In the early morning hours of June 10, 1969, U.S. Navy vessels sailed down a stretch of the Vam Co Dong River in South Vietnam. The force included a special weapon sailors called a “douche boat,” which could literally wash away Viet Cong fortifications. “My assigned mission was to search out and destroy … bunkers,…
Category: Historical Study
World War II History: Hitler, The One That Got Away?
Quentin Tarantino reimagined the end of World War II as only he could — with Hitler being machine-gunned to death in a movie theater by Jewish GIs. Inglourious Basterds, the director’s 2009 eight-time-Oscar-nominated moneymaker of a flick, made absolutely no effort to tell the truth, and maybe we’re all better off for it. But film…
World War Two History: Landing at Scarlet Beach
This sketch by Roy Cecil Hodgkinson depicts the situation at the south end of Scarlet Beach in New Guinea on 22nd September 1943 – half an hour after the first wave of Operation Diminish had landed. ‘Diminish’ was the name given to the initial phase of the Huon Peninsula campaign of the Second World War,…
Brush-Up On Your History: Churchill was a Terrible Debtor and a Huge Party Monster
Despite Winston Churchill’s popular image, Britain’s most celebrated statesman spent much of his seemingly extravagant life on the edge of a financial cliff, according to retired banker and Oxford history scholar David Lough. In Lough’s “No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money,” he outlines how Churchill flirted with severe debt while projecting an image of wealth, with his…
History of Weapons: Hiram Maxim’s Self-Loading Rifle Came Before his Machine Gun
In 1883 Hiram Maxim designed a unique system that harnessed the recoil of a rifle. Maxim filed a patent for this system which, when the U.S. government granted it in April 1884, became his first firearm design patent — a year before his now-famous machine-gun concept patent. To prove his ideas about using recoil to operate…
Literary Corner: Great Interview with Tom Ricks on Writing, Reading and Military Innovation
Tom Ricks is without a doubt one of my favorite Military writers and historians. If you don’t already I seriously recommend subscribing to his Best Defense Blog on Foreign Policy.com. I also recommend his book Fiasco for a “blinders-off”, no bull look at the War in Iraq. -SF So you’ve been covering the US military…
World War I History: Verdun 100 Years Later, “The Slaughterhouse of the World”
The Battle of Verdun started 100 years ago this February, and lasted through the year, finishing in December 1916. At 7:15 a.m. on February 21, the 1,200 guns of the German Fifth Army began a bombardment to signal the beginning of the Battle of Verdun. “Every new explosion is a new attack, a new fatigue,…
World War Two History: Did Nazi Research Actually Contribute Anything Valuable To Medical Science?
It goes without saying that Nazi research into medical science was brutal and inhumane, but did they also discover anything useful or beneficial? Some life meant very little to the Nazis, who herded millions of people out of their homes and into indefinite detention, heavy labor, and a gruesome waiting game until death. Nazi Germany…
Military History: The Most ‘Interesting’ War Tactics of All Time According to Ask Reddit
A recent Ask Reddit thread sought to explore the greatest war tactic ever performed. The history books are full of examples of unconventional and surprise military tactics. A recent Reddit thread entitled “What was the most interesting war tactic ever performed in history?” was full of unbelievable stories, so naturally, we wanted to share a…
Military History: Beating the “Bloody Flux” and How Sir John Pringle Waged War on Dysentery
“Sanitation standards in the 18th Century were almost non-existent. Soldiers were in the habit of relieving themselves wherever they wished, including outside their own tents, turning encampments into mucky breeding grounds for dysentery.” 18TH CENTURY MILITARY camps were hotbeds for communicable diseases. Often, more soldiers on campaign died from illness than were ever felled in battle. Interestingly enough, the…