World War II was a global conflict that dramatically changed societies and landscapes around the world. It also left behind a vast and diverse material record. Although the battles of the conflict never reached Fiji, a British colony in the South Pacific, the War's impact on the island group is clear. Through 1942 and part of 1943, while under threat of Japanese invasion, defensive installation...

In March 1908, the BASF at Ludwigshafen provided financial support to Fritz Haber in his attempt to synthesize ammonia from the elements. The process that now famously bears his name was demonstrated to BASF in July 1909. However, its engineer was Haber’s private assistant, Robert Le Rossignol, a young British chemist from the Channel Islands with whom Haber made a generous financial arrangemen...

PURPOSE We examined the adjustment to societal change following the fall of communism in a group of Soviet war veterans from Russia and the Ukraine. The focus of the study was on the dynamics of identity development, and especially generativity, in a period of intense social upheaval. DESIGN AND METHODS We administered measures of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and generativity to 50 World W...

The use of civilian expertise to assist the military medical corps during times of conflict is not a new concept. Perhaps, one of the most noted examples was the service of Edward D. Churchill, MD, who volunteered to serve as the chief surgical consultant in the North African and Mediterranean theaters during World War II. A colonel in the US Army, Dr. Churchill followed his deployed surgical u...

Programs intended to improve nutrition often fall short of expectations. One exception, however, occurred during the rationing years of World War II, when U.S. citizens were encouraged to incorporate protein-rich organ meats into their protein-deficient diets. Unfortunately, most of the insights resulting from these efforts remained unpublished or in limited distribution. For the first time, th...

Nearly 25% of U.S. men aged 55 or older served in combat, yet its impact on aging is unknown. The relationship of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms to combat exposure was examined in 1,210 veterans of World War II (WWII) and the Korean War, who were participants in the Normative Aging Study. Over 54% of WWII and 19% of Korean veterans reported combat experience. The relationship bet...

The history of air medical transport (AMT) dates to before World War I, when the French evacuated soldiers from Serbia using airplanes as ambulances as early as 1915. The first recorded use of a U.S. military air ambulance was in 1918 when an airplane was converted to accommodate a litter patient in the rear cockpit. During World War II, more than 1.1 million sick and wounded soldiers were airl...