Military History

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 Air Force Magazine, January 2012 [excerpt]

From the July 2010 issue of Air Force Magazine Take it down! The Wild Weasels in Vietnam (PDF format)

Just for jigs, I was thinking about how the Soviet Fleet would have looked around the year 2000 if the USSR had not implosioned, let's say they dismiss Gorbachev (on health grounds evidently...) and manage to ride high oil prices to last one more decade. Would the fleet list look like this: carriers 1 CVN: Ulyanovsk (would have been accepted around 1996-7) 2 CVs: Tbilisi & Riga (no name changes there) 4 CVHs: Kiev, Minsk, Novorossiysk, Baku (presumably Kiev would have been refitted around 1990) cruisers 5 BCGNs: Kirov, Frunze, Kalinin, Yuri Andropov & Kuznetsov (commissioned around 1995) 1 CGN of the Anchar project (name?) 8 CGs of the Slava …

Hans Bethe, Father of Nuclear Astrophysics, Dies at 98 -- 5 page article, interesting historical anecdotes [Excerpt from an article by William J. Broad in today's New York Times www.nytimes.com (registration required, no fee)]

Ahoy, there! Intrepid gets 'green light' to return Thursday By Bill Hutchinson DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Thursday, October 2nd 2008, 12:45 AM Buffed and bolstered, a refurbished Intrepid is ready to end its two-year hiatus Thursday and retake its proud position on Manhattan's West Side. With a fresh coat of battleship gray paint and a brass band playing on its flight deck, the legendary World War II aircraft carrier is set to be towed up the Hudson this morning in a splashy return to Pier 86. "Right now, it's a green light," Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, said Wednesday night, cautiously eying the weather reports. He w…

From BBC News 25 September 1950: Seoul in UN hands United Nations forces have taken control of the South Korean capital Seoul, three months after it fell to North Korea, the US Army has announced. The US 7th Infantry Division and South Korean 17th Regiment have crossed the Han river and captured the North Korean stronghold on South Mountain, the spokesman said. US Marines have also reached Duk Soo palace in the centre of the city and are within 600m (1,969ft) of the main railway station. North Koreans strongly resisted the UN advance near the station and American and South Korean units suffered many casualties, but opposition in other areas is reported…

From CBC News Link to CBC's Digital Archives re 6 June 1944.

Per CNN. Here.

Airport named for WWII ace Pappy Boyington Posted : Thursday Aug 9, 2007 5:48:03 EDT COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — After more than a year of debate, the local airport has been renamed to honor the late Gregory H. “Pappy” Boyington, one of the most decorated U.S. military pilots in World War II. Marines Corps veterans shouted “oo-rah” in joy and thanks after Kootenai County commissioners voted 2-0 to approve the name Coeur d’Alene Airport-Pappy Boyington Field. Area Marine Corps veterans pushed for the renaming, calling the Medal of Honor recipient a “hero’s hero” whose name on the north Idaho airport could draw more attention to history and military veterans. …

Looking for data for the warplanes of the 50to65 DB, I've finded these two pages: A very impressive site about the Blackburn Buccaneer: http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/0_Contents.html And in a site for years knowned to me, only today casually I've finded on it a very detailed composition of post-war UK carriers Air Wings: http://www.btinternet.com/~a.c.walton/navy/rn-cv3.html

“You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the American colonel. The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. “That may be so,” he replied, “but it is also irrelevant.” —Col Harry G. Summers Jr and Col Tu, April 1975

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…

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 Air Force Magazine, January 2008 North Vietnam’s 1968 offensive failed, but public opinion converted it into a defeat for the United States. Tet By John T. Correll The Tet Offensive of 1968 was the turning point of the Vietnam War. On the night of Jan. 30-31, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong attacked cities, towns, and military bases all over South Vietnam, striking in more than 100 locations from the Demilitarized Zone to the Mekong Delta. The synchronized attacks came at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, traditionally a time for mutual cease-fire, when security was relaxed. The offensive was defeated at every point. The North …

Old missile sites hold Cold War mystique By Jeff Martin - USA Today Posted : Thursday Dec 4, 2008 6:43:24 EST Merle Paaverud was raised on a farm near a nuclear missile site outside Finley, N.D. He remembers how missile sites in the area were “shrouded in mystery.” “Here we were farming around them, raising kids and going to school, and we were sitting in one of the most powerful areas in the world as far as nuclear weapons,” Paaverud, 59, says. “We never really knew what was going on, but it was life and death, part of the chess game that was going on in the world.” Today, Paaverud is the director of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Next…

Beginning on September 23, 2007 on Public Broadcasting. PBS - The War

A military curiosity was intriguing me for years, my first contact with the concept was in an old Tintin inter-wars comic book. Today, some minutes ago, I've received a spam mail with photos of sonic locators, it had remembered me the matter, some minutes of web search, and here post some links about the topic: http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_mirror http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_ranging http://www.doramusic.com/Radar.htm

From Air Force Magazine, December 2007 The Air Force was taken by surprise in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nine hours later, it happened again in the Philippines. Full article at the above link.

Old, silent footage from 1930's. Very interesting watching the recoveries, particularly the amphibian float planes coming in to land around minute 6:00, and the "steel beach" for Washington's Birthday.