Military Snapshot - A Tank's-eye View in Najaf, Iraq

Looking through a tank driver's view port down a debris-laden street in Najaf. Note the barrel of the tank's 120mm cannon. Photo courtesy of 1st Lt. William Birdzell, USMC, from Battle for the City of the Dead by Col. Dick Camp.

April 18, 1943 - The Death of Naval Marshal General Isoroku Yamamoto

April 18, 1943 -- In the midst of an inspection tour throughout the South Pacific, Naval Marshal General Isoroku Yamamoto and his staff took off from the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul in two Mitsubishi G4M fast transport aircraft bound for Ballalae Airfield near Bougainville. The commander-in-chief of Japan's Combined Fleet, and the mastermind behind the at Pearl Harbor and Midway, would not survive the day.

In the following excerpt from Fortress Rabaul: The Battle for the Southwest Pacific, January 1942-April 1943, author Bruce Gamble details the U.S. interception of Yamamoto's aircraft and the ensuing aerial combat that would result in the death of one of Japan's most honored military figures.

Aerospace X-Ray - Space Shuttle Mid-Fuselage

Structural loads from the wings, the main engines and the aft body flap are carried by the U-shaped mid-fuselage section, which also provides the void for the cargo bay. Illustration courtesy of NASA, from NASA Space Shuttle Owners' Workshop Manual by Dr. David Baker.

Moving Pictures - Bristol's Bastards

Raw, comical, disturbing, and unflinchingly honest all at once, Bristols Bastards tells the all-too-true story of Specialist Nick Maurstad, his brothers-in-arms, and the war that would meet each and every one of them head-on, refusing to let go of a few of them along the way. One of the most irreverent and outrageous memoirs to come out of the war in Iraq, Bristols Bastards pulls no punches, describing the danger, monotony, humor, and heartbreak experienced on a battlefield thousands of miles away from Americas Heartland.

Military Snapshot - HH-3 Mini-gunner In Vietnam

A U.S. Air Force HH-3 helicopter crewman fires a mini-gun during rescue patrol over South Vietnam, October 17, 1968. Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force, from Leave No Man Behind: The Saga of Combat Search and Rescue by Thomas Phillips & George Galdorisi.

From the Pages - Darkest Hour

January 23, 1942, 2:30 A.M.…the darkest hour of the day. On the little-known Southwest Pacific island of New Britain, all hell was about to break loose. Japanese invaders, with visions of establishing a major military complex in the city of Rabaul, would use the cover of night to initiate the landing of an overwhelming force upon the pitch-black shores. In front of them lay a determined, yet outmanned and outgunned, assemblage of island defenders.

Known as Lark Force, these fourteen hundred Australian soldiers would face an onslaught of more than 20,000 Japanese marines—insurmountable odds that would result in the overrunning of their defenses in a matter of hours.

In the following excerpt from Darkest Hour: The True Story of Lark Force at Rabaul, author Bruce Gamble details the early hours of the Australians' valiant, but ill-fated, defense of Rabaul against an overwhelming Japanese landing force. 

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In contrast to the bloodless occupation of Crater Peninsula, the Japanese encountered resistance at their other landing sites. Three companies of the 3rd Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Ishiro Kuwada, went ashore at two different positions along the rim of the caldera. They would accomplish their objective, the capture of Vunakanau airdrome, with a pincer movement. The plan called for the 8th Company to assault Raluana Point while the 7th and 9th Companies landed south of Mount Vulcan—but it didn’t work out that way. In the darkness, the coxswains steering the 9th Company’s landing craft strayed north of Vulcan, exactly where Major Owen’s reinforced A Company and the NGVR were waiting for them.

Concealed behind coconut log fortifications, the Australians could clearly hear the rumble of diesel motors and the scrape of steel hulls on coral. John N. Jones, a twenty-three-year-old corporal from New South Wales, was patrolling the perimeter at 0225 when he saw the barge-like landing craft approaching the beach, their silhouettes faintly backlit by the fires burning in Rabaul. The first boatload displayed remarkably poor discipline. Some of the Japanese were talking, others laughing, and one even shined a flashlight. Jones pointed a Very pistol skyward and pulled the trigger.

Military Snapshots - GIs on Patrol in the Ardennes

Hitler was well aware of just how thinly stretched were the U.S. Army units stationed in the Ardennes. He believed his forces could break through the forest and then drive on to the main Allied supply port of Antwerp, Belgium through sheer strength in numbers. In the photo, American GIs prepare to go out on patrol in the Ardennes. Photo courtesy of the National Archives, from War Stories of the Battle of the Bulge by Michael Green and James D. Brown.

They Said It... - Doc Clement and a Trial by Antiaircraft Fire

From 1968-1969, a select group of aviators strapped into the cockpits of their two-seat, propeller-driven Cessna O-1 Bird Dog airplanes and went to war in Vietnam. As forward observers, they flew hundreds of feet above one of the deadliest battlefields in modern history, all in an airplane no larger than a small pickup truck. Their work was crucial in finding and stopping the enemy before they could attack American troops, and supporting those troops with artillery and air strikes when the battle was joined.

Of the many army Bird Dog units in Southeast Asia, none operated in as hostile an environment as the “Catkillers” of the 220th Reconnaissance Airplane Company. Their tactical area of operations was up against the Demilitarized Zone in I Corps, the northern-most combat zone in South Vietnam.

In the following account from A Hundred Feet Over Hell, Catkiller Doc Clement, describes the chaos he and his observer, Steve Bezold, experienced after getting caught in an overwhelming battery of enemy 57mm antiaircraft fire during an ill-advised mission detour near the South China Sea and the village of Dong Hoi.

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"We could see the (USS) New Jersey steaming wide open, but she couldn't fire because we were on the gun target line, up to our ass in smoke from the triple-A and just trying to get the hell out of there. 

"I had that O-1 pulling everything she had. I would spiral down in a 360 and slam the stick back in my lap with full throttle in a forty-five-degree bank, then slam it to the side, then slam it full forward in a turn and pull the power back, each maneuver lasting not more than two to five seconds. I was doing everything I could -- not thinking, just reacting. 

"Steve was hanging on to anything he could grab when his map was sucked out the window. It was like having a swarm of killer bees after you, and you're running with nowhere to hide, and they just keep coming and coming until they get your or someone just gives up. The cockpit was full of the smell of explosives. It was like the films of Kamikaze pilots trying to get through the flak to hit American ships during World War II. 

"Steve was on the radio to the New Jersey shouting, 'We're going down! We're going down! Keep us in sight!' If I had been in the back seat, I'd probably have thought we'd been hit, the way I was flying the O-1, pulling all the Gs the airplane could take."

[After what seemed an eternity, Doc crossed the beach and dove for the water, still throwing the Bird Dog through uncoordinated maneuvers as he made desperately for the New Jersey.]
 
"It was really quiet on the way back...When Bezold and I walked around the airplane, we couldn't believe there wasn't a single hole in it. Someone was looking after us."

Photo courtesy of Don Long, from 100 Feet Over Hell: Flying With the men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969 by Jim Hooper.