Badass paratrooper or war criminal? It’s no secret this blog is a big fan of Ronald Spiers of Band of Brothers fame. I did a couple of pieces on him including When Men Were Men and All War Depends Upon It. This article is one of the most in-depth I have come across on…
Tag: Military History
Know Your WW2 History: William Slim – A Soldier’s General
Via: Fix Bayonets Here is, perhaps, World War II’s greatest general, and hardly anyone today knows his name. Field Marshal William Slim is best known for commanding Fourteenth Army in Burma during the Second World War (1939-45). In taking command, he inherited a disastrous situation in which, with practical skill and quiet charisma,…
Know Your WW2 Pacific War History: The Battle of Peleliu – A Meat Grinder of the Pacific War
Battle of Peleliu – Revisting a Meat Grinder of the Pacific War This is a long but worthwhile read. The author, Capt. Dale Dye, USMC, Ret. is an astute Marine Corp and Military Historian. He was the military advisor on several series and movies such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Platoon. I…
Awakening the Saxon
The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon Rudyard Kipling It was not part of their blood, It came to them very late, With long arrears to make good, When the Saxon began to hate. They were not easily moved, They were icy — willing to wait Till every count should be proved, Ere the Saxon…
Know Your Military Psy-Op History: Operation Wandering Soul
The Ghostly Legacies of America’s War in Vietnam During the Vietnam War, as Viet Cong soldiers tried to sleep in the jungle at night, they sometimes heard an anguished, disembodied voice shrieking at them from the afterlife. The men heard the tormented, grief-stricken cries of a deceased comrade cautioning them against the futility of…
Know You USMC History: Operation Starlite (1965)
H/T Fix Bayonets Locate, Close With, and Destroy There are two reasons for people to clash. First, because some people believe they have no other choice. A second reason is that it suits them. During OPERATION STARLITE, the 1st V.C. Regiment lost 615 men, either as killed in action or detained as…
Know Your Military History: Jump Boots – the Airborne Trademark
Jump Boots – the Airborne Trademark {If you are a fan of WW2 Military History, Pacific Paratrooper is one of the BEST Blogs around! Subscribe Today!} Distinctive as Airborne itself, so are the dark, glistening jump boots of a paratrooper. Troopers glory in their significance and only they know the secret pride when they…
Texas News: What Lurks Below
The Texas drought caused some World War I-era shipwrecks to resurface on a river near Beaumont Susan Kilcrease was worried a piece of U.S. history would be altered or damaged after it surfaced on the Neches River last week. Parts of several shipwrecks recently surfaced on the southeast Texas river due to lower water…
Know Your Civil War History: The Second Battle of Reams Station
H/T RebelGrey57 (Picture: Artist’s impression of battle from Union lines) Aug. 25, 1864- The 2nd Battle of Reams Station Soon after the Union success at the battle of Weldon Railroad, Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s (USA) II Corps was ordered to move south along that rail line, destroying it as it…
Chaos Reigns: Modern Warfare in the West
Via: The Patrol Base Archives Disgusted by the latest news, I pushed myself back from my computer desk. “The country is going to Hell,” I declared to no one. It seemed like America was pulling herself apart. In this cold Civil War, the schism isn’t as evident as the Mason-Dixon line was. Instead,…