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Opelousas- Graveside Funeral services for Mr. James Tecson, age 82, were held on Friday, March 19, 2010, with Interment in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Washington, Louisiana. Rev. Louis Charriere officiated. The Keesler AFB Honor Guard rendered last honors at the services.
Mr. Tecson, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, and a resident of Jennings, Louisiana, died after a short illness, on Monday, March 15, 2010, at 9:10 p.m. at Louisiana Extended Care Hospital, located in Lafayette General Medical Center in Lafayette, Louisiana.
He was an infantryman in the U. S. Army and transferred to the Reserves after WWII. Shortly thereafter, he returned to active duty with the U. S. Army Air Corps. He was a Flight Engineer on B-29�??s, B-36�??s, and various other aircraft. Mr. Tecson flew during the Korean War and many strategic missions during the Cold War. He became an instructor in the U. S. Air Force the latter part of his 27-year career and retired as a Master Sergeant. After his service, he retired in Abilene, Texas, for approximately 30 years to raise his family. He moved to Opelousas after the death of his wife of 48 years, Mary Elizabeth Tecson.
Mr. Tecson was raised a Catholic and later was baptized into the Southern Baptist Church at the First Baptist Church in Tripoli, Libya. He was a life member of the VFW and the Air Force Sergeants Association. He was a member of the Non-Commissioned Officers Association, where he was a Knight of the Square Table and held the highest rank, Order of Excalibur.
He was a resident of the Louisiana War Veterans Home in Jennings, Louisiana. His family would like to thank all staff members and residents who made the last few months of his life enjoyable.
Survivors include three children: James and his wife, Betty of Virginia Beach, Virginia; Joseph and his wife, Kim of Frisco, Texas; and Mary Ellen Devillier and her husband, Christopher of Opelousas, Louisiana; two brothers: Marcus Lursano Tecson and his wife, Florence of Makakilo, Hawaii; and Howard Mata of Rome, New York; two sisters: Estrella Mata of Norway; and Sarah Tecson-Delos Rayes of Hawaii; and his seven Grandchildren: Jennifer Kaltenbach, Jasmine Berlanga, Ashley Bellington, Christopher Devillier, Jr., Logan Tecson, Jared Tecson, Katlin Tecson, and Cody Tecson; and one great-grandchild, Alyssa Bellington.
Mr. Tecson was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Watson Tecson; his parents: Fernando Tecson and Paula Eulalia Lursano Tecson; and one sister, Modesta Tecson.
Other Comments:
MSGT Tecson passed away March 15, 2010
Profile maintained by: Jim Tecson, MCPO-USN (ret), NTWS Member
World War II
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Overview of World War II
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
