Voices of My Comrades : : America's Reserve Officers Remember World War II / / ed. by Carol Adele Kelly.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• MitwirkendeR: Inouye, Daniel K.,; Stevens, Ted,
• HerausgeberIn: Kelly, Carol Adele,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2022]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (548 p.) :; 48 Black & White Illustrations

Over the course of five years, the Reserve Officers Association of the United States—the nation’s oldest such professional military organization—invited its members to write about their experiences in World War II. The response was an impressive outpouring of memories, now compiled here in an extraordinary record of courage, sacrifice, and commitment.Stories from 240 veterans—representing all theaters, ranks, and services—track the years of World War II month by month.From the young ensign’s letter to his fiancée, describing his escape from the USS Cassin minutes before it explodes at Pearl Harbor, to the battle-seasoned colonel’s account of his flyover at the peace-treaty signing aboard the USS Missouri, the stories give a human face to the moments of war, written by men and women who intimately lived those history-making days, on bombing missions and invasion duty, on front lines and the home front.Readers will meet a survivor of the USS Reuben James, sunk by a German U-boat before December 7, 1941, and eight D-Day invaders of Normandy, including Lieutenant Colonel J. Strom Thurmond, paratrooper. They will also meet a bodyguard to General Douglas MacArthur and the nurses who healed the fallen in huts on Bataan, the hospital ship Shamrock in the Mediterranean, and field hospitals in France.Here, too, are personal accounts by Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) and the battlehardened engineers of the Seabees in the Pacific. Other veterans tell of surviving the sinking of the troopship Leopoldville, when 750 Americans died in the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944; the horrific discovery of the Nazi extermination camps; and the tragic bombings near war’s end of unmarked Japanese ships transporting U.S. POWs from the Philippines.Featuring photographs, a chronology, and historical introductions, this book—thanks to these stories by ordinary soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and nurses—is destined to become an enduring testimony to the American experience in World War II.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Foreword -- Preface -- World War II Chronology -- Prologue: Prewar Activity -- Chapter 1: December 1941 -- Chapter 2: January 1942 -- Chapter 3 February 1942 -- Chapter 4: March 1942 -- Chapter 5: April 1942 -- Chapter 6: May 1942 -- Chapter 7: June 1942 -- Chapter 8: July 1942 -- Chapter 9: August 1942 -- Chapter 10: September 1942 -- Chapter 11: October 1942 -- Chapter 12: November 1942 -- Chapter 13: December 1942 -- Chapter 14: January 1943 -- Chapter 15: February 1943 -- Chapter 16: March 1943 -- Chapter 17: April 1943 -- Chapter 18: May 1943 -- Chapter 19: June 1943 -- Chapter 20: July 1943 -- Chapter 21: August 1943 -- Chapter 22: September 1943 -- Chapter 23: October 1943 -- Chapter 24: November 1943 -- Chapter 25: December 1943 -- Chapter 26: January 1944 -- Chapter 27 February 1944 -- Chapter 28: March 1944 -- Chapter 29: April 1944 -- Chapter 30: May 1944 -- Chapter 31: June 1944 -- Chapter 32: July 1944 -- Chapter 33: August 1944 -- Chapter 34. September 1944 -- Chapter 35: October 1944 -- Chapter 36: November 1944 -- Chapter 37. December 1944 -- Chapter 38: January 1945 -- Chapter 39: February 1945 -- Chapter 40: March 1945 -- Chapter 41: April 1945 -- Chapter 42: May 1945 -- Chapter 43: June 1945 -- Chapter 44: July 1945 -- Chapter 45: August 1945 -- Chapter 46: Countdown to V-J Day, 2 September 1945 -- Chapter 47: September 1945 and Beyond -- Acknowledgments -- Photo Credit -- Selected Bibliography -- About the Editor -- Index