Airman’s Blood Chit. Gift of John Garic, The National WWII Museum Inc., 2008.134.003.

View high resolution

James Doolittle attaches a Japanese friendship medals to a 500-pound bomb destined to drop on Tokyo.

Forgotten Women Victims of World War II →

Ahn Sehong had to go to China to recover a vanishing — and painful — part of Korea’s wartime history. Visiting small villages and overcoming barriers of language and distrust, he documented the tales of women — some barely teenagers — who had been forced into sexual slavery during World War II by the Japanese Army.

View high resolution

life:

We are sad to report that Cal Whipple, a former LIFE correspondent, died on March 17th at the age of 94. Whipple played a huge role in getting this groundbreaking photograph of three dead American soldiers published in LIFE magazine — a fight he took all the way to the White House.

The New York Times writes:

Mr. Whipple and his colleagues at Life believed that Mr. Strock’s photograph would provide a badly needed dose of reality for those on the home front who were growing complacent about the war effort. “I went from Army captain to major to colonel to general,” he recalled in a memoir written for his family, “until I wound up in the office of an assistant secretary of the Air Corps, who decided, ‘This has to go to the White House.’ ”

(via NYTimes)

(George Strock—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

More on this historic photo.

Registered Nurse Mary Barkei served with the Navy Nurse Corps during World War II. She was initially stationed in the United States, but in 1944 she received orders to go overseas with Naval Mobile Hospital No. 10. While sailing to her new post, she wrote to her mother, “Never as long as I live will I forget or regret this trip. Now after nearly a year and a half of so called Navy life, I may have a chance to do what I came in for.” Her mobile hospital was located on Banika, part of the Solomon Islands.

Despite its mobility, the hospital included eighteen surgical wards, twelve medical wards and a clinical laboratory. Naval Mobile Hospital No. 10 could treat 2,000 patients at a time, and only 15 of the 10,000 patients admitted between March 1944 and June 1945 died while at the hospital. Mary returned to the United States in October 1945.

Photos:

Navy Nurse Mary Barkei working in the hospital on Banika. Gift of Mary Barkei Marler, The National WWII Museum Inc., 2000.185.

Mary’s Navy Nursing Corps cap, with the same insignia as that worn by Navy men. Gift of Mary Barkei Marler, The National WWII Museum Inc., 2000.185.