Sefanaia Sukanaivalu
Sefanaia Sukanaivalu VC (1 January 1918 – 23 June 1944) was a Fijian soldier and a posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to Commonwealth forces. He is the only Fijian to be awarded the VC. Biography Sukanaivalu was born on Yacata, Fiji, on 1 January 1918 and joined the Fiji Infantry Regiment during World War II. By mid-1944, he was a corporal in the 3rd Battalion, which was taking part in the Bougainville campaign. He died under Japanese fire on 23 June 1944, at Mawaraka, during an attempt to rescue comrades, in circumstances which led to his being awarded the Victoria Cross. The citation reads: His body was eventually recovered by Australian forces assisted by members of the Fijian 1st Docks Company. Sukanaivalu was buried at Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery, New Britain, Papua New Guinea. In 2005, it was announced that there were plans to repatriate Sukanaivalu's remain ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949. The future George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria; he was named Albert at birth after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort, and was known as "Bertie" to his family and close friends. His father ascended the throne as George V in 1910. As the second son of the king, Albert was not expected to inherit the throne. He spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Prince Edward, the heir apparent. Albert attended naval college as a teenager and served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War. In 1920, he was made ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fijian Military Personnel Killed In World War II
Fijian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Fiji * The Fijians, persons from Fiji, or of Fijian descent. For more information about the Fijian people, see: ** Demographics of Fiji ** Culture of Fiji * The Fijian language * Fijian cuisine See also * List of Fijians This list comprises Fijian citizens, and some foreigners associated with Fiji. For the sake of size, persons who could be listed under multiple categories should generally be listed only under the category for which they are best known. The te ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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People From Yacata
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal obligation, legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its us ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1944 Deaths
Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in North Africa. ** Landing at Saidor: 13,000 US and Australian troops land on Papua New Guinea, in an attempt to cut off a Japanese retreat. * January 8 – WWII: Philippine Commonwealth troops enter the province of Ilocos Sur in northern Luzon and attack Japanese forces. * January 11 ** President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a Second Bill of Rights for social and economic security, in his State of the Union address. ** The Nazi German administration expands Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp into the larger standalone ''Konzentrationslager Plaszow bei Krakau'' in occupied Poland. * January 12 – WWII: Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle begin a 2-day conference in Marrakech. * January 14 – WWII: Sovi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1918 Births
This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January – 1918 flu pandemic: The "Spanish flu" (influenza) is first observed in Haskell County, Kansas. * January 4 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Soviet Russia, Sweden, Germany and France. * January 9 – Battle of Bear Valley: U.S. troops engage Yaqui Native American warriors in a minor skirmish in Arizona, and one of the last battles of the American Indian Wars between the United States and Native Americans. * January 15 ** The keel of is laid in Britain, the first purpose-designed aircraft carrier to be laid down. ** The Red Army (The Workers and Peasants Red Army) is formed in the Russian SFSR and Soviet Union. * January 18 - The Historic Concert for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Register Of The Victoria Cross
''The Register of the Victoria Cross'' is a reference work that provides brief information on every Victoria Cross awarded until the publication date. Each entry provides a summary of the deed, along with a photograph of the recipient and the following details where applicable or available – rank, unit, other decorations, date of gazette A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspaper ..., place/date of birth, place/date of death, memorials, town/county connections, and any remarks. The book was first published by the quarterly magazine, '' This England'' in 1981, a revised and enlarged edition in 1988 and a third edition in 1997. There is no editor noted on the cover page or the title page but Nora Buzzell is acknowledged in all three edition specially in the 1988 and 1997 editi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Monuments To Courage
David Charles Harvey (29 July 1946 – 4 March 2004) was a historian and author. He is notable for his seminal work, ''Monuments To Courage'', which documents the graves of almost all recipients of the Victoria Cross, a task that took him over 36 years to complete. Biography Harvey was born in East Ham, London, the son of a grocer, and worked as a salesman after he attended Hinchley Wood School in Surrey. He later joined the Metropolitan Police, where he started the mounted police magazine ''One One Ten'', before he moved to Denver, Colorado, to run an equestrian centre for over a decade. A chance meeting with Canon William Lummis led him to take over his life-work of researching and documenting the final resting places of all Victoria Cross recipients. This task took Harvey to 48 countries over the next four decades. However, an accident during a visit to the Somme in 1992 left Harvey in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life and he later had to have a leg amputated. '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia (a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia). Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of . At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, including nearly 60 years of Australian administration starting during World War I, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Elizabeth II as its queen. It also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right. There are 839 known languages of Papua New Guinea, on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Britain
New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits) and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel. The main towns of New Britain are Rabaul/ Kokopo and Kimbe. The island is roughly the size of Taiwan. While the island was part of German New Guinea, it was named Neupommern ("New Pomerania"). In common with most of the Bismarcks it was largely formed by volcanic processes, and has active volcanoes including Ulawun (highest volcano nationally), Langila, the Garbuna Group, the Sulu Range, and the volcanoes Tavurvur and Vulcan of the Rabaul caldera. A major eruption of Tavurvur in 1994 destroyed the East New Britain provincial capital of Rabaul. Most of the town still lies under metres of ash, and the capital has been moved to nearby Kokopo. Geography ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |