Our Mission

First Heroes began as an effort by a U.S. Marine aviator to find a family member who had failed to return from a bombing mission during the Second World War. The relative had traveled to Canada and flown bombers for the British Royal Air Force while America was still clinging to neutrality.

While researching the missing pilot’s life, we learned he was not alone in joining the fight. He was one of over 10,000 Americans – enough people to fill an army division – who made extraordinary journeys and risked all to fight evil. First Heroes is dedicated to those individuals.

Among them were the wealthiest and poorest, some of whom the Great Depression had hit hard; immigrants and descendants of the oldest American families; blue-collar laborers and college graduates. First Heroes volunteered to fight alongside our allies while America remained neutral.

People Who Matter

Their story has been obscured

Their heroism goes unacknowledged

Their trauma remains unhealed

They have been erased

First Heroes FAQs

First Heroes believes that education plays a vital role in shaping the world of tomorrow. The story of these volunteers deserves to be a recognized chapter in the American narrative. They were the First Heroes of the Greatest Generation; their story took place on an unacknowledged chapter in the story of the U.S.’s road to war. It is time to tell that story.

YES. Before America entered into the war, their exploits were splashed across headlines. However, public attention shifted to Americans in the U.S. military very soon after the Pearl Harbor attack.
NO. While public sentiment varied from place to place, the House of Representatives sent the Nationality Act of 1940 to the Senate. The Act included provisions for expatriating — stripping citizenship — from anybody who enlisted in a foreign military service. By the time it was passed into law, it punished naturalized Americans but not by birth U.S. citizens. However, the Roosevelt administration knew of Canadian recruiting efforts in the United States in 1939 and quietly set the stage for the recruiters’ clandestine efforts to succeed.
Congress passed legislation in 1952 to allow those who had lost their citizenship in the British and Canadian militaries to apply for restoration of their citizenship
The First Heroes were welcomed back into their communities by loving families and friends. However, they were not admitted into veterans’ organizations, and the families of those who died in service were not included among the Gold Star families.
YES. In the year following America’s entry into the war, teams of American officers visited British and Canadian units to invite Americans to transfer. Over 2,000 entered the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
No. They and their families are not acknowledged at these ceremonies.

Will Congress Honor Them?

HR1372

HR 1372: The American Patriots of WWII through Service with the Canadian and British Armed Forces Gold Medal Act of 2023 was introduced on March 3, 2023 by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (VA-07). When signed into law, it will authorize a gold medal for all United States nationals who voluntarily joined the Canadian and British Armed Forces and their supporting entities during World War II, in recognition of their dedicated service. The bill was referred to the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on House Administration. However, the Speaker of the House will not put the bill on the calendar for consideration until it has 218 co-sponsors.

To determine if your congressional representative is a co-sponsor, click HR 1372 cosponsors.

To find the contact information for your congressional representative, click Who Is My Representative?

Get In Touch With Us

768/3

Who we are

 

Our website address is: https://firstheroesww2.org.

 

Comments

 

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

 

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

 

Media

 

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

 

Cookies

 

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

 

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

 

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

 

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

 

Embedded content from other websites

 

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

 

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

 

Who we share your data with

 

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

 

How long we retain your data

 

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

 

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

 

What rights you have over your data

 

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

 

Where your data is sent

 

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.