For more than seventy-two years, the ten-man crew of a particular World War II United States Army Air Forces B-17 has held a special place in the hearts of the citizens of Lomianki, Poland. The airmen named their Flying Fortress “I’ll Be Seeing You” after the song that was made so popular during the war by the renowned singer Bing Crosby that it became an anthem for American and British servicemen who were stationed away from their loved ones. Sgt.
The small town of Iuka, Mississippi, located in the state’s northeast corner, experienced its one and only American Civil War battle on September 19, 1862. The battle resulted from unique circumstances.
Major General Fox Conner, inducted into the Mississippi Hall of Fame in 1987, never achieved fame outside his chosen profession. He lived quietly and unobtrusively, he never sought publicity, and he died in relative obscurity. Yet in the minds of his fellow soldiers and in the judgment of military historians, Fox Conner was perhaps the most influential officer in the United States Army between World War I and World War II. He was General John J. Pershing’s right-hand man in building the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I.
The fall of the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, to Communist forces in 1975 marked the end of thirty years of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Since the late 1940s, the United States had attempted to contain the spread of Communism in this region, and after 1954 had supported the division of the country into Communist North Vietnam and non-Communist South Vietnam. It was complicated, however, by home-grown Communists in South Vietnam who waged a civil war to achieve unification with North Vietnam.
The service of African Americans with the Confederate army during the American Civil War has long intrigued historians and Civil War buffs. Were these men soldiers or servants? Did they get shot? Why did they serve, and what was the nature of the relationship between Bblack servants and their White masters in uniform? The answers to these questions may never be completely understood, but one thing is clear from a variety of sources: African Americans were an integral part of the Confederate war effort.
As the United States entered World War I in 1917, the nation stood divided on the country’s entry. Even within our own state, public opinion was divided. As political turmoil brewed in the state over the U.S. war effort, many men answered the call of duty while others opposed the country’s war effort. The viewpoints of Mississippians can best be seen in the actions and through the words of Mississippi’s two U.S. senators, John Sharp Williams and James K. Vardaman.
As many people in the United States in the 1840s believed in the country’s Manifest Destiny — to expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean — many Mississippians answered the call of duty in order to achieve this American goal by volunteering for the Mexican-American War.