Military

In World War II Hawaii, experience the untold stories of Hawaii at war where children worked the pineapple fields and women served in armed volunteer units. Makeshift bomb shelters were constructed, trenches dug around public buildings, and barbed wire strung on beaches. This tropical paradise transitioned into an active war front where over one million servicemen and tens of thousands of civilian defense workers came through and changed Hawaii forever. 

Within hours of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, martial law was declared in Hawaii. Schools were taken over by the military, and neighborhoods were evacuated. All communication was censored, and every citizen was fingerprinted and registered. The US government burned over $2 million and replaced it with newly minted currency that had “Hawaii” stamped on it in case of invasion by the Empire of Japan.

Dorothea N. Buckingham is a librarian, author, and World War II historian. John C. Buckingham is a retired US Marine Corps officer, author, and active docent with Pearl Harbor museums. Through this collection of rarely seen images, taken mainly from the Hawaii War Records Depository, they present daily life in Hawaii during World War II as it has never been seen before.

The rise and fall of Camp Hale and the soldiers who shaped America’s ski legacy.

In 1942, at the beginning of World War II, the US Army built its most unusual military post for its most unusual division in a high, remote, Rocky Mountain valley 100 miles west of Denver, Colorado. Located at 9,250 feet above sea level, Camp Hale was the training home of the famed 13,459-man 10th Mountain Division, which trained in mountain warfare techniques for two years—and almost missed the war. After they were finally deployed for combat in early 1945 in the Northern Apennine Mountains of Italy, the young men of the 10th never lost a battle or gave up a foot of ground. And, after the war, many of the veterans returned home to create America’s ski and winter sports industry. Building Camp Hale was an incredible feat of wartime engineering and construction. To transform the wild, alpine meadow into an Army camp, 10,000 civilian construction workers were hired to scrape away the vegetation; level the valley floor; install roads and water and sewer lines; build 1,000 structures and two ski areas; and relocate a highway and railroad line—all within seven months and at a cost of $31 million (over a half billion dollars in today’s money). Yet Camp Hale was demolished two years after it was built.

Early Icons and Landmarks

As western migration came to the Colorado frontier, forts were established to protect the settlers. These forts were intertwined with the lives of the frontiersmen. Scout Thomas Tate Tobin oversaw the workers who built the adobe fortress known as Fort Garland. Here, Tobin delivered the heads of the murderous Espinosas gang to Colonel Sam Tappan. Fort Sedgwick, originally known as Camp Rankin, was attacked by the Cheyenne Dog soldiers, including George Bent. Fort Lyon, an expanded fortress of William Bent’s third fort, became the staging point for Colonel John M. Chivington’s march to Sand Creek where peaceful Cheyenne were murdered. Later, Christopher “Kit” Carson died in the fort’s chapel. Legendary Jim Beckwourth was associated with both Fort Vasquez and Fort Pueblo. Author Linda Wommack revisits the glory and the mistakes of the frontiersmen who defined Colorado and the forts that dotted the wild landscape.

The Hawaiian island chain has long been a crossroads of cultures. Oahu’s name is sometimes translated as “the gathering place,” and its appeal is undeniable. Even before the arrival of Western powers, Hawaiian chiefs struggled for control of the island. As far back as the 1700s, many would-be colonizers had their eyes on Pearl Harbor—the United States, the British, the Russians, and the Japanese. For decades, only one thing was certain. The Hawaiian monarchy would not be left alone to rule their own people. More than a hundred years before “the day of infamy,” December 7, 1941, the story of the United States’ military occupation of Hawaii begins with the Western world’s discovery of what was at the time called Wai Momi, the beautiful and, unfortunately, strategically located “waters of pearl.”

Sarah Bellian is a historian and curator of the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum at Pearl Harbor. She previously worked in museums and public history in Texas and Idaho. During the pandemic, she began a deep dive into Hawaii’s often difficult relationship with the US military. In addition to telling stories, she enjoys craft beers, historical swordsmanship, and playing roller derby.

Through historic photographs discover how the citizens of Boulder City contributed to the war effort in World War II.

During the early years of World War II, the United States Army established a camp on the federal reservation in Boulder City, Nevada. This camp consisted of barracks, a mess hall, officer quarters, a hospital, a guardhouse, a commissary, and a theater for several hundred men. Most of the men were being trained for military police duty. The citizens of Boulder City were not aware of much of the activity that took place at Camp Williston as they were finally settling down into everyday life after the construction of the Hoover Dam. On December 7, 1941, though, the town of Boulder City had the busiest Army camp in the West. Established only a decade earlier in 1931, the camp’s “Be Generous, Equal Victory” slogan was one the community lived by, even more so throughout the war effort.

Tiane Marie is a writer, historian, and photographer. She is dedicated to preserving history by sharing the information for anyone who is wanting to learn. She is the author of Past and Present: Boulder City.

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.

Immigration in the Equality State

Long before Heart Mountain Internment Camp brought Japanese prisoners to Wyoming, an immigrant work force put down lasting roots. Beginning in 1892, Japanese came to toil on Union Pacific’s railroad and coal mines. But they weren’t warmly welcomed. Newspapers charged every Japanese section worker was secret Japanese Army. Allegedly, 600 Japs in Utah, [and] about 400 in Wyoming and probably 100 in Colorado, were ready to serve Japan during the Japanese Russo War. George Wakimoto said the number was closer to six. Such misinformation about Japanese laborers spawned violence against Asians. The citizens of Evanston tried to blow them up. Rawlins ran the Japanese out of town. And in Laramie, young boys threw stones and dragged a Japanese man through the street. Author Dan Lyon chronicles Japanese perseverance, before and after both world wars, in their adopted state.

Stories of Courage and Care in the Face of Injustice

Within the confines of detention centers in their own country, Japanese Americans who practiced medicine worked under the most dire conditions during World War II. Collected by a special team organized by the Japanese American Medical Association, these oral histories tell the stories of men and women who depended on ingenuity and compassion to care for their patients in remote makeshift hospitals. In this updated edition, the lives of incarcerated Japanese American medical professionals who endured the wound of a nation's betrayal reveal the triumph of community and care amid hardship.

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 the world changed for the North State - and the nation.

A national call to arms by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the bombing of Pearl Harbor spurred local residents to action, and the normal rhythm of life immediately and dramatically changed. By Christmas of that year, everyone understood their roles. Those who could enlist served in Army and Navy operations in the Pacific and Europe. The rest gave their all to support the war from the home front. Residents volunteered their time and skills, served as Red Cross workers, airplane spotters and scrap metal collectors. Local factories and canneries ramped up production. And building the Shasta Dam to provide power became a crucial part of the war effort.

Author Al M. Rocca recounts the determination and tribulations of North State citizens during World War II.

Originally part of Rancho Suscol, Mexican land granted to Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the city of Vallejo, California, has been home to a Hispanic and Latino community since its establishment in the mid-19th century.

The son of General Vallejo was the first medical doctor in Vallejo, and Frank Antonio Blanco was the city’s first public school probation officer. His son Edwin J. Blanco was a public elected official. During World War II, the bracero program brought an influx of Mexican immigrants, and the city of Vallejo saw a resurgence in Spanish-speaking community members. Over the next few decades, community organizations were created, and the number of Hispanic- and Latino-owned businesses increased. In the last decades of the 20th century, the community grew to over 25 percent of the city’s population. Today, Hispanics and Latinos are business owners, professionals, job creators, advocates, and a strong economic power in the city.

A mother, wife, business owner, and community advocate originally from Mexico, Marisela Barbosa-Cortez immigrated to Vallejo with her parents, Graciela and Israel; her sisters Maria and Sonia; and her brother Jose. Barbosa-Cortez is a forward-thinking catalyst for change, and her commitment to community betterment is reflected through her years of involvement and leadership in the areas of economic development, advocacy for children and women, and civic engagement.

A tribute to the heroism shown by military pilots and aircrew from rural California towns who risked their lives and made their mark on American history.

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.

The man “who has done more than anyone to lift the veil of secrecy . . . about what’s unfolded out there in the desert” reveals the origins of Area 51 (KLAS 8 News Now).

In 1955, the Central Intelligence Agency established a clandestine base of operations in the Nevada desert with a mission to protect the United States from a growing communist threat. Special projects at Area 51 were shrouded in mystery, and the first was one of the world’s most famous spy planes, the U-2. It fueled half-truths, rumors and legends for more than half a century. Now with many details of that endeavor declassified, the real story can finally be told.

Author and Area 51 veteran TD Barnes sifts fact from fiction in one of America’s most protected origin stories.

Montana's cowboys, miners, foresters, farmers and nurses entered World War I in April 1917 under the battle cry that would resonate on the battlefields in France—Powder River, Let 'Er Buck!

Montana men served in a greater percentage per capita than any other state. Hundreds responded to the call, including local women and minorities, from the nation's first congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin, to young women serving as combat nurses on the front lines. Additionally, the state provided vital supplies of copper and wheat. Learn what role celebrities like cowboy artist Charlie Russell played in the war and how Montanans mobilized, trained and deployed.

Acclaimed historian Ken Robison uncovers new and neglected stories of the Treasure State's contributions to the Great War.

World War II enthusiasts and Colorado history buffs alike will delight in this insightful photographic narrative of Colorado's contribution during the momentous global conflict. Beginning in 1940 as an inland state safe against enemy attack, Colorado became crucially important in supporting the worldwide struggle against Nazi Germany, fascism in Italy, Imperial Japan, and their allies. The Centennial State housed some of the largest ammunition factories, medical facilities, and training camps for both land and air forces in the nation. The unique 10th Mountain Division trained for winter warfare in the Colorado mountains. After the United States entered World War II, massive numbers of prisoners of war were interned or worked in Colorado fields and forests. Japanese Americans were unjustly held in the Camp Amache internment camp. The huge influx of war workers fueled the expansion of Colorado’s population, sparking the baby boom and creating today’s urban and suburban Colorado.

John Steinle, a native of Hamilton, Ohio, served as director at several Ohio museums before moving to Colorado in 1992. In 1994, Steinle became the administrator of the Hiwan Homestead Museum in Evergreen, Colorado, working for Jefferson County Open Space. He was later promoted to history education supervisor and region supervisor for the Bear Creek Region. He retired in 2016.