|
|
|
The Tuskegee Airmen
In March of 1942, five African American men earned the siver wings of military pilots at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. These men were the firs "Tuskegee Airmen," a group of black pilots who served wit hgreat distinction during World War II.
The War Department established a black fighter squadron only after great pressure from African American leaders and the press. Blinded by prejudice, many Americans of the time believed blacks could not fly airplanes. In early 1941, the Secretary of War reluctantly approved a plan that set up the first all-black squadron in the Army Air Corps. The plan included the construction of a training base at Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college. Yet even facilities at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, where the African American cadets were learning to fly, remained segregated. And all the commanding officers at Tuskegee were white. Thirteen young African American men made up the first class, but only five completed the hard training. After America entered World War II in December of 1941, black men applied for admission to the Army Air Corps in larger numbers than ever. Gradually, class sizes were increased at the Tuskegee air field. By the end of World War II in 1945, nearly a thousand African American pilots had trained at Tuskegee, and 450 of them had flown in combat.
In 1943, the first squadron of Tuskegee Airmen left for overseas duty. It was stationed in West Africa. The squadron was soon joined by three more squadrons of Tuskegee Airmen. At first, the job of America's small and fast fighter planes in World War Ii was to escort and protect the heavier and slower bombers. Later in the war, fighter planes were permitted to pursue enemy aircraft. In hundreds of escort missions over North Africa and Europe, the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber. No other group in the Army Air Corps could make that claim Grateful bomber crews called the Tuskegee group the Red-Tail Angels because of the red markings on the tails of their aircraft.
The Red-Tail Angels also compiled an outstanding combat record. They participated in the D-Day operation, downing many German fighter planes in the days following the June 6, 1944, invasion of France. On June 25, 1944, two Tuskegee Airmen sank a German warship with machine gun fire. This was the first time a fighter aircraft had accomplished such a feat. During the war, the Tuskegee Airmen destroyed many enemy aircraft and damaged and destroyed a great number of enemy railroad cars, barges, boats, oil and ammunitions dumps, buildings, and factories. They earned 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Legion of Merit, 744 Air Medals, eight Purple Hearts, two Soldier's Medals, and fourteen Bronze Stars. Sisty-six Tuskegee Airmen died in aerial combat and 32 more were shot down and captured as prisoners of war. After World War II, the black squadrons were deactivated. By 1947, the Army Air Corps had become the United States Air Force and had begun integrating its units. Some historians believe that the performance records of the Tuskegee Airmen helped bring an end to segregation in the military.
• Tuskegee Airmen at Amazon.com
• Black Military History posters
• more Aviation posters
|
|
|
Eisenhower and Churchill, in France.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin at Yalta Conference, February 4 to February 11, 1945
The Big Three, the leaders of Great Britian, US and the Soviet Union, held the second war time conference of Allies in the Crimean resort of Yalta on the north coast of the Black Sea.
The first conference was held in Tehran, Iran in 1943; the Yalta meeting was followed by the 1945 Potsdam Conference with Harry S Truman attending in place of the late FDR, and the newly elected Clement Attlee in place of Churchill.
• Russia posters
|
|
|
|
|
Omar Bradley
b. 2-12-1893; Clark, Missouri (considered Moberly his hometown)
d. 4-8-1981
Omar Bradley was one of the main U.S. Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II, and a General of the Army in the United States.
Bradley, who was the son of a schoolteacher, and taught mathematics at his alma mater West Point between World War I and II, has the reputation of being “a polite and courteous man”. He was informally known as “the soldier's general” (Ernie Pyle) and “never known to issue an order to anybody of any rank without saying ‘Please’ first.”
FYI - Omar Bradley and WWI officer John J. Pershing, also once a teacher, were born in north central Missouri.
Omar Bradley quotes ~
• “We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
• “It is time that we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship.”
• “Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader.”
|
|
|
George Marshall
b. 12-31-1880; Uniontown, PA
d. 10-16-1959
George Marshall was the chief military adviser to FDR and considered the “organizer of victory” by Winston Churchill for his work for the Allies. Marshall was named TIME's Man of the Year in 1944 and 1948 and also awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for his ‘Marshall Plan’, a plan for rebuilding Europe supported as Secretary of State under Eisenhower.
George Marshall quotes ~
• “The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.”
• “I was very careful to send Mr. Roosevelt every few days a statement of our casualties. I tried to keep before him all the time the casualty results because you get hardened to these things and you have to be very careful to keep them always in the forefront of your mind.”
• “Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.”
• “I believe our students must first seek to understand the conditions, as far as possible without national prejudices, which have led to past tragedies and should strive to determine the great fundamentals which must govern a peaceful progression toward a constantly higher level of civilization.”
• “There must be effort of the spirit — to be magnanimous, to act in friendship, to strive to help rather than to hinder.”
• George Marshall at Amazon.com
|
|
|
|
Douglas MacArthur
b. 1-26-1880; Little Rock, AR
d. 4-5-1964; Washington, DC
Japan signed the official Instrument of Surrender on the morning of September 2, 1945 - a moment that finally brought World War II to a close. In a ceremony on board the U.S.S. Missouri at anchor in Tokyo Bay, the official documents received the signatures of General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and of General Yoshijiro Umezu, who signed on behalf of Japanese Imperial Headquarters.
Douglas MacArthur quotes ~
• “I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.”
• “It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.” 1952 Speech to Michigan legislature.
• “Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.” 1952 Speech to Michigan legislature.
quotes about MacArthur
• “I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. That's the answer to that. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.” Harry S Truman.
|
|
|
George S. Patton
b. 11-11-1885; San Gabriel, California
d. 12-21-1945; Heidelberg, Germany, from injuries suffered in a car accident.
George S. Patton commanded the Seventh United States Army, and later the Third United States Army, in the European Theater of World War II. He is most popularly remembered from the 1970 film Patton.
George S. Patton quotes
• “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
• “Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.”
• “All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain.”
quotes about Patton
• “Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes.” Bill Mauldin
|
|
|
Heroes of the 20th Century -
Anne Frank
b. 6-12-1929; Frankfurt am Main, Germany
d. Feb/March, 1945; Bergen-Belsen Camp
“I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”
• more Anne Frank posters
|
|
|
The Royal Air Force-
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” Churchill
The quote from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is from his June 18, 1940 speech to the House of Commons. In the speech Churchill described the defense of Britain by the R.A.F. against the sustained efforts by the German Luftwaffe (generic German term for an air force).
Pictures of R.A.F. planes: Lancaster III, Halifax IV, Stirling, Typhoon, Mosquito II, Tempest, Spitfire XIV.
• more Aviation posters
|
|
|
|
Defense Bonds were a type of savings bonds marketed as a way for the common citizen to support the war effort, but more importantly, they were a way to curb inflation in the country that was coming out of the Great Depression due to the need for armaments. The defense bond stamps were sold to children.
The bonds sold in World War I were called Liberty Bonds.
From the World War II era are “Victory Gardens”, the vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted to both boost food supply and morale in the face of war. |
|
|
|
|
previous page | top
|
|
I have searched the web for visual, text, and manipulative curriculum support materials - teaching posters, art prints, maps, charts, calendars, books and educational toys featuring famous people, places and events - to help teachers optimize their valuable time and budget.
Browsing the subject areas at NetPosterWorks.com is a learning experience where educators can plan context rich environments while comparing prices, special discounts, framing options and shipping from educational resources.
Thank you for starting your search for inspirational, motivational, and educational posters and learning materials at NetPosterWorks.com. If you need help please contact us.
|
|
|
|
