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1941

United States entered World war II, On December 8, the day after Japan attacked American and British territories in Asia and the Pacific, including at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading the United States to enter the war against Japan and Germany.

Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. In early 1943, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union, and that year their continued defeats on the Eastern Front, an Allied invasion of Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific forced them into retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France at Normandy, as the Soviet Union recaptured its pre-war territory and the US crippled Japan's navy and captured key Pacific islands.

The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories; invasions of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which culminated in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops soon after Hitler committed suicide and Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.

On August 6 and 9, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

💥 Hiroshima – “Little Boy”

· Type: Uranium-235 gun-type bomb

· Weight: ~9,700 pounds

· Length: ~10 feet

· Diameter: ~28 inches

· Explosive yield: ~15 kilotons of TNT

· Dropped on: August 6, 1945

· Immediate deaths: Estimated 70,000–80,000, with total casualties reaching up to 140,000 by the end of 1945

💥 Nagasaki – “Fat Man”

· Type: Plutonium implosion-type bomb

· Weight: ~10,800 pounds

· Length: ~10.7 feet

· iameter: ~60 inches

· Explosive yield: ~21 kilotons of TNT

· Dropped on: August 9, 1945

· Immediate deaths: Estimated 40,000–75,000, with total casualties reaching up to 80,000

Atomic bomb detonated in Nagasaki Japan August 6, 1945

These were the only nuclear weapons ever used in warfare. Their size was dwarfed by their historical impact—ushering in the nuclear age and prompting Japan’s surrender just days later. Faced with an imminent Allied invasion, the prospect of further atomic bombings, and a Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its unconditional surrender on August 15 and signed a surrender document on September 2, 1945.

All territory that had been claimed by Germany was split between the Western and Eastern Allied countries, and Germany itself was divided likewise. Many other countries who previously boasted empires lost their own territories in the years that followed, with the hangover of the Nazi dictatorship leaving bad associations with colonization.

World War II transformed the political, economic, and social structures of the world, and established the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

The United Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and the US emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the half-century Cold War. In the wake of Europe's devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonization of Africa and of Asia. Many countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion.

There can be no real statistical measurement of the human and material cost of World War II. The money cost to governments involved has been estimated at more than $1,000,000,000,000 but this figure cannot represent the human misery, deprivation, and suffering, the dislocation of peoples and of economic life, or the sheer physical destruction of property that the war involved.

Ocean liner "Queen Elizabeth" bringing American troops into New York Harbor at the end of WWII, 1945

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My brother Clem (July 2, 1925 – July 26, 1991) served in the Air Force during the war.

He was a tail gunner in a bomber aircraft, tasked with defending against enemy fighters from the rear. Operating in cramped compartments often in uncomfortable kneeling positions. There were approximately 18,000 B-17 tail gunners served during the war with around 5,000 casualties. I remember him talking about being shot down over Germany, and described shrapnel passing thru where he was moments before bending over to pick up his pencil.

1943

USS General Harry Taylor transport ship launched, in the United States Navy in World War II named in honor of U.S. Army Chief of Engineers Harry Taylor.

Sailed from San Francisco on 23 June 1944 with troop reinforcements for Milne Bay, New Guinea. After returning to San Francisco on 3 August with veterans of the Guadalcanal campaign embarked, she continued transport voyages between San Francisco and island bases in the western Pacific. During the next 10 months, she steamed to New Guinea, the Solomons, New Caledonia, the Marianas, the New Hebrides, the Palaus, and the Philippines, carrying troops and supplies, until 29 June 1945 when she departed San Francisco for duty in the Atlantic.

Decommissioned on 13 June 1946 at Baltimore. She was stricken from the Navy Register on 3 July 1946.

The General Harry Taylor had been part of the US Army Transport Service (USAT) up until March 1950 when she became part of the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS).

Placed in reserve in 1958, she was transferred to the U.S. Air Force in 1961 and renamed USAFS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg in 1963 in honor of the former Air Force Chief of Staff. She was reacquired by the U.S. Navy in 1964 as USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg.

In 1957, she took part in the Hungarian Relief program, transporting several thousand refugees of the short-lived Hungarian Revolution to Australia. She was placed in ready reserve on 19 September 1957; stricken from the Naval Register on 10 July 1958 and transferred back to the Maritime Administration the same day. She was placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Beaumont, Texas.

General Harry Taylor was then transferred to the U.S. Air Force, on 15 July 1961, and was renamed USAFS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg on 11 June 1963.

On 1 July 1964, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was acquired by the Navy and designated T-AGM-10, as a missile range instrumentation ship, one of ten such ships transferred from the Commander, Air Force Eastern Test Range, to MSTS. In 1974 the ship, commanded by Captain Anderson, deployed to Dakar, Senegal, to participate in the Global Atmospheric Research Program.

After conversion into a missile range instrumentation ship

"Equipped with extremely accurate and discriminating radar and telemetry equipment," she tracked and analyzed "re-entry bodies in the terminal phase of ballistic missile test flights," carrying out those missile and spacecraft tracking duties in both Atlantic and Pacific waters until her retirement in 1983. She was ultimately stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 29 April 1993.

In 1998, some scenes of the horror/sci-fi film Virus were filmed aboard the ex-General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The ship substituted for a fictional Russian vessel called the Akademik Vladislav Volkov, and some of the Cyrillic lettering applied for the film is still visible on the hull today.

The ship was transferred to the Maritime Administration on 1 May 1999. Her projected transfer to the state of Florida, for use as an artificial reef, received approval on 13 February 2007. The ship was sunk 6 miles off the Florida Keys in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

On 12 April 2009, the Vandenberg left the shipyard in Norfolk, VA and began the long tow to Key West. On 22 April 2009 she arrived in the Key West Harbor where she was moored at the East Quay Pier. The sinking took place on Wednesday, 27 May 2009.

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Wife Mary’s family took this ship from Bremerhaven Germany to New York October 28 – November 7, 1949

Manifest of in-bound passengers

They had to get inspected, disinfected, given shots, and waited 2 weeks. The women and children in one barracks and the men in another.

One night Mary (age 9) fell off the upper bunk bed onto the floor and had some bruising on my side. It had to be kept secret to avoid being prevented from sailing.

We were loaded onto the USS General Harry Taylor for their trip to New York. Women and children got cabins, single women had quarters on the lower level. Her grandmother was sent to the lower level, but her mother snuck her back to stay with them. They tied scarves to bunk beds to keep them from sliding from side to side.

The men were at the back lower part of ship, they had to work swabbing the deck and kitchen work.

Most of the passengers were seasick. Lots of food was prepared for Thanksgiving, but few could eat.

Daily drills to make sure people knew how and where to go in case of emergency.

Route from Bremerhaven Germany to New York October 28 – November 7, 1949

Ship Captain

When the ship got close to New York they released carrier pigeons. The method for letting the destination port know that we were arriving.

1945

Fluoridation of drinking water, in the United States began on January 25, Grand Rapids, Michigan2. It was the first city in the world to add fluoride to its public water supply specifically to prevent tooth decay. This initiative was part of a long-term study sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General and later overseen by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

The results were striking: over 15 years, the rate of cavities among nearly 30,000 schoolchildren dropped by more than 60%. By 1960, fluoridation had expanded widely, reaching about 50 million Americans, and it became a cornerstone of public health policy. In 1999 reaches an estimated 144 million persons in the United States. Fluoridation safely and inexpensively benefits both children and adults by effectively preventing tooth decay, regardless of socioeconomic status or access to care. Fluoridation has played an important role in the reductions in tooth decay (40%-70% in children) and of tooth loss in adults (40%-60%)

In the first part of the 20th century, dental caries [dental decay and cavities] were very prevalent, costly conditions that caused a lot of suffering, and impacted the entire population. There was a lot of tooth loss in children, and there were toothaches and abscesses related to extensive dental decay. The problems left many Americans with no teeth at all.