Great Military Stories

Famous Military Unit: 100th Infantry Battalion

Famous Military Unit: 100th Infantry Battalion

With much of the world already at war, December 7, 1941 proved not only a day that would live in infamy but for most Americans, an event that would redefine their world. This impact was no more significant or immediate than for US citizens of Japanese ancestry and in particular second-generation Americans, or Nisei.  Since 1937 the Japanese invasion of China and atrocities inflicted on civilian populations sickened most of the world, punctuated by the undeclared attack on Pearl Harbor. ...

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Facts on the Spanish-American War (1898)

Facts on the Spanish-American War (1898)

On April 25, 1898, the United States declared war on Spain following the Battleship Maine's sinking in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. As a result, Spain lost its control over the remains of its overseas empire - Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines Islands, Guam, and other islands. Background of the Spanish-American War Beginning in 1492, Spain was the first European nation to sail westward across the Atlantic...

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The Death of the Red Baron

The Death of the Red Baron

In 1915, von Richthofen transferred to the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkrafte). He studied aerial tactics under the master German strategist, Hauptman Oswald Boelcke, flying his first combat mission after less than thirty hours of flight instruction. Despite an indifferent start as a fighter pilot, he nonetheless was invited to join Boelcke's Jagdstaffel 2 squadron and soon excelled in combat following the Boelcke Dicta, which included approaching his enemy from above with the...

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Gunnery Sgt. John Lee Canley, U.S. Marine Corps (1953-1981)

Gunnery Sgt. John Lee Canley, U.S. Marine Corps (1953-1981)

As 1967 turned to 1968, American forces had officially been fighting in Vietnam for years, and many believed the Vietnamese Tet holiday would pass uneventfully, as it had in years past. They were wrong. On January 31, 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched an offensive across South Vietnam, targeting more than 100 towns and cities.  It was the largest operation from either side until that point in the war. Eighty thousand communist troops hoped to spark a mass uprising...

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WW2 – The Battle of Iwo Jima

WW2 – The Battle of Iwo Jima

The Battle of Iwo Jima was an epic military campaign between U.S. Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan in early 1945. Located 750 miles off the coast of Japan, the island of Iwo Jima had three airfields that could serve as a staging facility for a potential invasion of mainland Japan. American forces invaded the island on February 19, 1945, and the ensuing Battle of Iwo Jima lasted for five weeks.  In some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II, it's believed that all but 200 or so of the...

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Escape from Libby Prison: The Largest Successful Prison Break of the Civil War

Escape from Libby Prison: The Largest Successful Prison Break of the Civil War

On February 9, 1864, more than 100 Union prisoners tunneled their way to freedom in an audacious escape from Libby Prison in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. More than half of the prisoners made their way to Union lines while others were recaptured and returned to the confines of Libby. Libby Prison started as an old food warehouse on Tobacco Row along the James River. Captain Luther Libby, along with his son George W. Libby, leased the three-story brick building where they...

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The American Indian Wars – The Battle of Bear Valley

The American Indian Wars – The Battle of Bear Valley

When we think of the Indian Wars that pitted the American Indian tribes against the United States Army, we tend to think of U.S. Army Cavalry, wearing their trademark stetson hats, sabers gleaming, riding into battle. They're usually fighting Native tribesmen who are shooting rifles while riding bareback across the Great Plains. That may have been how some of those battles looked, but after the closing of the frontier in 1890, it looked a lot different. The last great battle (The Battle of...

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Where Are the Alien Bodies?

Where Are the Alien Bodies?

By now, we all know the gist of the story. An unidentified flying object crashed in the desert near Corona, New Mexico, in 1947. Military and government agents from nearby Roswell Army Air Field rushed to the site and found alien bodies hidden among the wreckage and debris. Then, they immediately covered it up and left the American public in the dark.  The Army didn't help matters any, releasing a report claiming to have captured some kind of "flying disc." It immediately retracted that claim,...

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MajGen. Keith L. Ware, U.S. Army (1941–1968)

MajGen. Keith L. Ware, U.S. Army (1941–1968)

MajGen Keith Lincoln Ware was born in Denver on November 23, 1915. His military career began on July 9, 1941, when he undertook his basic training at Camp Roberts, California, following his induction into the Army under the Selective Service Act. He attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry on July 18, 1942. Keith Lincoln Ware Was Awarded the Medal of Honor Assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, he sailed on October 22,...

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WW2 – The Battle of Saipan

WW2 – The Battle of Saipan

War inevitably equals mass casualties, whether numbering in the dozens or the hundreds, or the hundreds of thousands - this truth that has accompanied war for thousands of years. A generally accepted fact is that these casualties, whether civilian or military, are usually the direct result of enemy soldiers attacking, disease, and famine in the wake of an invasion. Sometimes, however, other means account for mass deaths in war. Such was the case of the Battle of Saipan in the Second World War...

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The Hero Dog Of Verdun

The Hero Dog Of Verdun

A courageous World War I war dog was widely hailed a hero, after battling bravely through no man's land to deliver a life-saving message to French troops during the Battle of Verdun in WWI. The Hero Dog Of Verdun Service The wonder dog - named, oddly enough, Satan - was assigned the dangerous task of delivering the message from French commanders that contained the words that would bring vital relief to the besieged soldiers under heavy attack by the Germans. The life-saving message read: " For...

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Famous Military Unit: American Forces Network (AFRTS)

Famous Military Unit: American Forces Network (AFRTS)

In 1984, the first commercially available DynaTAC audio-only cell phone cost just short of $4,000, with each call billed at 45 cents per minute. Forty years later, anyone in uniform accesses audio-visual news from thousands of sources using a personal cell phone throughout the world, wherever a signal and transmission tower can reach. Yet, for eighty years, the most reliable military broadcast remains the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). AFN Was Founded in 1942 as the Armed...

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