Vanishing Generation, Part 6 - Red Ball Express - Episode 6

Major C. "Buck" Wiley recalls the Red Ball Express, loading up "all those 250 trucks...with ammunition...take them to the front...gasoline...and then when it started snowing, and when the Battle of the Bulge started, Red Ball Express was given the task of going to the battlefield and collecting all the dead G.I. soldiers who were frozen...most of them were frozen, we would put 25 men...in the truck...the truck back of that one, we'd put...25 live or wounded German soldiers in each truck...that was almost worse than Pearl Harbor." (He continues to talk about this in great detail that is difficult to listen to.)

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Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity

When this documentary was produced, sixty years had passed since the end of World War II, and the last of the South Carolina veterans who fought against the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany were dying...

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Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity

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Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity

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Vanishing Generation, Part 1

Episode 1

World War II is the most important event of the 20th Century. It changed everything. Fifty million people died in World War II, including 405,000 Americans. The United States became a world power, the...

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Vanishing Generation, Part 2

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World War II occurred during the 1940s when segregation was still the norm in America. The African Americans who fought were in a segregated army even overseas in England. One of the reasons the...

Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity Vanishing Generation, Part 3 3

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Vanishing Generation, Part 3

Episode 3

Don Ziglar, U.S.S. Yorktown Quartermaster, recalls Japanese fighter planes coming toward the Yorktown. The captain was out on the wing of the bridge, at the starboard side. The bridge wasn't big...

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Vanishing Generation, Part 4

Episode 4

Tom Grove, prisoner of war survivor, recalls the Battle of the Bulge, and says that is where he got his first combat injury. He was taken prisoner that day, after a German tank pulled up in front of...

Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity Vanishing Generation, Part 5 5

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Vanishing Generation, Part 5

Episode 5

Russell Meyne, B-17 pilot, says, "But Pearl Harbor, of course, was one about 4-hour period," and he didn't get hit, didn't get shot..."there was no continuity to it...the beginning and end was right...

Vanishing Generation: WWII Learning Activity Vanishing Generation, Part 7 7

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Vanishing Generation, Part 7

Episode 7

Tee Senn, cryptologist, speaks of the tank battles, about the reality, not TV, and seeing a tank explode. "...For years...you wake up...it gets to you...it's something that you don't ever want to have...

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Vanishing Generation, Part 8

Episode 8

Tom Grove, prisoner of war survivor, tells the story of being in his second prison camp, and hearing bombing way off in the distance, and how the noise of artillery got louder and closer, along with...

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Vanishing Generation, Part 9

Episode 9

Veterans of World War II reflect on whether they should be considered heroes or not. One says he happened to be over there, and he volunteered to go to Hawaii, but they didn't know the war would come...

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Vanishing Generation, Part 10

Episode 10

The single most important event in world history in the 20th century occurred more than sixty years ago, and we have lost many of our ties to that past. Preserving the history of World War II has...