Feature Image; Fifth Marine Division Command Post, Iwo Jima, 1945. “Fifth Marine Division Command Post, Iwo Jima, 1945” by Archives Branch, USMC History Division is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
MAY 27, 1941: BRITISH SINKING OF THE GERMAN WARSHIP BISMARCK IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC HELPED CHANGE THE COURSE OF WORLD WAR II.
FEATURE image: HMS Rodney unloading her guns. HMS Rodney’s 16-inch guns played a pivotal role at the last battle with the Bismarck in the North Atlantic in May 1941. The British battleship’s powerful broadsides at the Bismarck caused significant structural damage that sunk the German warship. “HMS Rodney lightens her load sometime in the 1930’s.”…
Iwo Jima at 80: Sacrifice, Victory, and the Photograph That Helped Win the Peace.
FEATURE image: Original photograph by Joe Rosenthal, February 23, 1945. Public Domain. The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the most costly and consequential American victories of World War II, securing a strategic foothold in the Pacific while producing iconic photographs and film footage that transformed a brutal military campaign into an enduring symbol…
LT. GEN. GEORGE S. PATTON (1885-1945), the most feared Commander in the Allied army, landed American forces on Sicily on July 10, 1943 and was temporarily relieved of command by Ike following Patton’s “slap heard around of the world” of an American soldier in an evacuation hospital in Nicosia, Sicily, on August 3, 1943.
FEATURE IMAGE: Lieutenant General George Patton watches operations from a town in Sicily on the front line accompanied by his staff. Unknown photographer. Fair Use. For Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Patton commanded the Seventh U.S. Army, in landings on the southern bay of Sicily at Gela, Scoglitti and Licata. Patton’s…
GERMANY. Long Live Freedom! HANS SCHOLL AND SOPHIE SCHOLL and The White Rose in Germany (1942-1943).
FEATURE image: Hans and Sophie Scholl, painting –“Hans and Sophie Scholl, painting” by Ralf van Bühren is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 By John P. Walsh On February 18, 1943, following the illegal distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets by the White Rose at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München—the leaflets instructing students and all others to actively resist the 10-year-old Nazi regime—three young German…
The Pen and the Rosary: St. Titus Brandsma, the Martyr-Journalist of Dachau during World War II.
FEATURE image: Titus Brandsma, a Dutch educator, journalist and priest, had been appointed by the Catholic Bishops in Holland as their chief spokesman to defend the freedom of Catholic education and the press. in early 1942, the 60-year-old Carmelite was arrested in Holland by the Nazis and sent to Dachau concentration camp in Germany where,…
Hope in the Darkness: Alfred Delp, S.J., Nazi Resistance, and the Advent Meditations from Tegel Prison.
FEATURE image: Alfred Delp, S.J, Alfred Delp, S.J., stands as one of the most compelling Christian witnesses of the Second World War: a Jesuit priest, intellectual, and Nazi resister whose prison meditations transformed personal suffering, political tyranny, and the certainty of death into enduring reflections on faith, freedom, conscience, and hope. Alfred Delp, S.J. sailing.…
AUSTRIA. BL. FRANZ JÄGERSTÄTTER (1907-1943): Austrian Farmer, Husband and Father, Conscientious Objector in World War II, and Martyr.
FEATURE image: Detail of Franz Jägerstätter on a motorbike in St. Radegund, Austria, in 1940. By John P. Walsh October 26, 2017/updated July 15, 2021. In his 17-minute speech at the TED conference in April 2017, Pope Francis talked about the importance of human interdependence, equality, and inclusion. Perhaps surprisingly, the pope stressed the power…
FRANCE. French Cartoonist fêted, later revealed as Nazi collaborator during World War II: CHAVAL (1915-1968) and the purpose of art history and today’s art exhibitions.
FEATURE image: Chaval’s cartoons, mainly wordless, are often derisive, ironic and filled with dark humor. In the 1950s Chaval was mentioned in American publications with cartoonists such as James Thurber, Charles Addams and William Steig. By John P. Walsh The 53-year-old French cartoonist’s suicide in Paris in winter 1968 served as a tragic end to a…
