Military History

Story from The Aviationist

Reviewed by Nicholas M. Anthony Jr., Ph.D., USA (Ret.) The Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic Marcus Tullius Cicero stated that “Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.” In his first book, A Forgotten Campaign: The British Armed Forces in France 1940, From Dunkirk to the Armistice, British military historian and civil-military relations specialist Paul Fantom magnificently sets the record straight regarding the proverbial “rest of the story” concerning what happened after the much appreciated and highly publicized “Miracle of Dunkirk.” A plethora of boo…

A very interesting list/inventory of Indian Air Force MIG-21s (to be retired September 2025) on the very chaotic bharat-rakshak site, found casually and otherwise very difficult to find!: https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/indianairforce/database/aircraft/listing.php?qacid=50#google_vignette As other examples: https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/indianairforce/database/aircraft/C-1539 https://www.bharat-rakshak.com/indianairforce/database/aircraft/

Researching about old ASW systems: About the Be-6 Madge, most of the data get here, after a painful, long and sometimes funny work with automatic translator (the acronyms in Russian are most of times "translated" in absurd in other terms, in other not-related acronyms or in impossible full texts phrases, "noncircular" should be omnidirectional, "machine" on this context is clearly "aircraft", and not "car", and a lot more): http://www.airwar.ru/enc/sea/be6.html Maximum height 6100 meters/médium. Máximum speed sea level = 203 knots. Máximum speed médium height = 224. Cruise speed sea level = 135. Cruise speed médium height = 140. Máximum range, unload…

A interesting site by about Forward Air Control in Vietnam War: http://www.chancefac.net/

First Ever Soviet Nuclear Submarine K3 to Become Museum (Sputnik News)

Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Derek Walters’s The History of the British ‘U’ Class Submarine fills a gap in the historiography of World War II regarding short-range Allied submarine operations. In particular, Walters profiles the small ‘U’ (and ‘V’) class and their use by British and seven other Allied nations both during and after the conflict. Walters spent a decade as a Royal Navy submariner who served aboard HMS Talent and later spent 30 years in the Derbyshire Constabulary, rising to the rank of Superintendent. After authoring a number of articles, this book, which honors the efforts of the gallant submariners who fought and died some eight decades ago, is his fi…

The M16 is Golden (Defense Media Network)

Reviewed by CAPT Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Donald Collingwood’s Captain Class Frigates is both a history of a class of escorts important in the latter stages of World War II and also a fond memoir of both ships and men. Collingwood himself served in the Captain-class H.M.S. Cubitt from 1943 to 1946 in the Atlantic and the English Channel. He joined the Royal Navy in 1937 and retired in 1961, first publishing The Captain Class Frigates in the Second World War in 1999. His book is a deeply researched, objective, and painstakingly complete history of all 78 American-built destroyer escorts which served in the Royal Navy under Lend-Lease as Captain-class frigates. …

Never forget the very difficult to find and complete Russian Aircraft Museum by Alexander Savine (last update 1998!!!!): http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/alphabet.html

Reviewed by Ed Calouro A long evolutionary arc traces the design and development of metal battleships. It generally dates to the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862 between the ironclads USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack (Virginia). Surely, the behemoth super dreadnoughts of the Yamato-class sit at the apogee of this arc. At 63,315 tons standard displacement (Jane’s Fighting Ships), the Yamato and Musashi were the biggest battleships ever built. Their 18.1-inch/45 caliber Type 94 guns were the largest ever mounted on a battleship, though the Royal Navy placed 18-inch/40 caliber guns on the large light cruiser HMS Furious and the monitors HMS General Wolf and Lord Clive du…

Reviewed by John Grady The weeks long gruesome land battle by Marines and soldiers to take mountainous Saipan included a doomed but deadly Banzai charge of Japanese soldiers followed by mass civilian suicides rather than surrender to the Americans. Those two events are often what is remembered most in the struggle to control the most heavily defended island by the Japanese in the Marianas in the summer of 1944, a battle waged at the same time as Allied forces were fighting to expand their foothold in France and end the stalemate in Italy. The resultant Seabee grading of Saipan and Tinian for airfields paired with the effect on naval events in the skies and waters hund…

From Air Force Magazine, January 2012 [excerpt]

Australian war movie available to watch online. Battle of Long Tan

With a sad connection to Newfoundland ... From Army Times Campbell to honor plane crash deaths today By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer Posted : Wednesday Dec 12, 2007 5:47:00 EST One of the saddest days in the history of the 101st Airborne Division will be commemorated Wednesday with a ceremony at Fort Campbell, Ky. The 8:30 a.m. ceremony at Gander Memorial Mark on post will recall the Dec. 12, 1985, plane crash in which 248 soldiers and crew members were killed. Before the ceremony, a wreath will be placed at each of the trees planted in memory of the fallen soldiers, and another wreath will be placed at the memorial site, followed by a scripture rea…

MiG-25 defection (The Aviationist blog)

Kind of like an ugly duckling I guess, but interesting https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-albatross-i

Probably some rare facts of interest in parts of this site: http://rusnavy.com/science/sor6.htm

Reviewed by Tyler Robinson The War of Jenkins’ Ear is Robert Gaudi’s second book in the genre of military history. At a glance it seems quite different from its predecessor, African Kaiser, which focuses on German military operations in Africa in the First World War. However, the two works have certain themes in common. Both focus on conflicts between European powers over distant colonial interests, prosecuted by unprecedentedly diverse units. Moreover, both feature extraordinary feats of navigation and recognize the unglamorous role of sanitation and disease prevention in averting military casualties. A quote from J.H. Powell lamenting his inability to write his…

Avro CF-105: Canada’s ‘Great White Hope’ (Defense Media Network)