Q 01/05

Which future US president commanded PT-109, a torpedo boat sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943?

A) Richard Nixon

B) John F. Kennedy

C) Gerald Ford

D) Lyndon B. Johnson

Answer · why

B) John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy scratched a rescue plea onto a coconut husk, which two islander scouts paddled 38 miles to deliver. He later kept the shell on his Ova...

Q 02/05

Which Native American language did Marine code talkers use for messages Japan never deciphered?

A) Cherokee

B) Comanche

C) Choctaw

D) Navajo

Answer · why

D) Navajo

Navajo was understood by so few outsiders, perhaps 30 by one estimate, that the Marines trusted it as a code. A three-line message took 20 seconds to ...

Q 03/05

On which island did Joe Rosenthal photograph US Marines raising a flag atop Mount Suribachi in 1945?

A) Iwo Jima

B) Chichi Jima

C) Kwajalein

D) Eniwetok

Answer · why

A) Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima's famous picture shows the second flag raised that day, a replacement for the first. It is the only photograph to win a Pulitzer Prize in the...

Q 04/05

Which June 1942 battle, fought six months after Pearl Harbor, cost Japan four aircraft carriers?

A) Java Sea

B) Santa Cruz

C) Midway

D) Bismarck Sea

Answer · why

C) Midway

The Battle of Midway cost the United States one carrier, Yorktown, against the four Japan lost. It is often called the turning point of the Pacific Wa...

Q 05/05

The Japanese word kamikaze, long used for typhoons that wrecked Mongol invasion fleets, means what?

A) Sacred storm

B) Heavenly wave

C) Dragon breath

D) Divine wind

Answer · why

D) Divine wind

Divine wind named the typhoons that scattered Kublai Khan's fleets in 1274 and 1281. Japan revived the word in 1944 for pilots sent to crash their pla...