World War Ii

Kang Il-chul rides in the back of a van packed with gossiping old women. The 82-year-old girlishly covers her mouth to whisper a secret. "We argue a lot about the food," she says, wrinkling her nose. "To tell you the truth, some of these old ladies are grouchy." There are eight of them, sharing a hillside home on the outskirts of Seoul, sparring over everything from territory to room temperature. Some wear makeup and stylish hats; others are happy in robes and slippers.

Shin Jin-tae says he lives in the unluckiest town on Earth. During World War II, when the Japanese occupied Korea, thousands of residents of this small farming community were shipped to Japan to work in munitions factories. Their destination: Hiroshima. Shin and his family were there on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, when the U.S. military dropped the atomic bomb, leveling the city center and vaporizing many of those within a mile of the blast.

For decades, three Italian Renaissance paintings have hung on the walls of Hearst Castle without betraying their grim history. But on Friday, state parks officials will formally acknowledge the artworks' past, turning them over to the heirs of a Jewish couple who were forced by the Nazis to liquidate their Berlin art gallery in 1935.

When a German general cautions his fellow conspirators in the new film "Valkyrie" that "nothing ever goes according to plan," he was referring to an elaborate plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. But he could just as well have been talking about the spate of Hollywood World War II movies that have invaded multiplexes in recent weeks. These current films include a wide mix of genres.

Grace Obata Amemiya was a pre-nursing student at UC Berkeley in 1942 when she, her family and 120,000 other Japanese Americans were forced from their schools and homes and sent to federal internment camps. The wartime relocations destroyed her childhood dream of a University of California diploma. Amemiya, now 88, joyfully returned to UC on Thursday and was named a graduate six decades late.

After a decades-long struggle, Filipino veterans of World War II finally may be granted U.S. military benefits thanks to, of all things, the economic stimulus legislation. A $198-million provision of the proposed Senate stimulus bill would authorize one-time payments of $15,000 to Filipino veterans who are U.S. citizens -- many of whom live in California -- and $9,000 for noncitizens, including those in the Philippines.

The cathedral bells pealed for an entire hour, tolling not just one man's death but the passing of an era. Harry Patch was 111 when he died two weeks ago, and his body was laid to rest Thursday after a memorial service here in the medieval city of Wells, in southwestern England. But it wasn't for his longevity that hundreds of mourners lined the streets and gathered solemnly on the cathedral lawn under rainy skies.

Erich Kaestner, a soldier believed to have been Germany's last World War I veteran, died Jan. 1 at a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 107, his son said Friday. When France's next-to-last surviving veteran from World War I, Louis de Cazenave, 110, died Jan. 20, the news made international headlines.

In years past, building a central park was about creating an escape from urban life with little nod to what it was replacing. But the designers of the Orange County Great Park, which is being built on 1,347 acres of the former El Toro Marine Corps base, are taking a new approach, embracing the site's military past rather than bulldozing it.

"Military Intelligence and You!" is two movies for the price of one. It's both a loving spoof of World War II films and a pointed satire on America's involvement in Iraq. These two different aims complement each other surprisingly well, the geniality of the spoof making it possible for the satire to effectively hit its targets.