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The word came in the morning, as Grace Cruz and her children gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights on Christmas Eve, 1943.
Her oldest son, Jacob, was dead.
A telegram from the United States Marines said the 18-year-old private was killed in action but divulged little else. The ongoing Pacific campaign meant Jacob would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting
the Imperial Japanese Army.
Weeks turned into months and
into years. The military finally admitted it couldn’t find Jacob’s burial place. His name was etched at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
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If you were a Chinese official tasked with bringing down the price of iron ore, would your first thought be to build a greenfield mine far inland in west Africa?
A mine, by the way, which the host government says must be connected to the distant coast through its own territory, which requires the construction of a 650-kilometre double-track railway with dozens of bridges and purpose-built tunnels, and then a huge wharf to reach waters deep enough for bulk carriers to dock, in readiness for the 41-odd-day sail back to China? (It takes about 12 days from Australia.)
Guineaâs President Alpha Conde views the Simandou project as being of similar significance as the American railway development in the 19th century. Â
The epic story of one of the most savage battles of the Second World War.
Kohima. In this remote Indian village near the border with Burma, a tiny force of British and Indian troops faced the might of the Imperial Japanese Army. Outnumbered ten to one, the defenders fought the Japanese hand to hand in a battle that was amongst the most savage in modern warfare.
A garrison of no more than 1,500 fighting men, desperately short of water and with the wounded compelled to lie in the open, faced a force of 15,000 Japanese. They held the pass and prevented a Japanese victory that would have proved disastrous for the British. Another six weeks of bitter fighting followed as British and Indian reinforcements strove to drive the enemy out of India. When the battle was over, a Japanese army that had invaded India on a mission of imperial conquest had suffered the worst defeat in its history. Thousands of men lay dead on a devastated landscape, while tens of thousands more Japanese starved in
Indian National Army: An ignored legacy? Updated Apr 15, 2021 | 10:21 IST
Through only three years of its existence and strength of just around 45,000 soldiers, Indian National Army did play a conspicuous role in the battles it participated in. (Representative Pic)
The mega celebrations to commemorate the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence began on March 12, 2021, when the Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the “Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav” event by flagging off a 241-mile march from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to Dandi in Gujarat’s Navsari district to mark the day. As part of the celebrations, the Publications Division of the Government of India will publish books on unsung heroes of the freedom movement, women freedom fighters, battles and freedom fighters from North-East India and the Indian National Army trials in the Red Fort, besides others.
How World War II Planted The Seeds of The Vietnam War
While the Vietnam War is generally associated with the 1960s, the origins of the conflict go back much further.
Here s What You Need to Remember: The Indochina war that began with a win for Western forces in 1946 continued until 1954 when the loss of Dien Bien Phu after an epic siege of 55 days.
In the late 18th century, the French established Catholic missions in Indochina, and until the 1820s they enjoyed local protection, but after that persecution began and increased steadily, particularly under Emperor Tu-Duc, who reigned from 1847 to 1883 and wanted to stamp out Christianity. Emperor Napoleon III of France did not intend to let that happen, and in 1858 he began sending French forces into the Saigon delta. In 1862, Tu-Duc was forced to sign a treaty granting religious toleration and conceding some of his territory, including Saigon. From this nucleus the French expanded into the rest of Indochina.