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Great Military Stories

Korean War – The Chosin Reservoir

Korean War – The Chosin Reservoir

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Few battles loom as large in modern Marine Corps history, like the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. A massive, combined force of U.S. Marines and U.S. Army soldiers, along with troops from Britain and South Korea, suddenly found themselves surrounded, outnumbered by around four-to-one and forced to fight their way out while enduring subzero temperatures and often knee-deep in snow.  The "Frozen Chosin" and Strategic Consequences The "Frozen Chosin" may not get a specific mention in the Marines' Hymn, but it was a defining moment for the Corps. For any other fighting force, being surrounded and outnumbered might have been a disaster. For the men of the 1st Marine Division, it simply meant they would be attacking in a different direction. Either side could technically claim victory; the Chinese People's Volunteer Army did manage to retake the battlefield, but not before suffering unbelievable losses in what devolved into a brutally cold slugfest at the hands of United States Marines....

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Adm. David G. Farragut, U.S. Navy (1810-1870)

Adm. David G. Farragut, U.S. Navy (1810-1870)

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We've all heard the phrase, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" at some point in our lives. We may have even used it ourselves. But do we know what it actually means, aside from being a really cool thing to say right before you do something insane, irrational, or both? If you're a fan of U.S. Navy history, you might know it was the command barked by David Farragut during the Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. The Legacy of Adm. David G. Farragut Badass orders weren't the only legacy Farragut left behind. He served some 60 years in the U.S. Navy. Farragut was also the reason Congress created new flag officer ranks for the Navy and is also probably the only naval officer that had to be tied down by his crew for his own safety. The life of Admiral David Farragut is a case study in favor of the old axiom "Fortune favors the bold."  Farragut joined the U.S. Navy at age nine, becoming a midshipman in 1810. During the War of 1812, he was aboard the frigate USS Essex, wreaking havoc...

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Famous Marine Corps Unit: VMFA-214 (The Black Sheep Squadron)

Famous Marine Corps Unit: VMFA-214 (The Black Sheep Squadron)

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"…We are poor little lambsWho have lost our way?Baa! Baa! Baa!We are little black sheepWho have gone astray.Baa! Baa! Baa!Gentlemen songsters off on a spreeDamned from here to eternityGod have mercy on such as we.Baa! Baa! Baa!" From Espiritu Santo, the Squadron was moved forward to Guadalcanal and Henderson Airfield in the Solomon Islands. At first, the Squadron was not assigned aircraft or ancillary personnel; its pilots flew to Guadalcanal and later the Russell Islands in borrowed planes. From Guadalcanal, they would be moved to Munda and Vella Lavella. Originally, the Squadron called itself "Boyington's Bastards" after its new commander, for the fact that all the pilots had been "orphans" and not attached to a squadron when they got together, and the fact they possessed few reliable planes and no mechanics. Although they dropped the moniker "Boyington's Bastards," the Squadron still retains the black bar of bastardy across its insignia. They chose for their badge the black shield...

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The True Story of The Great Escape

The True Story of The Great Escape

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More than likely, many of us have seen the 1963 American World War II epic film "The Great Escape" based on a real escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from a German POW Camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Sir Richard Attenborough. The film is based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book of the same name, a non-fiction first-hand account of the real mass escape from Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now Zagan, Poland), in the province of Lower Silesia, Nazi Germany. The characters are based on real men, and in some cases are composites of several men. As in any films depicting real events, many details of the actual escape attempt were changed for the film, and the role of American personnel in both the planning and the escape was largely fabricated. The actual escape attempt took place one night in late March 1944 when 76 Allied Airmen escape through a tunnel from their Prisoner of War Camp deep in occupied Poland. Their aim was not only to get back to...

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Famous Army Units: 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (Mash)

Famous Army Units: 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (Mash)

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In stark contrast with the mission of combat forces, the US Army Medical Corps are committed to providing aid and comfort to the injured: wounded soldiers, civilians and at times even enemy personnel.  There are no medals, no glory, and heroism is measured in blood, sweat and tears.  Though the Korean War has been regarded as a failure by many because of its indecisive outcomes, in one area it was an unbridled success-saving lives.  When the war broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950, there were only two hundred doctors in the entire Far East Command (Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Korea).  To ensure combat medical services, Congress quickly passed the Doctors Draft Act, requiring all doctors under the age of fifty-one to register for military service.  As a result, ninety percent of all staff doctors in Korea were draftees, displaying a more relaxed attitude about Army rules, regulations, and discipline.  At this same time, the Army authorized new...

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The Battle of Mosul

The Battle of Mosul

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Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. But it wasn't politics that brought an unlikely group of military forces together at the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul between 2016 and 2017 – it was the Islamic State. The band of terrorists, otherwise known as ISIS (or ISIL), captured the Iraqi city in 2014 after a battle that lasted just six days. ISIS fighters then executed captured Iraqi defenders, consolidated their gains, and continued their stunning but tragic advance.  The Battle of Mosul: The Rise of ISIS and the Caliphate The success of the ISIS offensive in Mosul led its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to declare the beginning of the group's self-proclaimed caliphate as the leader of Muslims all over the world. He proclaimed Mosul's Great Mosque of al-Nuri, a unique holy site that was first constructed in the 12th century. The mosque, like tens of thousands of Iraqis, would not survive the Islamic State.  It also led to military interventions by the unlikely (and...

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Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, U.S. Marine Corps (1959-1979)

Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, U.S. Marine Corps (1959-1979)

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There are few Marine Corps legends like that of Carlos Hathcock. If there's a pantheon of Marine Corps gods somewhere, Hathcock is definitely among them. He served the Corps and his country for 20 years, including two tours as a sniper in Vietnam, where he racked up what was then the world record for confirmed kills at 93 - although he believed the actual number was somewhere around 300. "Carlos just really believed in what he was doing out there. He was saving Marines; that's how he really saw it. He was just doing his job, his duty. Now, Carlos is kind of a folk hero to a tremendous number of people," his boss in Vietnam, retired Maj. Jim Land told Leatherneck Magazine in a 2010 profile. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1942, Hathcock taught himself to shoot as a young boy, just like his boyhood idols Alvin York and Audie Murphy. It was the foundation of what would become his lifelong dream: to join the United States Marine Corps. Little did he know, as he took aim and fired that...

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Famous Coast Guard Unit: USCGC Point Orient (WPB-82319)

Famous Coast Guard Unit: USCGC Point Orient (WPB-82319)

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The Coast Guard vessel, Point Orient, was stationed at Fort Pierce, FL, from 1961 to 1965 and was first used for law enforcement and SAR (Search and Rescue). On 15 January 1965, she towed the disabled M/V Sally 120 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, TX, to safety. She was assigned to CG Squadron One, Division 12, Vietnam, from July 1965 to May 1970. On 15 July 1967, Point Orient captured an enemy trawler. The Point-class cutters were 82-foot patrol boats designed to replace the United States Coast Guard's aging 83-foot wooden hull patrols being used at the time.  The Early History of USCGC Point Orient The design utilized a mild steel hull and an aluminum superstructure. Following the Coast Guard custom in place in 1960 of not naming vessels under 100 feet in length, the first 44 Point-class patrol boats were only identified by their hull number using the scheme of WPB-823xx, where 82 was the design length of the hull. Beginning in January 1964, the Coast Guard started naming...

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Afghanistan War – The Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif

Afghanistan War – The Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif

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It might come as a surprise, but the United States and Afghanistan enjoyed friendly relations for the overwhelming majority of their shared history, a history spanning some 200 years. It was only following September 11, 2001, that relations soured between the two countries. In the days that followed the terror attacks of September 11, the American government demanded the Taliban deliver Osama bin Laden or face the wrath of the U.S. military – and the Afghans almost avoided a war. The Strategic Importance of Mazar-i-Sharif in the Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif Muslim clerics across Afghanistan actually voted to expel Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but in the same vote, they decided that an invasion from the United States would trigger a jihad for the Muslim faithful. With that in mind, Mullah Muhammaed Omar, the founding leader of the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, decided not to deliver bin Laden. Al-Qaeda was, after all, a close ally of the Taliban.  So when none of the demands made by...

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James E. Williams, U.S. Navy (1947–1967)

James E. Williams, U.S. Navy (1947–1967)

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After serving nearly 20 years in the Navy, many enlisted sailors might opt for an easy assignment for their so-called twilight tour. But that was not why James E. Williams joined the Navy. He joined in 1947 because he thought getting paid to serve your country was possibly the greatest thing he could ever do. Over the course of the next 20 years, Williams would eventually become the most decorated enlisted sailor to ever serve in the U.S. Navy.  Born in 1930, Williams was a South Carolina native who convinced a county clerk to fudge the date on his birth certificate so he could enlist in the Navy at 17. Early Career and Naval Beginnings of James E. Williams After graduating from basic training in San Diego, he became a Boatswain's Mate. He didn't get the adventurous assignment he wanted from his first Navy enlistment, but he did learn a valuable lesson that would carry him through the rest of his career.  "I'd got orders to an [landing ship, tank] that just sat around a buoy in...

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Famous Navy Unit: USS Constitution: Old Ironsides

Famous Navy Unit: USS Constitution: Old Ironsides

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Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!Long has it waved on high,And many an eye has danced to seeThat banner in the sky;Beneath it rung the battle shout,And burst the cannon's roar;The meteor of ocean airShall sweep the clouds no more! "Old Ironsides" by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr (1809-94) The Birth of USS Constitution: Old Ironsides As it turned out, that 1830 poem sparked public concern, and the ship's ensign was not torn down at all then or since. The USS Constitution was designed by Joshua Humphreys and developed and constructed in response to the Ottoman and Berber Barbary corsairs, which menaced American merchant shipping off the northern coast of Africa. Following the Revolution, the United States' Continental Navy was disbanded, leaving the new nation without a credible sea power to defend its interests abroad. Signed into law on March 27, 1794 by President George Washington, the Naval Armament Act called for the construction of six frigates to be built at shipyards along the...

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WW1 – The Angels of Mons

WW1 – The Angels of Mons

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The World War I Battle of Mons was famous for a number of notable firsts. It was the first test of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the first time Mons switched hands during the war, and probably the first time ghosts reinforced a living army to cover their retreat; ghosts who absolutely slaughtered the enemy – or so the legend goes. The First Battle of Mons took place on August 23, 1914, one of the earliest battles on the Western Front of World War I and the first time the British operated jointly with the French against the German invasion. The British were trying to protect the French left flank from an advance by the German 1st Army, and they held their ground well.  For 48 hours, they fought outnumbered three to one, yet they inflicted an incredibly disproportionate number of casualties, with estimates as high as three German casualties for every British one. It was a good start to the war. It would have been a great start, but the French lines began to break, and the...

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