Military History

As the centennial of World War I winds down, cities and towns worldwide have scheduled commemorative events, many on November 11, the date of the formal end of hostilities. In 1918 Allied and German representatives signed the armistice aboard a railc

On July 17, 2018, NOAA-funded researchers from Project Recover [projectrecover.org], using multibeam sonar and a remotely operated submersible, pinpointed the shattered stern section of the World War II Fletcher-class destroyer USS Abner Read (DD-526

Bernard W. Vann British Army Victoria Cross France Sept. 29, 1918 Five British or Commonwealth chaplains have received the Victoria Cross. Although an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, Lt. Col. Bernard William Vann is not counted among the

Length (fuselage): 48 feet 5 inches Main rotor diameter: 56 feet Height: 15 feet 10 inches Weight: Empty: 8,340 pounds Loaded: 13,500 pounds Power: Coupled de Havilland Gnome H.1200 Mk.110/111 turboshaft engines, limited to 1,550 shaft horsepower tot

Every culture has its trained fighting forces, and within those services are elite units that train and perform at a much higher level. In Polynesian Hawaii the ali’i, the ruling class, had the na ali’i koa, or chiefly warriors. To fully appreciate t

In 1839 the British invaded Afghanistan, aiming to replace a Russian-leaning emir with one more amenable to Crown interests in India. That August the British-Indian Army of the Indus entered Kabul and put a puppet ruler on the throne. Declaring victo

Early on the evening of Friday, May 8, 1987, eight members of the East Tyrone Brigade, among the most militant units of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA), steered two stolen vehicles toward the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) station in Lo

When British explorer Capt. James Cook and crew arrived off the coast of Kauai aboard HMS Resolution in 1778 as the first Europeans to visit the remote Hawaiian Islands, the archipelago was a scattering of independent fiefdoms. On the easternmost Big

It is of little consequence whether, in the heat of a 1779 naval battle aboard the U.S. Navy frigate Bonhomme Richard—its deck slick with blood, its hull splintered by cannon fire—Capt. John Paul Jones shouted to the opposing British captain, “I have

During World War I, Allied soldiers and aviators who avoided death sometimes found themselves imprisoned in Germany’s archipelago of POW camps, often in abominable conditions. The most infamous was Holzminden, a landlocked Alcatraz of sorts that hous

In 1942 Japan believed that by seizing Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and adjacent sea-lanes, it could prevent the United States from attacking from the north. Thus on June 3, 1942, a Japanese aircraft carrier task force attacked the U.S. military install

In late November 1856 Commander Andrew Hull Foote of the U.S. Navy’s East India Squadron sat in his stateroom aboard the sloop-of-war USS Portsmouth, mulling over the deadly events of the previous week. He had personally led ashore a small but determ

In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, by Nathaniel Philbrick, Viking Books, New York, 2018, $30 As the American Revolutionary War dragged on, General George Washington became increasingly concerned about

Poznan´ was not the only Nazi-occupied city to hold out behind Soviet lines in the closing days of World War II, but it was arguably the most important, its fall paving the way for the final Russian drive into the very heart of Germany. The 1939 Germ