Vineyard Sound, and remote sites were used for training missions and bombing practice. Residents participated in the war effort by buying war bonds, supporting USO activities and conducting air raid drills. Remnants and reminiscences of this illustrious past can still be found today. Join authors Thomas Dresser, Herb Foster and Jay Schofield as they revive the story of this resilient island during World War II.

With a forward by Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, learn about William Thalhimer's elaborate plan to save Jewish Germans from Hitler and the Third Reich.

During Hitler's rise to power in the 1930's, Richmond department store founder, William Thalhimer and his family traveled to Germany to visit relatives and business contacts. Thalhimer was deeply disturbed and increasingly alarmed as the anti-Semitism that he and his family witnessed escalated into the violence Brown Shirts and Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Thalhimer became determined to aid Jews fleeing from Germany, and he eventually met a representative of Gross Breesen, a German-Jewish agricultural training institute. The mission of Gross Breesen, and eventually Thalhimer, was to train young Jews in agriculture in hopes that the expertise gained would ensure the students' successful emigration from Germany. Thalhimer purchased a farm, Hyde Farmlands, in Burkeville, Virginia to give the students a home in Virginia.

A popular career choice for most five year olds, firefighting conjures images of pump trucks, sirens, and ladders. This informative and fun ABC journey gives a bit of firefighting history with B is for bucket brigade and moves into the 21st century with T is for thermal imaging camera. The colorful illustrations sport a spotted Dalmatian hidden on every page.

Images of America: Garrard County in World War II depicts the citizens of a small, rural central Kentucky county who served their nation in war-torn areas worldwide and on the home front. Images courtesy of veterans and their families show the sacrifices made and honor those who served. With photographs of all branches of the armed services, the county's war story is told in representative vignettes at numerous fronts. Through interviews, news accounts, and letters, many veterans' stories of courage, humor, and despair come to life. Here at home, patriotic efforts began in 1940 when school children made "bundles for Britain" and continued throughout the war years with residents sacrificing at home to spend every available dime on war bonds. In fact, in 1943, Garrard Countians bought more bonds per capita than citizens in any other Kentucky county. To reward their patriotism and sacrifice, in March 1945, the government commissioned the USS Garrard, an attack transport ship. A member of the crew donated to the county's historical society photos of the ship and his diary. Survivors of the USS Garrard held a reunion here in 2002.

More than 14,000 people of Japanese descent—two-thirds of them US citizens—were exiled from August 1942 to November 1945 to the Heart Mountain Incarceration Site on the high desert prairie of Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin.

The site was the temporary home for Japanese Americans forced from their homes in California, Oregon, and Washington. Believed to be saboteurs or spies or both, the prisoners were viewed with fear, hatred, and sometimes acceptance by their neighbors in nearby Cody and Powell. During their time at Heart Mountain, the incarcerated people lived like the residents of any American city. Under the eye of the federal War Relocation Authority, they taught school, worked at the fire and police departments, ran stores and barbershops, and spent much of their time wondering what had happened to their former lives. Today, the site is part of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and Mineta-Simpson Institute.

Ray Locker is the director of communications and strategy for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. The foundation’s staff consists of experts on Japanese American history, the intersections between Wyoming’s Indigenous community and World War II’s incarcerated people, and museum professionals dedicated to telling the story of this sad chapter of American history. They used donations from those incarcerated and their families, collections in the foundation archives, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and museums from around the country.