Category: Military History

Tenets of Air Land Battle Analysis The battle of the Ia Drang Valley [IDV] was actually of series of engagements between the US 1st Cavalry Division and the B-3 Front, North Vietnamese Army from 18 OCT to 24 NOV 1965. Many considered it to be the US Army’s 1st battle in Vietnam. It was certainly… Continue reading Vietnam Battle of the Ia Drang Valley

Sugarplum ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; / The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, / In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; / The children were nestled all snug in their beds; / While visions of sugarplums danced in their… Continue reading Christmas Word Histories

At first, no one cared much about the forest. The objective of the First U.S. Army was the Siegfried Line, the much vaunted defensive line that protected Germany from invasion from the west. The Hürtgen Forest was just one of several forests that lined what military planners called the Aachen Gap, a military pathway into… Continue reading Bloodletting in the Hürtgen Forest

The five brothers on board the light cruiser Juneau (left), Joseph, Francis, Albert, Madison and George Sullivan were five siblings who all died during the same attack in World War II during the Battle of Guadalcanal, November 1942. In the late evening and early morning of Nov. 12-13, 1942, the United States and Japan engaged… Continue reading WWII Sullivan Brothers

Nurse Charles Cullen worked at nine hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, killing dozens of patients by spiking saline IV bags with deadly doses of drugs physicians did not order and patients did not need. Donald Harvey, who worked as an orderly among other hospital jobs, roamed units at three hospitals in Cincinnati and Kentucky… Continue reading Medical Murderers, The Mystery of the Clarksburg VA Hospital

In June 1915 every Allied nation had met in a conference to plan an offensive on all fronts. Represented were Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, Italy and Serbia. A Franco-British attack was decided in Champagne and Artois, an Italian attack on the Austro-Hungarians at the Isonzo River and a Russian offensive into Hungary. Though due to… Continue reading WWI Battles Champagne (2nd) & Artois (3rd)

During World War II, 70,000 or more Allied prisoners of war and conscripted Asian laborers were moved in Japanese merchant ships across the vast expanse of the occupied East. These vessels were called ‘hell ships, and with good reason. POWs and slave laborers were crammed into stinking holds, filthy with coal dust, congealed sugar syrup… Continue reading Sinking of Junyo Maru

The British Royal Air Force saved its island nation from invasion during the dark days of 1940 and the Battle of Britain. It was a battle fought without armies. No rifles, no tanks, no barbed wire. In the summer of 1940, the skies above Britain served as the battlefield for the British Royal Air Force… Continue reading Battle of Britain, How It Was Really Won

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz turned to his staff, blue eyes blazing, and said: “Remember this, we don’t know how badly [the enemy] is hurt. You can bet your boots he’s hurt, too!” The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first significant clash between aircraft carrier forces in history, entered its climactic phase on the morning… Continue reading Trial by Fire in the Coral Sea

In April 1889, Special Order 37 directed all paymasters in the District of Arizona to pay troops mustered as of April 30. Major Joseph Washington Wham, a U.S. Army paymaster, was assigned Fort Bowie, Fort Grant, Fort Thomas, Fort Apache and Camp San Carlos. Wham and his clerk, William T. Gibbon, met a train carrying… Continue reading Army 1889 Payroll Robbery