#OnthisDay 1939: Winston Churchill gave his first wartime broadcast, on the recently created BBC Home Service. | BBC Archive

In WW2, a Japanese American battalion became one of the most decorated army units in US military history. Nicknamed The Purple Heart Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was set up in 1943. After Japan bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, but many were keen to show their loyalty to the US. Hundreds of recruits came from the camps, while thousands of others were from the Japanese American community in Hawaii. Among them was 19-