Classroom Activities - Media Literacy 

These lessons are based on the documentary Valor and Memory, and extend from the Flying Tigers’ exemplars into the experiences of the Armed Forces and the Home Front during and after World War II. Although there may not be time to use the entire documentary, you might show short excerpts from it. Teachers can use any of the lessons as they teach about World War II or during commemorations planned for Veterans’ Day. They will work best in Jigsaw groups of 6 students in 3 pairs.

FLYING TIGERS (AVG) KILLED IN ACTION

Neil Martin - December 1941

Henry Gilbert - December 1941

Allen Christman - January 1942           

Louis Hoffman - January 1942

Thomas Cole - January 1942

Edward Leibolt - February 1942

John Newkirk - March 1942

John Donovan - May 1942

Robert Little - May 1942

John Petach - July 1942

For every 1000 Americans who served in World War II, 8.6 were killed in action. From just 200 Flying Tigers, 10 died in air battles over China, the Burma Road and what is now Thailand, among the most dangerous combat events in the war. Here is how the death of New Jersey native John Petach was reported in 1942.

WHO WAS JOHN PETACH? (click to see video)

(During World War II, it was common in America to use the word “Jap.” That term is now recognized as deeply offensive to Japanese and Japanese-Americans. It is included here only in an historic context.)

“The last communication received from him by the family was in February.” Four months had elapsed before Petach’s death. How is the communication from the military to home families different today?

As the war continued, there was a huge volume of letters home to loved ones of the Greatest Generation. How did the government manage this volume? Research “Vmail.” Why was Vmail often censored?

World War II Letters | National Postal Museum (si.edu)

Letters from families and sweethearts at home contained lipstick kisses, graduation programs, photographs, and sometimes drawings. Choose one of the 8 pilots who died, and note the month of his death. Write a letter he would never receive from his loved one, describing what was happening on the home front.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-american-home-front-and-world-war-ii.htm

TEACHERS: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD HANDOUTS TO SHARE WITH STUDENTS

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What made this “The Greatest Generation”?

The “Greatest Generation” is a term used to describe Americans who became adults during the desperate Great Depression of the 1930’s and then fought in World War II, or worked at home to win it. Reporter Tom Brokaw called them “a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor, a legacy of their formative years when they were participants in and witness to sacrifices of the highest order.…This is the greatest generation any society has produced.”

 The documentary Valor and Memory traces the story of a remarkable group of young volunteer pilots who flew missions against the Japanese before the United States was officially in the war. If you can watch the film, or parts of it, the idea of a greatest generation will surely come to mind.  Watch the trailer for a 1942 John Wayne film, and you will see that it certainly entered the minds of Hollywood producers.

THE FLYING TIGERS (click to see video)

History of the Flying Tigers

These ace pilots were not members of the US armed forces during the seven months when they volunteered as the “American Volunteer Group.” They were in fact hired in by China’s leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Air Force in 1941 to combat better equipped Japanese aircraft, as the Japanese invaded and massacred the Chinese people. 

 Their leader was Claire Chennault, a recently retired US Army aviator. Chennault convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to allow China to purchase 100 US airplanes. He recruited and trained flyers and support staff, including some Chinese Americans, to serve in this AVG. Based in the southern, unoccupied part of China, their most important role was to keep the Burma Road open to supply the Chinese. They are credited with downing 299 Japanese aircraft, and only lost 12 of their own.

 After Pearl Harbor, the Flying Tigers disbanded and Chennault and most of the AVG rejoined the armed forces. Some continued the mission of flying to supply the Chinese by joining the China National Aviation Corporation, carrying supplies instead of fighting Japanese airplanes.

 For their part, the Chinese built runways for the AVG in terrain that had never held such runways before. As you can see in “Valor and Memory,” the AVG has been honored both in the United States and in China.

 Why “Flying Tigers”? The airmen painted the heads of vicious tiger sharks on the noses of their aircraft.

Questions

Discuss in your pairs: What makes a “Great Generation”? Sacrifice, courage, empathy, altruism, opportunity, kindness, happiness, equality? Or some other values that a particular society lives by?

 In March of 1941. Why do you think that aviators would resign their US armed forces commissions to sign up with Chennault and the Chinese Air Force?

 After Pearl Harbor, many of the Flying Tigers served in Europe and won recognition as aces. Choose one of these to research his war record: Claire Chennault, Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, James H. Howard.

TEACHERS: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD HANDOUTS TO SHARE WITH STUDENTS

Valor in World War II: The Women

 Some 350,000 women served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, both at home and abroad. Civilian women on the home front were critical to the war effort too. Between 1940 and 1945, the era of “Rosie the Riveter,” the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945, nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. Many volunteered in organizations like the Red Cross and the USO.

“Rosie the Riveter,” painted by Norman Rockwell for The Saturday Evening Post magazine, represented the women who worked in wartime munitions factories, from the 19 million women who took jobs to replace the men in uniform. The Lanham Act of 1940 provided federal grants for child care to women who worked in defense plants.

Women whose family members served in the armed forces hung banners outside their front doors, honoring the sacrifice they made by running their households by themselves and the burden of worry that they shouldered. Rationing complicated providing food for the family.

Based on the star symbols used on the service flag, the term "Blue Star" came into use in the United States as a reference to having a family member in active military service, while the term "Gold Star" refers to the death of a family member in the service. For example, the mother of a person who died in service is referred to as a "Gold Star mother", and the wife of an active service member is referred to as a "Blue Star wife". In President Franklin Roosevelt’s November 1940 proclamation for Gold Star Mother’s Day, he wrote that “the service rendered to the United States by the American mother is the greatest source of the country’s strength and inspiration.”