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USS Gurke (DD-783)
USS ''Gurke'' (DD-783) was a ''Gearing''-class destroyer of the United States Navy, in service from 1945 to 1976. She was transferred to Greece in 1977 and served as ''Tombazis'' (D 215) until 1997. History DD-783 was originally laid down as " John A. Bole", but that name was reassigned to the . ''Gurke'' was named for United States Marine Corps Private Henry Gurke (1922–1943), who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. She was launched on 15 February 1945 by the Todd-Pacific Shipyards, Inc., Tacoma, Washington; sponsored by Mrs. Julius Gurke, mother of Private Gurke; and commissioned on 12 May 1945. 1945 – 1962 After shakedown along the West Coast, ''Gurke'' sailed for the Western Pacific on 27 August 1945, reaching Pearl Harbor on 2 September. From there she continued west to participate in the occupation of Japan and former Japanese possessions. Returning to her home port, San Diego, California, in February 1946, ''Gurke'' participated in training operation ...
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Henry Gurke
Private First Class Henry Gurke (November 6, 1922 – November 9, 1943) was a United States Marine who was killed in action in 1943 in the Bougainville Campaign of World War II. For his heroic actions, he was posthumously received the Medal of Honor — the highest military honor bestowed by the United States. Biography Henry Gurke was born in Neche, North Dakota on November 6, 1922, to immigrant parents, Julius Gurke (1884–1968), a German-speaking carpenter from Dubno, a city on the Ikva River in the Rivne Oblast (province) of western Ukraine and his wife, Hulda Fischer Gurke (1890–1970). His parents had first immigrated to Canada from Ukraine and then to the United States from Winnipeg, Manitoba in July 1912. The fifth of eight children, he was baptized in the Lutheran Church, and attended the local schools around Neche, a small town in the northeast corner of North Dakota, one mile from the Canadian bordertown of Gretna, Manitoba. After graduation from high school in 19 ...
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Medal Of Honor
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. The medal is normally awarded by the president of the United States, but as it is presented "in the name of the United States Congress", it is sometimes erroneously referred to as the "Congressional Medal of Honor". There are three distinct variants of the medal: one for the Department of the Army, awarded to soldiers, one for the Department of the Navy, awarded to sailors, marines, and coast guardsmen, and one for the Department of the Air Force, awarded to airmen and guardians. The Medal of Honor was introduced for the Department of the Navy in 1861, soon followed by the Department of the Army's version in 1862. The Department of the Air Force used the Department of the Army's version until they received their own distinctive version i ...
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United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka
or is a United States Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan. Its mission is to maintain and operate base facilities for the logistic, recreational, administrative support and service of the U.S. Naval Forces Japan, Seventh Fleet and other operating forces assigned in the Western Pacific. CFAY is the largest strategically important U.S. naval installation in the western Pacific. Fleet Activities Yokosuka comprises 2.3 km2 (568 acres) and is located at the entrance of Tokyo Bay, 65 km (40 mi) south of Tokyo and approximately 30 km (20 mi) south of Yokohama on the Miura Peninsula in the Kantō region of the Pacific Coast in Central Honshu, Japan. The 55 tenant commands which make up this installation support U.S. Navy Pacific operating forces, including principal afloat elements of the United States Seventh Fleet, including the only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier, , the group she heads, Carrier Strike Group Five, and Destroyer Squadron 15. Histo ...
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Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950) , place = Korean Peninsula, Yellow Sea, Sea of Japan, Korea Strait, China–North Korea border , territory = Korean Demilitarized Zone established * North Korea gains the city of Kaesong, but loses a net total of {{Convert, 1506, sqmi, km2, abbr=on, order=flip, including the city of Sokcho, to South Korea. , result = Inconclusive , combatant1 = {{Flag, First Republic of Korea, name=South Korea, 1949, size=23px , combatant1a = {{Plainlist , * {{Flagicon, United Nations, size=23px United Nations Command, United Nations{{Refn , name = nbUNforces , group = lower-alpha , On 9 July 1951 troop constituents were: US: 70.4%, ROK: 23.3% other UNC: 6.3%{{Cite ...
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Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., it borders the Canadian province of British Columbia and the Yukon territory to the east; it also shares a maritime border with the Russian Federation's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug to the west, just across the Bering Strait. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean, while the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. Alaska is by far the largest U.S. state by area, comprising more total area than the next three largest states (Texas, California, and Montana) combined. It represents the seventh-largest subnational division in the world. It is the third-least populous and the most sparsely populated state, but by far the continent's most populous territory located mostly north of the 60th parallel, with ...
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Naval Station San Diego
Naval Base San Diego, also known as 32nd Street Naval Station, is the second largest surface ship base of the United States Navy and is located in San Diego, California. Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, consisting of over 50 ships and over 150 tenant commands. The base is composed of 13 piers stretched over of land and of water. The total on base population is over 24,000 military personnel and over 10,000 civilians. History The of land on which the Naval Base sits today was occupied in 1918 by a coalition of concrete ship building firms known as the Emergency Fleet Corporation, under the single company name Pacific Marine Construction. But Pacific Marine began to lose profits with the conclusion of World War I, and negotiated a return of the land back to the City of San Diego. Meanwhile, the Navy was exploring the small tract of land to establish a west coast ship repair facility and moved on the opportunity to acquire the land. By 1920, ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ...
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Occupation Of Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States with support from the British Commonwealth and under the supervision of the Far Eastern Commission, involved a total of nearly 1 million Allied soldiers. The occupation was overseen by American General Douglas MacArthur, who was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers by US President Harry Truman; MacArthur was succeeded as supreme commander by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951. Unlike in the occupation of Germany, the Soviet Union had little to no influence over the occupation of Japan, declining to participate because it did not want to place Soviet troops under MacArthur's direct command. This foreign presence marks the only time in Japan's history that it has been occupied by a foreign power. However, unlike in Germany the Alli ...
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Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands are now a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U.S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet and the right to maintain a repair and coaling station for ships here in 1887. The surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, led the United States to declare war on the Empire of Japan, making the attack on Pearl Harbor the immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War II. History Pearl Harbor was originally an extensive shallow embayment called ''Wai Momi'' (meaning, “Waters of Pearl”) or ''Puuloa'' (meaning, “long hill”) by the Hawaiians. Puuloa was r ...
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Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined .Pacific Ocean
. '' Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The centers of both the