Military History

Surviving a Falklands 'suicide' mission By Leesa Rumley Producer, Sea of Fire BBC The destroyer, HMS Coventry was one of four Royal Navy warships sunk during the Falklands conflict 25 years ago this week. Now, the captain and crew tell their story for the first time. HMS Sheffield on fire in the Falklands War on 4 May, 1982 HMS Coventry's sister ship, HMS Sheffield was hit 4 days into the war "It's like a game of chess. You've got to give up some pieces to get checkmate in the end. I was one of those pieces," says Captain David Hart Dyke. He was in command of HMS Coventry when at the height of the Falklands conflict, she was ordered to lure enemy bomb…

From Proceedings, June 2007 issue Midway: The Story that Never Ends By Thomas B. Allen On the 65th anniversary, we are still finding out what happened at Midway in the sky and sea in late spring 1942 ... You can read the remainder of the article at the link above.

This is from our most-often-worthless local newspaper. There is also a photo gallery of the ceremony which is interesting in that the "Rosies" were then led, pushed, etc out to the museum pieces of the Republic, and Grumman birds that they worked on. Rosie the Riveters honored for service during war BY SOPHIA CHANG sophia.chang@newsday.com May 10, 2007, 2:24 PM EDT Cora Baiko still remembers the jolt of the riveting gun from a long-ago era. "Back then, I was only in my 20s" and had the stamina to work eight-hour shifts drilling rivets into the Grumman Corporation's airplanes, said Baiko, who is now 86 and living in Massapequa. She cocked her arms …

Local author exposes Cold War cover-up May 7, 2007 By David Angier Tom Needham / The News Herald Ed Offley holds his recently published book, Scorpion Down, which examines the sinking of the USS Scorpion in May 1968. Twenty-five years ago, Ed Offley stumbled into a story that ultimately could rewrite the way history views the Cold War. The USS Scorpion nuclear submarine sank in the Mediterranean Sea in May 1968 with the loss of all 99 men on board. For decades, the sinking was considered to be one of the great unsolved naval mysteries of all time. On May 27, 1968, the Scorpion failed to arrive in port at Norfolk, Va., at its scheduled time. The Pentagon im…

WWII Navajo code talker dies The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday May 2, 2007 7:19:23 EDT TSE’ DAA’ KAAN, N.M. — A Navajo code talker who was awarded a congressional silver medal for his service in World War II has died. Stewart Clah of Tse’ Daa’ Kaan died Sunday in his sleep, his family said. He was 87. The code talkers were an elite group of Navajo Marines who confounded the Japanese during the war by transmitting messages in their native language. Clah’s family members said he told them little about his days of combat but enjoyed swapping tales with fellow code talkers. They would drink coffee and talk so loudly in Navajo that it drove Clah’s da…

From Air Force Magazine, May 2007 May 2007, Vol. 90, No. 5 FDR Shatters the Illusion “The Quarantine Speech” President Franklin D. Roosevelt Address at the Dedication of the Outer Link Bridge Chicago Oct. 5, 1937 By the 1930s, many Americans had come to believe that the US should have kept out of World War I. Isolationism was strong. In 1935, Congress began enacting neutrality laws to prevent entanglements in response to fascist aggression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, grew fearful that isolationism, far from keeping the peace, was clearing a path for militarism directed from Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo. FDR’s concern spilled into view afte…

My part in sinking of the Belgrano BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR (bdbrady@scotlandonsunday.com) Scotsman A REMARKABLE first-hand account of the hours leading up to one of the most controversial episodes of the Falklands War has emerged from a Scottish police constable. Steve McIntosh was a 17-year-old Royal Navy submariner when he helped hunt down and torpedo the General Belgrano, an action that cost the lives of 300 Argentinian sailors and remains hotly debated 25 years later. McIntosh, now a community beat officer with Strathclyde Police, was in the control room of HMS Conqueror, the submarine that sank the Belgrano, working in the key role of contact eva…

WWII torpedo boat wreck surfaces in Pacific The Associated Press Posted : Monday Apr 30, 2007 5:48:52 EDT WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The explosive-laden wreck of a World War II torpedo boat has risen from the Pacific Ocean off the Solomon Islands, pushed above the water by a powerful earthquake, an official said Friday. The boat was exposed when reefs rose 10 feet above sea level during a 8.1-magnitude quake that caused a devastating tsunami, killing 52 people in the western Solomons in early April, said Jay Waura of the National Disaster Management Office. The Solomons’ main island, Guadalcanal, was the scene of fierce fighting during World War II. The co…

PT boat officers hold last reunion By Mary Foster - The Associated Press Posted : Sunday Apr 22, 2007 11:04:51 EDT NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It was the end of the line for the battered hulk of a PT boat at New Orleans’ National World War II museum, and an appropriate setting for the final reunion of a group of veterans who served on such vessels. The 16 elderly survivors — down from 21 last year — of Peter Tare, Inc., an organization for former officers of PT boats, lined up next to the boat Friday, taking one last sail down memory lane. For them, World War II is really almost over now. “It’s sort of pitiful the way the crowd has dwindled,” said William Payn…

From BBC News 17 April 1961: Exiles invade Cuba at Bay of Pigs Reports from Cuba say the island has been invaded by counter-revolutionary forces trying to overthrow the country's leader, Fidel Castro. The only news coming out of Cuba is broadcast by the government-run radio station. All other communications with the island have been cut. THe first landing is reported to have taken place in the early hours of this morning. Broadcasts from Cuban government radio appealing for medical help indicate that the raiders have successfully penetrated 25 miles (40km) inland. They appear to have come ashore on an area of the coast known as the Bahía de Cochino…

Into the Rising Sun: The Doolittle Raid By Barrett Tillman Long before jointness became doctrine and purple entered the military vocabulary, U.S. naval and air forces were operating hand in glove in a manner that is not possible today. The best example remains the Doolittle Raid against Japan 65 years ago. Officially it was the First Special Aviation Project, a bold concept devised by a naval officer—a submariner, no less—and executed by Sailors and Airmen. The timing could not have been better, as it occurred only four-and-a-half months after the debacle at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Only two weeks later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a stu…

From Air Force Times Doolittle Raiders mark 65th anniversary The Associated Press Posted : Monday Apr 16, 2007 7:00:50 EDT SAN ANTONIO — A band of aging survivors of the Doolittle Raiders will gather in San Antonio this week to celebrate the 65th anniversary of their famed World War II bombing raid on Japan. Seven survivors of the April 18, 1942, raid are expected to attend the five-day reunion, which starts Tuesday. Of the 80 pilots and crewmen who took part, 14 are still alive. Lt. Col. James Doolittle led the 16 B-25B Mitchell bombers that embarked from the aircraft carrier Hornet on a risky mission that was credited with buoying American spirits in t…

Boston Globe April 16, 2007 Kittery, Maine Ceremony Honors Sub, Crew Forty-four years after it sank off Cape Cod, the USS Thresher and its crew were remembered at a ceremony Saturday near the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The nuclear sub sank during sea trials out of the yard on April 10, 1963, killing 129 men. A mechanical error caused the submarine to lose power, causing it to sink below crush depth in the Atlantic. On Saturday, Irene Harvey, widow of Captain John Harvey, the sub's commander, dropped a wreath into the Piscataqua River to remember the crew. To honor each man, a bell was rung as their photographs were displayed on a screen. "They are on eter…

From CBC News Vimy Ridge remembered Shock and Awe, 1917 Last Updated April 2, 2007 Gary Graves, CBC News Easter 2007 is the 90th anniversary of the First World War Canadian military attack on Vimy Ridge in France. CBC is commemorating the events with special broadcast coverage, online photo galleries: Four Days in April about the battle and Building the towers about Canada's war monument, and thoughts from a young Canadian student visiting war memorial sites in Europe. The towering 10-storey white limestone Vimy Memorial Monument near Arras, France, fell into disrepair as rain eroded the soft stone and winters cracked some of the building blocks. After thre…

From Air Force Magazine, April 2007 issue In the South Atlantic and the Middle East, two short air wars taught some lasting lessons. The Wars of Eighty-Two By Adam J. Hebert, Senior Editor Twenty-five years ago this spring, two short and intense armed conflicts —fought in widely separated theaters—delivered a jolt to military thinking. Defense establishments the world over vigorously debated all of the “lessons learned” from the small wars of 1982. They still do. In the first, Britain and Argentina came to blows over the Falkland Islands, bleak South Atlantic outposts whose ownership had long been in dispute. This war, which ran from April 2, 1982 until A…

From Defence Talk Britain's sinking of Argentine cruiser still stirs emotions Agence France-Presse | Mar 30, 2007 LONDON: The sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano by a British nuclear-powered submarine with the loss of 323 Argentine lives still stirs controversy, 25 years after the Falklands War. Argentine lawyers have argued that the warship was outside of the 200-mile (322 kilometre) exclusion zone established by British forces around the archipelago when it was sunk on May 2, 1982. But they have failed to win their case that British committed a "war crime" when the HMS Conqueror fired conventional torpedoes into the Belgrano, a World War II-era wars…

From Air Force Times Tuskegee Airmen get congressional medal today By Darlene Superville - The Associated Press Posted : Thursday Mar 29, 2007 8:02:02 EDT Six decades after completing their World War II mission and coming home to a country that discriminated against them because they were black, the Tuskegee Airmen are getting high honors from Congress. That gratitude will be expressed Thursday when the legendary black aviators will receive a Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. The award is the most prestigious Congress can offer. “It’s never too late for your country to say that you’ve done a great job for us,” said Ret. C…

USA Today March 28, 2007 Pg. 1 'One Of The Last': WWI Vet Recalls Great War 90 Years Later, Its Impact Endures In Iraq And Beyond By Andrea Stone, USA Today CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — When the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918, exactly 4,734,991 Americans had served in World War I. Four are known to be alive. "I am one of the last," says Frank Woodruff Buckles, who at 106 is among the few living links — and perhaps the healthiest — to what was known as the Great War. "I didn't know it would be down to one to a million." April 6 will mark the 90th anniversary of the United States' entry into World War I. The soldiers who went Over There thought they w…

From BBC News 11 March 1985: Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader There is a new man in charge at the Kremlin - Mikhail Gorbachev has taken over following the death of Konstantin Chernenko. Chernenko, 73, died yesterday after a long illness - but his death was only announced to the Soviet people this morning. Sombre music preceded the news on radio and television and scheduled programmes were cancelled. The speed of naming of his successor - at 54 the youngest man to take over as general secretary of the Soviet communist party - has taken people by surprise. In another break with tradition, Mr Gorbachev has announced arms talks with the Americans in Genev…

From BBC News 1 March 1954: US tests hydrogen bomb in Bikini The US has produced the biggest ever man-made explosion so far in the Pacific archipelago of Bikini, part of the Marshall Islands. It is believed the hydrogen bomb was up to 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was so violent that it overwhelmed the measuring instruments, indicating that the bomb was much more powerful than scientists had anticipated. The bomb was the equivalent of 20m tons of TNT. One of the atolls has been totally vaporised, disappearing into a gigantic mushroom cloud that spread at least 100 miles wide and dropping back to the sea…