The P-38 is a foldable carbon steel can opener that was
issued with canned United States military rations from
its introduction in 1942 to the end of canned ration
issuance in the 1980s.
Originally distributed in the K-ration, it was later included
in the C-ration. A larger later variant is known as the P-51.
The POW/MIA flag was first recognized on August 10, 1990.
Charles Bronson (November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003)
On August 30, 2003, the actor Charles Bronson, best known
for his tough-guy roles in such films as The Dirty Dozen and
the Death Wish franchise, died at the age of 81 in Cedar-
Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease have been cited as his
cause of death.
Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky on November 3, 1921,
in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian immigrants. The
11th of 15 children, he worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines
as a teenager and later served in the U.S. Army Air Forces
during World War II.
After the war, he worked a series of odd jobs and took acting
lessons. He had an uncredited part in the 1951 film You’re in
Navy Now, starring Gary Cooper, and a small part (credited
as Charles Buchinsky) in 1952’s Pat and Mike, with Spencer
Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
In the mid-1950s, he changed his name to Bronson because
he believed it wasn’t smart for an actor to have a Russian-
sounding last name at a time when there was a strong anti-
Communist sentiment in America.
1974
CARLATA BRADLEY
A Russian nuclear submarine sank to the bottom of the Barents
Sea on August 12, 2000; all 118 crew members are later found
dead. The exact cause of the disaster remains unknown.
Kursk left port on August 10 to take part in war games with the
Russian military. Russian ships, planes and submarines met
up in the Barents Sea, which is above the Arctic Circle, to
practice military maneuvers.
On August 12, Kursk was scheduled to fire a practice torpedo;
at 11:29 a.m., before doing so, two explosions spaced shortly
apart occurred in the front hull of the submarine and it plunged
toward the bottom of the sea.
On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on
Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers the following
day into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to
take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army.
Despite a strong Japanese army comprised of a million men
awaiting them, the Soviet force, under command of Marshal
Alexander Vasilevsky, swept into China, Korea and the Kuril
Islands, forcing a rapid retreat.
By the end of the engagement, the Soviets had only lost around
8,000 troops compared to the 80,000 lost by Japan.
