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Profiles in Courage

The Defiant One: Col Robin Olds, U.S. Air Force (1942-1973)

The Defiant One: Col Robin Olds, U.S. Air Force (1942-1973)

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Robin Olds was Built for War Fighter pilots used to say that there was a glass case in the Pentagon building to the precise dimension of then-Colonel Robin Olds, who would be frozen in time and displayed wearing his tank-less flight suit, crashed fore and aft cap, gloves, and torso harness with .38 pistol and survival knife. Beside the case was a fire ax beneath a sign reading: "In case of war, break glass." Biography of Robin Olds It was something of an exaggeration, but it contained an element of truth: Robin Olds was built for war. And he was born to fly. It was imprinted in his genes. Born July 14, 1922, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Robin Olds was the son of then-Capt. (later Maj. Gen.) Robert Olds and his wife Eloise, who died when Robin was four. The oldest of four, Olds spent the majority of his childhood at Langley Field, Virginia where his father was stationed as an aide to Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell. In 1925 when he was only three, he accompanied his father to Mitchell's famed...

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The Second Most Decorated Soldier of WWII

The Second Most Decorated Soldier of WWII

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The 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division (known as "The Cottonbalers" from their use of a cotton bale breastworks during the Battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson), has served in more campaigns than any other infantry unit in the United States Army. In World War II, the regiment fought German forces on three fronts, North Africa, Italy, and Northwest Europe, quite probably serving more time in combat than any other regiment in the U.S. Army during the war. The regiment's numerous WWII actions include four separate amphibious landings against enemy beach defenses, earning the coveted spearhead device on the campaign streamers awarded for each of these operations: Morocco in November 1942 as part of Operation Torch (the Allied campaign to clear the Axis powers from North Africa); Sicily in July 1943 as part of Operation Husky, and Anzio in January 1944 as part of Operation Shingle - where the regiment conducted a breakout and drove towards Rome (both landings in the Allied...

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Out of the Darkness : Navy Seals

Out of the Darkness : Navy Seals

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On June 6, 1943, the Naval Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU) training school was established at Ft. Pierce, Florida. Training candidates came from rugged, physically capable Marine Raider and Navy Scout and Construction Battalion volunteers with previous swimming experience. Demolition work was emphasized without restriction. Grueling nighttime training conducted in the snake- and alligator-infested swamps of Florida produced a specimen of a man who was at home with mud, noise, exhaustion, water, and hostile beings, human or otherwise. The trainees were divided into teams of six men - one officer and five enlisted - called Underwater Demolition Teams, or UDTs (later changed in the mid-1950s to Sea, Air, and Land, or SEALs), and were also known as Frogmen for their amphibious abilities and appearance. The UDTs conducted amphibious assaults on D-Day and on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. Albert Machine Created a Museum Dedicated to Navy SEALs In the 1980s, a group of retired...

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The Fighting Arkansans

The Fighting Arkansans

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Lloyd L. "Scooter" Burke - the most highly decorated soldier in Arkansas' history - was born in Tichnor (Arkansas County) on September 29, 1924, one of five children of A. D. Burke, a foreman at a lumber mill in Clarendon (Monroe County) and his wife, Belly Burke. In 1942, Lloyd Burke graduated from Stuttgart High School and enrolled at Henderson State Teachers College, now Henderson State University. In 1943 when Burke was 18-years-old, he dropped out of Henderson State College and joined the United States Army. He served two years during World War II as a sergeant with combat engineers in Italy. After the war, he returned to school at Henderson, where he participated in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, which is now named "Burke's Raiders" in his memory. He was also a member of the Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity. In 1950, he graduated as a Distinguished Military Graduate. After graduation, Burke was commissioned a second lieutenant in June 1950. That same month, on...

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The Muslim Princess Spy

The Muslim Princess Spy

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Biography of Nur Inayat Khan Noor Inayat Khan was born New Year's Day 1914 in Moscow to Hazrat Inayat Khan an Indian Sufi mystic of royal lineage and his American wife, Ora Ray Baker, half-sister of Perry Baker, often credited with introducing yoga into America. On her father's side, she was the great-great-great-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan, the celebrated Muslim ruler of Mysore, who in the 18th Century successfully fought the British, stemming their advance into South India. He was killed in battle in 1799. As a child, she and her parents escaped the chaos of revolutionary Moscow in a carriage belonging to Tolstoy's son. Raised in Paris in a mansion filled with her father's students and devotees, Khan became a virtuoso of the harp and the veena (a plucked stringed instrument originating in ancient India), dressed in Western clothes, graduated from the Sorbonne and published a book of traditional Indian children's stories - all before she was 25. One year later, in May 1940, the...

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Heroes of Hill 488

Heroes of Hill 488

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During the Vietnam War, one of the 1st Marine Division's primary area of operation was the southern two provinces of I Corps - Quang Tin and Quang Ngai, located in the southern portion of South Vietnam's I Corps Military Region. Astride the boundary between Quang Nam and Quang Tin provinces is the populous, rice-rich Que Son Valley, considered as strategically important in controlling South Vietnam's five northern provinces. For that reason, it was a principal focus for the Marines in I Corps.  In early June 1966, when intelligence reports indicated increased numbers of uniformed North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops moving into the Que Son Valley, it became an even greater issue. To gain more immediate and timely eyes-on intelligence on the reported movements, seven recon teams from the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion were sent out to ring the large valley. If enemy's positions were located, the teams were to call in artillery and airstrikes against them. Among the seven teams was Team...

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Bayonet Charge

Bayonet Charge

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Following World War I, Americans reached the conclusion that our country's participation in that war had been a disastrous mistake, one which should never be repeated again. This resulted in a major segment of the population becoming "isolationist" hoping to avoid dragging the country into another disastrous foreign war. Lewis Lee Millett Enlisted Into the National Guard While Still in High School Even when Nazi German invaded Poland in 1939 and began conquering and controlling much of continental Europe, most Americans were adamant we stay out of the war - even though the war in Europe posed a serious challenge to the U.S. neutrality. Americans eager to help fight fascism and Hitler grew frustrated. A large number of these were young American males. Romanticized by the idea of fighting in battle and not wanting to wait until the United States decided to enter the war, many crossed the border into Canada. Among them was a South Dartmouth, MA. teenager by the name of Lewis Lee...

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Parallel Lives, Shared History

Parallel Lives, Shared History

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Herb Heilbrun and John Leahr were twenty-one when the United States entered WWII. Herb became an Army Air Forces B-17 bomber pilot. John flew P-51 fighters. Both were thrown into the brutal high-altitude bomber war against Nazi Germany. However, they never met because the Army was rigidly segregated - only in the air were black and white American fliers allowed to mix. Both came safely home, but it took a chance meeting 20 years ago when the two retired salesmen met at a reunion of the Tuskegee Airmen in Cincinnati. That meeting led them to review their parallel lives and discover their shared history. It began in 1995 when Herb read in the newspaper that the city was honoring the local chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black 332nd Fighter Group. They flew "Red-Tail" P-51s on missions escorting bomber squadrons from Italy into Germany and German-held territories. Herb could still remember hearing, amid the radio chatter over the target, the distinctive voices of the...

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Veteran of Three Wars Under Three Flags

Veteran of Three Wars Under Three Flags

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Lauri Allan Torni, later known as Larry Thorne, spent the majority of his life-fighting communists. First, the Soviets while in the service of Finland and Germany during World War II and then the Vietcong and North Vietnamese as a U.S. Army Special Forces officer during the Vietnam War. Biography Veteran of Three Wars Larry Thorne Lauri Torni was born in Finland, the son of a sea captain, in 1919. He enlisted in the Finnish Army at the age of 18 and was near the completion of his enlistment when the Soviet Union attacked Finland in late 1939. With his service suddenly extended as part of Finland's mass mobilization of troops, Torni was transferred to the front line, where he began a reputation as a determined fighter and strong leader. His heroism fighting the Red Army in what became known as the Winter War quickly caught the attention of his commanders resulting in commissioning as an officer. The Winter War ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty in March 1940. In 1941, when Hitler...

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The Only U.S. Woman POW in WWII Europe

The Only U.S. Woman POW in WWII Europe

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On September 27, 1944, a C-47 assigned to the 813th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron lifted off from England into the clear morning sky. Its destination was a landing field at St. Trond, Belgium, to pick up casualties. Since the aircraft usually carried military supplies and troops on the outbound flight and casualties on the return trip, it was not marked with the Red Cross. Aboard the aircraft was 24-year-old Texas-born Second Lt. Reba Whittle, an experienced flight nurse with 40 missions and over 500 hours of flight time. Accident on the Plane in Which There Was Lieutenant Reba Whittle Somewhere along the way to Belgium, the plane strayed far from its intended route, entering German airspace where it was hit by German flak a couple of miles outside Aachen. The crew braced themselves as the plane gained and lost elevation from heavy shrapnel tearing through its thin-skinned fuselage and disabling an engine. Whittle held onto her seat for dear life as they began to nosedive. On...

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Side-By-Side

Side-By-Side

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Friday morning February 2, 2008 was cold in Baghdad but since Friday is a big shopping day, shoppers crowded the markets throughout the city. At one of Baghdad's most popular gathering places, the al-Ghazl animal market, hundreds of closely packed shoppers moved from stall to stall when suddenly and without warning, a huge explosion shattered the silence, killing dozens of Iraq's. Twenty minutes later, another bomb ripped through an open air market in south eastern Baghdad. The two suicide bombers who carried out the attacks that ultimately killed 99 people were mentally challenged women with Down's syndrome. The unwitting pawns were apparently fooled into wearing explosive vests which were then detonated remotely by mobile phones as the women mingled with crowds, killing 46 people and injuring 100 in the al-Ghazl explosion. In the second bombing at the smaller bird market in south-eastern Baghdad, 27 people were killed and at least 67 wounded, many dying later. When it became...

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Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler

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Often, non-combatant civilians risk their lives by performing quiet yet extraordinary acts of selflessness and gallantry that require just as much bravery as a soldier charging head-on into enemy fire. Irena Sendler was one such civilian. She was a gentle but determined Polish social worker who managed to smuggle 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. As amazing as this feat was, she was only internationally honored for her immense bravery toward the end of her life. Biography of Irena Sendler Sendler was born in 1910 in Warsaw, Poland. Her father’s dedication to doing the right thing regardless of the risk involved must certainly have made an impression on the young Irena, despite the tragic consequences of his unshakable devotion to good. In 1917, he died from typhus, contracted while treating patients’ other doctors refused to treat. Many of his former patients happened to be Jews, and in gratitude for what he had done, Jewish community leaders...

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