On February 8, 1943, Japanese troops evacuated Guadalcanal,
leaving the island in Allied possession after a prolonged campaign.
The American victory paved the way for other Allied wins in the
Solomon Islands.
Guadalcanal is the largest of the Solomons, a group of 992 islands
and atolls, 347 of which are inhabited, in the South Pacific Ocean.
"Guadalcanal" Painting by Keinichi Nakamura 1943.
Walter Botts (1900-72) posing as Uncle Sam in front of the
iconic poster, ca. 1970.
Artist James Montgomery Flagg referred to his own mirror image
for the portrait of “Uncle Sam” he created for the cover of the July
6, 1916 issue of Leslie’s Weekly. The figure in the long-tailed coat,
stove pipe hat and sideburns was captioned “What Are You Doing
for Preparedness?”
When asked to update the highly effective image for use in World
War 2, Flagg hired a Hoosier-born veteran who’d posed for Norman Rockwell. According to his widow’s memoir, Walter Botts was
chosen over other models for Flagg’s Army poster “because he
had the longest arms, the longest nose, and the bushiest
eyebrows.”
Botts reportedly suggested the pointing gesture when the artist
asked “Walt, what are you going to do with your long arms,
sitting there?”
James Montgomery Flagg
(June 18, 1877 – May 27, 1960)
On December 27, 1944, as World War II dragged on, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered his secretary of war to seize
properties belonging to the Montgomery Ward company
because they refused to comply with a labor agreement.
In an effort to avert strikes in critical war-support industries,
Roosevelt (below) created the National War Labor Board in
1942.
The board negotiated settlements between management and
workers to avoid shut-downs in production that might cripple
the war effort. During the war, the well-known retailer and
manufacturer Montgomery Ward had supplied the Allies with
everything from tractors to auto parts to workmen’s clothing–
items deemed as important to the war effort as bullets and
ships. However, Ward’s Chairman Sewell Avery (below)
refused to comply with the terms of three different collective
bargaining agreements which the United Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union hammered United Retail,
Wholesale and Department Store Union hammered out
between 1943 and 1944.
President Roosevelt creating the National War Labor Board
in 1942.
The ferry carrier, USNS Core, arrived in Saigon with the first U,S,
helicopter unit. This contingent included 33 H-21C Shawnee Pysanki
helicopters and 400 air and ground crewmen to operate and maintain
them.Their assignment was to airlift South Vietnamese Army troops
into combat.
