Book Review
Fighter Group:
The 352nd
"Blue-Nosed Bastards"
in World War II
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Book Review: Fighter Group
Posted by Admin on: 2013-04-08 19:55:22 in category: Military History [ Print ]
LtCol (Ret) Jay A. Stout's latest book is a work of narrative journalism that reveals not only the glamorous aspects of life lived by American USAAF fighter pilots tasked with escorting B-17 and B-24 bombers, but also the mundane, awkward, hilarious, tragic and even despicable aspects as well.
It is a colourful, compelling, and above all, very human account of these young mens' lives.
Read more…
News Source: In-House
Ridgway: Iron Man at the Front
Posted by Donster on: 2013-03-05 15:38:05 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Carlo D'Este @ Historynet.com
Acts of great courage in war aren't limited to the battlefield. One little-known incident during World War II defined Major General Matthew B. Ridgway as a commander of unrivaled courage when he laid his career on the line at a critical moment.
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The USS Scorpion Buried at Sea
Posted by Donster on: 2013-02-15 15:44:24 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Ed Offley @ Historynet.com
Did U.S. and Soviet navy officials deep-six the real reason the American nuclear attack submarine Scorpion sank with 99 sailors aboard?
The crisis exploded without warning across the sprawling U.S. Navy community in Norfolk, Virginia: A nuclear submarine and its crew had vanished in the Atlantic. On May 27, 1968, USS Scorpion (SSN 598) failed to return as scheduled to its home port at the destroyer-submarine pier complex at the southern end of the waterfront.
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P-51 Pilot: A Day in the Life
Posted by Donster on: 2013-01-17 16:12:44 in category: Military History [ Print ]
A Mustang jockey recounts one of his most memorable missions—from start to finish.
By William Lyons @ Historynet.com
"You're on tomorrow," Captain John Poyen, 357th Squadron intelligence officer, tells me the day before the mission. It's November 25, 1944, and I'm a 20-year-old first lieutenant P-51 pilot from Brooklyn, New York, assigned to the 357th Squadron, 355th Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force, and based at Station 122, in Steeple Morden, England.
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From D-Day to Paris: The Story of a Lifetime
Posted by Donster on: 2012-05-14 16:46:24 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Three legendary war correspondents — Robert Capa, Ernie Pyle, and Ernest Hemingway — scramble to cover the Allied advance across France
By Alex Kershaw @ HISTORYnet.com
Loudspeakers blared: "Fight to get your troops ashore…. If you've got any strength left, fight to save yourselves…. Away all boats!…. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…." At 5:50 a.m., the battleships Texas and Arkansas opened up. In Life photographer Robert Capa's landing craft, which was nearing Omaha Beach, some men were bailing water frantically with their helmets. Others looked up at the heavy salvos flying over their heads and cheered.
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Life and Death on a Long Range Recon Patrol
Posted by Donster on: 2011-09-12 17:47:55 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Tom Corpora @ HistoryNet.com
When the formation of helicopters—a command and control chopper, two gunships, and the insertion and chase ships—neared its destination where Vietnam's Highway 19 crosses into Cambodia, the insertion and chase ships dropped from the formation and began an elaborate pas de deux of deception. With the gunships covering them, the insertion ship dropped into a clearing and hovered a moment, faking an insertion, while the chase ship roared past. Then the insertion ship rose suddenly and fell in behind the chase ship, which dropped into the next clearing to fake an insertion while the insertion ship flew past. The two helicopters performed this leapfrogging dance four times before the insertion chopper finally dropped its payload—four heavily camouflaged soldiers from the Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon (LRRP) of the 4th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade.
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March 30 – Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day
Posted by Donster on: 2011-03-21 15:59:19 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Armchair General Staff
On March 30, 1973, all U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam. There were no ticker-tape parades honoring the veterans, no triumphant marches or speeches as there at been at the end of each of the World Wars. America’s Vietnam veterans returned home to silence, or worse, in some cases to denigration for having served their country during a controversial war.
March 30, 2011, has been officially designated "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day."
The U.S. Senate resolution designating the day as one to provide overdue honor to the members of the armed services was introduced by Senator Richard Burr (R–North Carolina), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. This is the second consecutive year he has introduced such a resolution.
On March 30, make a special effort to say, "Welcome home."
Read on...
"Welcome home Old Guy ...Welcome home."
Donster
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France Invades North America in World War II
Posted by Donster on: 2011-03-09 15:32:55 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Stefen Styrsky @ Armchair General
World War Two evokes images of military forces clashing on a massive, if not continental scale: the D-Day invasion, Leyte Gulf, the North Africa Campaign come immediately to mind in any discussion of the conflict’s battles. Most are also imagined occurring outside the Western Hemisphere. Yet there was action, less expansive events, in other places—even North America.
One such incident was the invasion of two islands off the coast of Canada’s Newfoundland by the Free French. Despite its minor nature compared to what was happening elsewhere, the incident caused a serious rupture among the Allies and threatened an important agreement the United States possessed with Vichy France. It had the potential to dramatically alter the course of war.
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USS Robin – The Victorious U.S. Carrier that Didn’t Exist
Posted by Donster on: 2011-03-03 17:47:14 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Joseph Tremain @ Armchair General
It is not unusual for a ship to disappear at sea in wartime—but for a ship as a large as an aircraft carrier to suddenly appear from nowhere is noteworthy to say the least. That is exactly what it must have looked like to Japanese naval intelligence officers listening to American transmissions in the Pacific in early 1943.
This story begins in late 1942 when the United States Navy found itself in a precarious situation in the war with the Japanese Empire. At the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet was sunk and the USS Enterprise was severely damaged, temporarily putting it out of action. That left the USN with only one fleet carrier to carry on the South Pacific campaign in the Solomons. But in May of 1943, during Operation Cartwheel, which was intended to isolate and neutralize the Japanese base on Rabaul, a second fleet carrier suddenly appeared beside the only remaining operational US carrier, the USS Saratoga, which operated out of Noumea, New Caledonia. This new fleet carrier was being called the USS Robin, but it was not listed in the USN inventory, and it couldn’t be The USS Essex, which was nowhere near completion. Yet there she was—a full-sized fleet carrier complete with American Avengers and Wildcats on her deck. This mystery carrier, the USS Robin, might have become famous if it had taken part in any major fleet battle, but instead it has faded from all but the more detailed history books.
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Erwin Rommel – Roots of Victory, Seeds of Defeat
Posted by Donster on: 2011-02-14 16:29:34 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Douglas Sterling @ Armchair General
He was “the perfect fighting animal,” a man extolled in his own time as a military genius, even by his enemies. Of unquestionable courage and drive, of military dash and elan, he lived by his belief in the importance of direct command, of continuous movement and maneuver, of boldness to the point of rashness. Such was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, whom history and awed opponents mythologized as the “Desert Fox.”
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Vietnam Journal - Don Lomax Interview
Posted by Donster on: 2011-01-20 16:46:25 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Gerald D. Swick @ HistoryNet.com
Don Lomax is a 35-year-plus veteran of the competitive world of comic and cartoon artists. He is also a veteran of a much tougher struggle—the Vietnam War. Drafted in 1965, the following year he found himself serving in Vietnam with the 98th Light Equipment Company. Notes and sketches he made during his time there led him to create a critically acclaimed "comic," the graphic novel series Vietnam Journal, many years later. His words and artwork were literary napalm that burned away the sanitized versions of combat and soldiering found in traditional "war comics." The images are often violent, the characters' language at times profane; we asked for some of his tamer pages to run with this article.
Vietnam Journal garnered praise from Military Book Club, Publishers Weekly and numerous other sources, but it went out of print. Twice. Now the stories are being collected into graphic novel format and made available to readers again through Tranfuzion Publishing. HistoryNet's editor Gerald Swick recently interviewed Don Lomax about his work, his children—two sons have served in the military, one of whom is still on active duty—and what led him to break traditional comic-book boundaries and present a more realistic war comic.
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Mr. Stewart Goes to War
Posted by Donster on: 2011-01-17 17:18:52 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Richard L. Hayes @ HistoryNet.com
His paternal grandfather had fought against the South, and his father against Spain and Germany, so it was reasonable to assume James Maitland Stewart would serve in his turn. By the late 1930s, his career was just taking off with such hits as You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again. But with war looking inevitable, Stewart set his sights on a new role, this time in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He even bought his own plane, a Stinson 105, eventually graduating to multi-engine aircraft and earning a commercial pilot's license, all on his own.
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The Men Who Killed The Luftwaffe
Posted by Admin on: 2010-12-13 16:43:44 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Jay A. Stout, former F/A-18 fighter pilot and author of Hornets over Kuwait and several other books about combat aviation, has a new offering called The Men Who Killed the Luftwaffe: The U.S. Army Air Forces against Germany in World War II.
If you have even a passing interest in the air war over Europe and North Africa in WWII, then you will want to check out this review. Author Stout combines his extensive research into the evolution of the USAAF from its earliest, tentative beginnings and eventual maturation into the world's deadliest air force with dozens of incredible, gut-wrenching, and often tragic first-hand accounts of the men who flew the missions.
Link: Read the review.
News Source: COMBATSIM.COM
10 Battles That Shaped America
Posted by Donster on: 2010-11-08 17:00:05 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Thomas Fleming @ HistoryNet.com
Over the course of its history the United States military has engaged in many crucial and decisive battles. A few were truly tipping points that shaped wars' outcomes, peace, the national identity—and even literally shaped America. Any such selection is open to debate and interpretation. But the battles cited here have certainly helped create and define America. Indeed, had these battles ended differently, the United States would today be a far different nation.
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Yanks in the Royal Air Force
Posted by Donster on: 2010-10-14 16:20:49 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Alexander Kershaw @ HistoryNet.com
In the summer of 1940 the Second World War had been under way for nearly a year. Hitler's Germany was triumphant. The United States was neutral. It was a time, Winston Churchill later observed, when "the British people held the fort alone till those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready." Some Americans, however, did not remain on the sidelines.
That summer and fall, eight American pilots fought against the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. This remarkable bunch of rogue flyers included ex-barnstormers, a Minnesota farm boy, and the greatest bobsled champion in American Olympic history. All had defied strict neutrality laws—thereby risking loss of their citizenship and imprisonment if they dared return home—in order to join what they regarded as the best flying club in the world: Britain's Royal Air Force.
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Creating Chaos: Lawrence of Arabia and the 1916 Arab Revolt
Posted by Donster on: 2010-09-01 17:25:51 in category: Military History [ Print ]
The British-backed Arab Revolt–featuring Lawrence of Arabia–planted the seeds of conflict in the Middle East
By O'Brien Browne @ HistoryNet.com
The train filled with Ottoman Empire soldiers and civilians chugged over a bridge in the Arabian desert. A few yards away a British officer in Bedouin robes raised his hand toward Salem, an Arab tribal warrior gripping the plunger of a detonator box. As the train steamed ahead, the officer dropped his hand and Salem slammed down the plunger. A cloud of sand and smoke blasted a hundred feet into the sky as sizzling chunks of iron and seared body parts tumbled through the air. The train crashed into a gorge, followed by an eerie silence. The officer and Arab tribesmen—wielding swords or firing rifles—dashed toward the smoldering train cars. Within a few minutes the fighting was over, the dead and the wreck were looted, and the raiding party melted back into the desert. It was summer 1917, and the Arab Revolt was in full swing.
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Khe Sanh and Beyond: Col. (ret) Joseph Abodeely Interview
Posted by Donster on: 2010-08-31 16:46:24 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Gerald D. Swick @ HistoryNet.com
Retired Army Colonel Joseph Abodeely's Website, Straight Talk with Joe, describes him as "a native Arizonan who has some strong opinions and ideas about his state, the nation, and the world." Many of those opinions were forged in combat, both in the military and in the courtroom.
During Operation Pegasus, the April 1968 airmobile operation to relieve the besieged U.S. Marine firebase at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, he led the first Air Cavalry platoon that reached the firebase, after seven days fighting its way through.
Since that time he's served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps and written policy papers that provided guidelines for U.S. military police worldwide. As a civilian, he's been a prosecuting attorney and a defense attorney. In addition to his Website, he had a radio talk show and a program on Phoenix Public Access Channel 98 for over 10 years.
Of Lebanese descent, he's a past president of the Arab American Cultural Association in Phoenix. For many years, he's served as president of the board for the Arizona Military Museum, an all-volunteer group dedicated to preserving the area's military heritage from the days of the Spanish Conquistadores to the present-day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On August 19, 2010, the retired colonel spoke with HistoryNet in an exclusive interview.
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Breaking the Siege at Khe Sanh
Posted by Donster on: 2010-08-30 17:23:20 in category: Military History [ Print ]
A young 1st Air Cav lieutenant signaled the end to one of the war's most storied battles with a blast of "Charge" on a captured bugle
By Joseph E. Abodeely @ HistoryNet.com
"Joegy," I recall my grandpa saying after he'd had a few beers, "Your two best friends are your rifle and your horse. And if you got just a little bit of water left in your canteen, give it to your horse first." Grandpa was a sergeant in the 1st Cavalry in 1917 and he was deployed along the Arizona border during Brigadier General John Pershing's Mexican Punitive Expedition against the revolutionary Pancho Villa. He knew the value of the horse and rifle to the cavalry soldier.
Fifty years after my Grandpa learned the lessons of mobility from atop his horse, I found myself an infantry lieutenant with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the "1st Air Cav," in Vietnam. It was a new concept for the Army, swift deployment of light infantry troops, their artillery fire support, supplies and equipment—primarily by helicopter. We had mobility and firepower that the other Army units simply did not have.
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Book Review: The War That Came Early
Posted by Donster on: 2010-08-11 17:37:18 in category: Military History [ Print ]
This work of alternative historical fiction may be part of The War That Came Early series, but our reviewer couldn't finish it fast enough.
Reviewed by: Avery Abernethy @ The Wargamer
The War That Came Early: West and East is the sequel to Hitler’sWar. The premise of this alternate history is the inability of Hitler to obtain the Sudetenland in a political deal with Chamberlain and other Western leaders. This causes WWII to start in 1938 with a Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia.
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Book Preview - Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War
Posted by Donster on: 2010-07-20 16:49:58 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Dieter Dengler's Great Escape from Laotian POW Camp
Book by Bruce Henderson, Excerpt hosted by HistoryNet
On February 1, 1966, German-born U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant (j.g.) Dieter Dengler's A-1 Skyraider was shot down over Laos during a secret bombing mission. A day later, while attempting to signal rescuers flying above heavy jungle territory controlled by the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army regulars, Dengler was captured. After he was marched over several days from village to village—managing to escape once before being recaptured—he was finally imprisoned in a jungle-shrouded POW camp guarded by Pathet Lao on February 14. Six other prisoners were already there: Air Force 1st Lt. Duane Martin, a rescue helicopter pilot shot down in September 1965; another American, Eugene "Gene" DeBruin, an Air America crewman who had bailed out of a burning cargo plane in September 1963; and four other Air America crewmen from the flight, Thai civilians Prasit Promsuwan, Prasit Thanee and Phisit Intharathat, and To Yick Chiu, a Hong Kong native the men called Y.C.
Dengler, who had learned survival skills as a youth in wartime and postwar Germany and who was a Navy legend for his extraordinary escape and evasion skills, immediately began planning an escape. Some four months later, after being relocated to another camp and following meticulous preparation, Dengler and the others were ready, targeting July 4 for their mass escape. In mid-June, however, after the prisoners overheard the guards planning to kill all of them and return to their villages because a drought had caused a severe shortage of food and water, the POWs decided they could not wait any longer to make their breakout.
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Watson's Whizzers - Saving the Me262
Posted by Donster on: 2010-05-26 17:45:17 in category: Military History [ Print ]
After Germany's surrender, U.S. pilots and mechanics under Colonel Harold Watson successfully returned 10 surviving Me-262s to the air
By Phil Scott @ History Net
Late in World II, Lieutenant Robert Anspach was flying cover in his P-47 Thunderbolt for a group of B-26 Marauders near the Messerschmitt factory airfield at Lechfeld, Germany. From out of nowhere an enemy airplane suddenly rocketed past, blasting off a few rounds. It looked like nothing the Americans had seen before. Ever.
Wow, thought Anspach.
"Would you look at him!" one pilot exclaimed over the radio.
"Let's go get him," another said.
By that time, he was gone. That was Anspach's introduction to the Me-262.
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Screenwriter Bruce C. McKenna Talks About 'The Pacific' Miniseries
Posted by Donster on: 2010-03-29 17:24:49 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Gerald D. Swick @ HistoryNet
After Bruce C. McKenna wrote part of the HBO Band of Brothers miniseries, his writing career in Hollywood soared. His "Bastogne" episode won a Writers Guild Award and was a finalist for the Hamanitas Prize. In 2003, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks hired him to research and oversee the writing of a new epic miniseries, The Pacific, which debuts Sunday, March 14, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time on HBO.
With wife Maureen, McKenna also produced off and off-off Broadway plays. On March 9, he talked with HistoryNet in an exclusive interview about his career and especially his work on The Pacific.
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LeMay’s Dream Bomber - North American Aviation’s XB-70 Valkyrie
Posted by Donster on: 2009-12-31 16:28:44 in category: Military History [ Print ]
‘The XB-70 fulfilled General Curtis E. LeMay’s dream of a bomber that could penetrate the Soviet Union with impunity, carrying enough ordnance to decide the outcome of a war in a single strike’
By Walter J. Boyne @ HistoryNet.com
The magnificent 500,000-pound Valkyrie could cruise at Mach 3. It had monumental firepower, wingtips that folded down to enhance its exotic lines, and—best of all—a shape that did the impossible: obtain something for nothing from the air. North American Aviation’s XB-70 fulfilled General Curtis E. LeMay’s dream of a bomber that could penetrate the Soviet Union with impunity, carrying enough ordnance to decide the outcome of a war in a single strike. To the public, the Valkyrie represented the epitome of American aeronautical genius, and so it was. Yet the XB-70 took years to conceive, design and build. It was fatally compromised by a declining defense budget and the advent of improved surface-to-air and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
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Tuskegee Airmen to be in Rose Bowl Parade
Posted by Donster on: 2009-12-31 16:16:25 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Gerald D. Swick @ HistoryNet.com
History buffs have something special to watch for in the New Year’s Day 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade prior to the 96th Rose Bowl football game. The theme for the event this time around is "A Cut Above the Rest." The City of West Corvina, a Los Angeles suburb, decided to use that to honor the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. The parade begins at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern.
Chris Freeland, deputy city manager for the City of West Corvina and volunteer executive vice-president of the West Corvina Rose Float Foundation, said, "This year we wanted to recognize the military, to have a military-themed float. As we did research into units in this area, we discovered that Los Angeles has one of the largest chapters of the Tuskegee Airmen Organization."
Sixteen surviving members of the World War II group will be riding on the float in the parade.
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Axis Sally: The Americans Behind That Alluring Voice
Posted by Donster on: 2009-12-30 17:26:53 in category: Military History [ Print ]
‘Well, kids, you know I’d like to say to you, "Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag," but I know that that little old kit bag is much too small to hold all the trouble you kids have got.’ —Axis Sally
By Richard Lucas @ HistoryNet.com
From the deserts of North Africa to the Normandy beaches, GIs listened to the sensual voice of an American woman broadcasting over the radio for Nazi Germany. The voice, alternately seductive and condemning, wondered aloud if their wives and girlfriends were “running around” with the 4-Fs back home, and gently pointed out the benefits of surrender. As the men tried to imagine the mysterious beauty behind the microphone, the swing music she played kept them tuning in. She cultivated a persona of worldly allure, ready to welcome the boys and understand their troubles.
The reality behind the voice was less glamorous. Two American women competed for the soldiers’ fantasies: Mildred Gillars, a middle-aged former showgirl from Ohio, broadcast from Berlin; the other, a cross-eyed 30-year-old New Yorker with a honeyed voice named Rita Zucca, broadcast from Rome. One was the willing mouthpiece of her mentor and lover, while the other collaborated with the Nazis for financial gain. But both women became enmeshed in the collective memory of American soldiers and sailors as one indelible figure: Axis Sally.
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Bob Hope’s Vietnam Christmas Tours
Posted by Donster on: 2009-12-23 16:50:07 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Judith Johnson @ HistoryNet.com
One of the few constants of the Vietnam War—one eagerly anticipated by American troops, that is—was the annual Bob Hope Christmas Show. From 1964 to 1972, Hope included South Vietnam on his annual trips to visit troops during the holiday season, a tradition that started for him during World War II. “Back in 1941, at March Field, California…I still remember fondly that first soldier audience,” Hope once said. “I looked at them, they laughed at me, and it was love at first sight.”
While only a small fraction of the 2.5 million troops who served in Southeast Asia actually got to attend Hope’s performances, for those who did he managed to break the monotony, ease the loneliness and give the troops in combat zones across Vietnam a couple of hours of laughter—and a memory for a lifetime. Bob Hope’s classic opening monologues of rapid-fire jokes always took jabs at the GIs and the specifics of the local situation.
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Live from Washington, It’s Lottery Night 1969!
Posted by Donster on: 2009-12-23 16:44:56 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Wesley Abney @ HistoryNet.com
Forty years ago, on the evening of December 1, 1969, CBS News pre-empted the regularly scheduled broadcast of Mayberry RFD to pick up a live feed from Washington correspondent Roger Mudd at the Selective Service headquarters. “Good evening…Tonight for the first time in 27 years the United States has again started a draft lottery,” said Mudd in whispered tones as the ceremony proceeded in the background.
For all its life-changing, big-moment drama, as theater the drawing for the 1970 draft was a low-budget affair, staged on a nondescript set with an odd assortment of office furnishings pushed together. All 366 blue plastic lottery “capsules” had been unceremoniously dumped into a large glass container perched precariously atop a plain library step stool. A somber-looking official sat at a small table cloaked with black fabric, ready for the lottery ceremony to begin. To pick each lottery number, someone would simply reach into the water cooler–sized jar to pull out a capsule. Tucked inside was a birth date that would be read aloud and assigned its lottery number, starting with No. 001.
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Market Garden 65 Years On: Reflections of a Tragedy
Posted by Donster on: 2009-09-18 18:47:40 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Carlo D’Este @ Armchair General
Recently we celebrated the sixty-fifth anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. To many of us who were alive in 1944 it seems as if it were a short time-hack ago in history.
In this year of anniversaries, September marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of one of the war’s grandest and most frustrating military operations: the greatest airborne operation in history called Operation Market Garden. Sixty-five years on, Market Garden remains one of those moments in history where defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory by a series of events that combined to produce one of the greatest tragedies of the war. Market Garden was a squandered opportunity, if not to end the war in 1944, to certainly have changed its course. If not for human error its success would have eliminated the dreadful and costly Battle of the Bulge during which the US Army sustained the highest casualties of World War II.
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Editorial: The National World War One Museum
Posted by Donster on: 2009-07-21 18:48:04 in category: Military History [ Print ]
The Wargamer's Jim Zabek takes a trip to visit the National World War One Museum in Kansas City.
Author: Jim Zabek
The “War To End All Wars” often seems forgotten in the United States, even more than the Korean War. Most Americans are aware it happened: there has to be a World War One, because we talk about World War Two all the time, right? For many it’s just not an easy conflict to understand:
- Its origins are complicated
- The end of the war is often condemned as simply a pause before continuing the fighting in World War Two
- The “good guys” and “bad guys” are confusing (Japan and Italy were on our side that time)
- The Russians quit the war, almost inexplicably as things were starting to look up
To military historians, however, all you have to say is “Archduke Ferdinand” and zing! We know where the story is headed: trench warfare, the Red Baron, the Treaty of Versailles and all of a sudden it’s Poland and 1939. Most readers of this article can connect those dots in our sleep.
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Historical Article: Eye On Afghanistan
Posted by Donster on: 2009-06-08 17:32:58 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Has the Taliban Insurgency Reached a Tipping Point?
By Wile E. Pathan @ The Wargamer
In the first of a monthly series focusing on the events unfolding in Afghanistan, we take a look at events leading up to this point and possible strategies going forward.
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D-Day, Sixty Five Years Later
Posted by Donster on: 2009-06-04 16:15:55 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”
– President Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984 speech at the Pointe du Hoc U.S. Army Ranger Monument
Written by Carlo D'Este @ Armchair General
June 6, 2009 will mark the sixty-fifth anniversary of D-Day, when the eyes of the world were focused on a fifty-mile stretch of beach along the Normandy coast. The men and women of that great generation are rapidly passing on at a rate estimated to be somewhere around 1,000 to 1,200 per day. In the not too distant future the day will come when all but a handful remain to remind us of their sacrifice.
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Brothers At War - Interview with Jake Rademacher & Gary Sinise
Posted by Donster on: 2009-05-22 18:28:28 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Jay Wertz @ Armchair General
Brothers at War is a new feature documentary film in which a civilian follows his two brothers, members of the 82nd Airborne Division, into the combat zones of Iraq. In June 2009 it will be shown in theaters at military bases around the United States and will be available on DVD in July.
Director/producer Jake Rademacher and executive producer Gary Sinise sat down with ArmchairGeneral.com to express their views on how the film may impact the American public’s perception of the war and the U. S. and Iraqi soldiers fighting it.
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Book Review: The Accidental Guerrilla
Posted by Donster on: 2009-05-11 20:40:50 in category: Military History [ Print ]
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. Author: David Kilcullen.
Review by Rick Baillergeon @ The Armchair General
There seems to be no shortage of self-proclaimed experts in the areas of counterinsurgency (COIN), guerrilla warfare (GW), Al Qa’ida, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In truth, the preponderance of these experts possess little or no credibility in any of these areas. They provide nothing of value to those exposed willingly or unwillingly to their views. Unfortunately, many of these "pundits" have managed to carve out niches in various forms of media.
There are a select few people who truly speak with influence in the aforementioned subjects. One who has garnered a tremendous reputation is David Kilcullen. In fact, he is considered in several circles to be today’s foremost authority in COIN and GW. That is why, personally, I (and many others) have been anxiously awaiting the release of his first book, The Accidental Guerrilla.
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Book Review: Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II
Posted by Donster on: 2009-01-26 17:35:25 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Zaloga's comprehensive knowledge makes this book one of those rare “should not be missed” volumes that come along from time to time.
Review by Doug McLean @ The Wargamer
The M4 Sherman medium tank occupied a special place in the tank forces of the western allies. Remarkable US production allowed this tank to be not only the mainstay of the US Army, but also the British Army and all the commonwealth and Allied forces that fought under the British. The result was that Sherman tanks were a main element of all battles between the western allies and the Germans in the second half of the war – from late 1942 on. This widespread presence on the battlefield ensured the Sherman a prominent place in history. Whether that place should be as a war winner or as a deathtrap, however, has been disputed many times over the years.
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Feature Article: December 1940 - Things Were Much Worse
Posted by Donster on: 2009-01-23 17:30:00 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Historian Carlo D'Este @ Armchair General
As the end of a very difficult 2008—a year of few highs and mostly lows—drew to a merciful conclusion, I was reminded that during the Second World War December was frequently a pivotal month during which great events—both triumphal and disastrous—seemed to occur. Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 come immediately to mind.
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News Source: Email
Claus von Stauffenberg - The Man Who Tried to Kill Hitler
Posted by Donster on: 2008-12-30 17:21:43 in category: Military History [ Print ]
"Enraged by the attempt on his life, Hitler insisted that the very name ‘Stauffenberg’ be wiped from history"
By Nigel Jones @ World War II Magazine
Claus von Stauffenberg’s son recounts the terror and tumult that engulfed the family after his father’s attempt to kill Hitler in 1944.
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Book Review: Dying for Saint-Lo
Posted by Donster on: 2008-12-30 17:10:47 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Reviewed by Phil Driscoll @ Armchair General
This book covers the hedgerow-to-hedgerow battle in front of St-Lo between German and U.S. forces in Normandy during the period of July 7 – 21, 1944. It is broken into day-by-day accounts of each major section of the battlefield, covering the attacks of the US 2nd, 9th, 29th, 30th, and 35th Infantry divisions and the 3rd Armored Division and, on the German side, Panzer Lehr, 3rd Fallschirmjager Division, 352nd and 353rd Infantry divisions. St Lo, located in the Manche department in the heart of the bocage, was essential for the Germans to hold and for the U.S. to take; it would help set the stage for the Allied breakout that would shortly follow. The U.S. forces would suffer over 12,000 losses; the Germans would lose thousands of crack troops including pioneers, paratroopers and SS panzer grenadiers in this battle of attrition known as "Hedgerow Hell".
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Valkyrie - Movie Review
Posted by Donster on: 2008-12-19 16:40:29 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Tom Cruise has failed to kill Hitler. Only in American cinema would this ever be deemed a good thing.
By Brian King @ Armchair General
With the kind of star power attached to Valkyrie, it would not have been surprising to see Tom Cruise swept up in an epic love story which only reluctantly addressed the July 20, 1944, plot to kill Adolph Hitler. Would anyone have been shocked to see the film take liberties with the actual story, using the man from Mission Impossible to literally do the impossible and succeed in his daring plot to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime? Hard experience has taught us that Hollywood is unparalleled in its ability to bungle even the most compelling -and true- stories. But Valkyrie is different.
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Book Review: US Army Long-Range Patrol Scout in Vietnam 1965-71
Posted by Donster on: 2008-12-11 18:11:07 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Jim Zabek @ The Wargamer
The Vietnam War had many aspects but the role of Long-Range Patrols (LRP) have a mystique all to themselves. These patrols are the stuff of legend: a small squad of men inserted far behind enemy lines. Read up on the history, training, methods, and especially the men.
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Book Review: The Yom Kippur War
Posted by Donster on: 2008-11-28 17:42:15 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Mike Dorn @ The Wargamer
At its heart the Yom Kippur War is a tale of one of the most famous and intrepid tank battles in history. Discover why Simon Dunstan’s account is the best there is on the subject.
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Book Review - The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Posted by Donster on: 2008-04-14 16:37:16 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Reviewed by Mike Dorn @ The Wargamer
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam delivers a captivating read posthumously in The Coldest Winter. Boasting qualities of both narrative and chronicle, Halberstam recounts many of the major players and battles of the Korean War in a book that will stand as one of his best.
Read The Review Here
News Source: Email
The Brothers Horten and Their Wings
Posted by Admin on: 2007-03-29 14:26:07 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Ahead of their time, the brothers Horten, Wolfram and Reinmar developed what today is known as the Ho 9 flying wing. COMBATSIM.COM's own Jim "Twitch" Tittle reintroduces us to these forward-thinking designers. Was their invention a super plane? Or, did jealous competitors criticize it just to get their own designs approved by the Reich?
Read on: The Brothers Horten and Their Wings
News Source: COMBATSIM.COM
Movie Review: Fire and Ice: The Winter War of Finland and Russia
Posted by Donster on: 2006-03-06 15:11:51 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Jim Zabek @ The Wargamer
The cold hinterland of Finland was the setting for the 1939-1940 Winter War, a battle that has now been thoroughly examined in this new TV documentary.
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Distributed computing cracks Enigma code
Posted by Donster on: 2006-02-27 15:35:17 in category: Military History [ Print ]
More than 60 years after the end of World War II, a distributed computing project has managed to crack a previously uncracked message that was encrypted using the Enigma machine.
By Graeme Wearden Special to CNET News.com
The M4 Project began in early January, as an attempt to break three original Enigma messages that were intercepted in 1942 and are thought never to have been broken by the Allied forces.
These messages were encrypted using a four-rotor Enigma. That version was considered by Germany to be completely unbreakable, as it could be set up in any one of 2 by 10,145 ways, each of which would encrypt a plain text message a different way.
Cryptologists at Bletchley Park in the U.K. managed to break Enigma through their development of early computers, led by Alan Turing, and also by using intelligence to cut down the number of possible set-ups.
According to the organizers of M4, their open-source message-breaking application managed to crack one of the three messages early last week.
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Editorial: A Different Theory on the Japanese Surrender
Posted by Donster on: 2006-02-11 16:08:16 in category: Military History [ Print ]
By Brant Guillory, The Wargamer
Was the Japanese surrender in the summer of 1945 a direct result of the atomic bomb, or perhaps a less obvious reason? Brant Guillory reports on an alternative theory as presented by Dr. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of UC-Santa Barbara.
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Getting Away With Murder
Posted by Twitch on: 2005-08-30 17:21:40 in category: Military History [ Print ]
It began, perhaps, innocently enough at the end of WW I in 1918. The medical bureau of Japanese Army set out to study biological agents that could be used as weapons. Remember, this was at a time when the first war in history had just seen the use of chemical weapons so it was not perceived as some sinister undertaking. Later Japan refused to sign the 1925 Geneva Convention governing wartime bans of biological weapons.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
News Source: In-House
Military History: Invasion Japan
Posted by Admin on: 2005-08-09 13:27:49 in category: Military History [ Print ]
With the 60th anniversary of nuclear warfare upon us I wonder if anyone still thinks that it would have been better for all if we had invaded Japan proper? Many theorize alternate scenarios of paths that should have been taken. After island hopping the Pacific would our momentum have carried us to Tokyo on the ground?
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News Source: COMBATSIM.COM
U.S. Navy Seawolves: Book Review
Posted by Mako on: 2005-08-05 21:42:38 in category: Military History [ Print ]
In January of 1967 the decision is made to stand up a revolutionary Navy squadron trained by the best schools from each branch to be the last line of defense for the special forces teams in the field. Special ops teams knew the call “Seawolf, Seawolf” would bring immediate help in the form of UH-1B gunships manned by the crazy killers of the Seawolves team.
Read the full review here
News Source: In-House
Book Review: War for the Hell of It, by Ed Cobleigh
Posted by Banger on: 2005-06-24 12:46:37 in category: Military History [ Print ]
 Forget The Right Stuff. In War for the Hell of It, Ed Cobleigh pierces that popular image and takes us inside the helmet of a USAF fighter pilot, circa 1969.
This arresting, emotional account of one pilot's personal war is much more than airspeed and avionics, operations and ordnance. This is a book about warriors; the author just happens to fight his war from the cockpit of an F-4 Phantom II fighter-bomber.
Cobleigh's account is unsentimental and unsparing. Yet, for all his hard-won cynicism, Cobleigh refuses to surrender his humanity, or his patriotism.
Read the review
News Source: COMBATSIM.COM
Medal of Honor on D-DAY
Posted by Admin on: 2005-04-19 02:31:46 in category: Military History [ Print ]
Mortars, machine guns, 37 mm anti-tank guns, 75 and 88 mm guns, steel tripod stakes, floating mines, wired mines, buried mines and Teller mines that were just covered by the sea at high tide all took their toll on Lt. Jimmie Monteith's men. In moments the fifty-one men and the Lieutenant were reduced to just twenty-five.
Read more: Medal of Honor on D-Day
News Source: COMBATSIM.COM
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