Military Campaign Stories

Women Of The Vietnam War

It has been estimated that as many as 11,000 women served in Vietnam or in other locations, but over 90% served as nurses. Women Of The Vietnam War served as nurses in evacuation hospitals, MASH units and aboard hospital ships. Others worked in support roles in military information offices, headquarters, service clubs, and various other clerical, medical, and personnel positions. Servicewomen in Vietnam experienced many of the same hardships as their male counterparts and served bravely in dangerous situations. Many were awarded personal citations. Non-military women also served important roles. They provided entertainment and support to the troops through the USO, the American Red Cross, and other humanitarian organizations. Women working as civilian nurses for USAID (US Agency for International Development) participated in one of the most famous humanitarian operations of the war, Operation Babylift, which brought thousands of Vietnamese orphans to the U.S. for...

Vietnam War – Battle of Ngok Tavak & Kham Duc

Battlefield Chronicles, Vietnam War

Kham Duc Special Forces Camp (A-105), was located on the western fringes of Quang Tin Province, South Vietnam. In the spring of 1968, it was the only remaining border camp in Military Region I. Backup responsibility for the camp fell on the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal), based at Chu Lai on the far side of the province. The camp had originally been built for President Diem, who enjoyed hunting in the area. The 1st Special Forces Detachment (A-727B) arrived in September 1963 and found the outpost to be an ideal border surveillance site with an existing airfield. The camp was located on a narrow grassy plain surrounded by rugged, virtually uninhabited jungle. The only village in the area, located across the airstrip, was occupied by post dependents, camp followers, and merchants. The camp and airstrip were bordered by the Ngok Peng Bum ridge to the west and Ngok Pe Xar mountain, looming over Kham Duc to the east. Steeply banked streams full of rapids and waterfalls cut through the...

Maj Clark Gable, U.S. Army Air Forces (1942-1947)

Celebrities Who Served, World War II

Clark Gable, of the U.S. Army Air Forces between 1942 and 1947, is best known as the ‘King of Hollywood’, the womanizing man’s man with a filmography of over 60 productions. However, he had a passion for flying combat missions and defied death in World War II. Born William Clark Gable in 1901, his father Will was an oil-well driller living in Cadiz, Ohio. Baptized Catholic, his mother Adeline died when he was just ten months old, and his father refused to raise him in the faith. Gable’s father remarried in 1903, and he was raised by his stepmother Jennie. She taught him the piano, and Will taught him to repair automobiles and hunt. Young Clark also developed a taste for literature, and would recite Shakespeare. Gable’s Childhood and First Marriage Gable was inspired to become an actor at 17 after seeing the play The Bird of Paradise. However, he worked with his father in Oklahoma in the oil industry, his stepmother had passed away. At the age of 21, Gable received an inheritance from...

Korean War – Firefight at Outpost 3 (1952)

Battlefield Chronicles, Korean War

"There were 80 of us on that hill when an estimated 600-800 Chinese hit us hard that night. Sixty-six of us were killed, wounded or missing."PFC Edgar "Bart"Dauberman, USMC "Easy"Company, 2d Battalion 5th Marines In the spring of 1952, General James A. Van Fleet, USA, Commander, 8th United States Army in Korea and supreme commander of all Allied Forces in Korea, undertook one of the most audacious operations in the history of warfare. With his Army fully engaged against Chinese and North Korean communists across the Korean peninsula, General Van Fleet completely realigned his entire force. Dubbed Operation Mixmaster, thousands of men and vehicles and thousands upon thousands of tons of supplies and equipment were shuttled hundreds of miles to new positions over a period of more than one week. It was a daringly unprecedented operation, and the Chinese and North Koreans, who could have ruined it all, were caught flatfooted. For Major General John T. Selden's First Marine...

Women Combat Journalists

Profiles in Courage, World War II

The Second World War opened a new chapter in the lives of Depression-weary Americans. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles traditionally reserved for men in peacetime. It was also a time that offered new professional opportunities for women journalists - a path to the rarest of assignments, war reporters. Talented and determined, dozens of women fought for the right to cover the biggest story of their lives. By war's end, at least 127 American women managed to obtain official accreditation from the U.S. War Department as war correspondents. Rules imposed by the military, however, stated women journalists could not enter the actual combat zone but remain in the rear areas writing stories of soldiers healing their wounds in field hospitals or other pieces supporting the war effort. Women Journalists Found Ways to Get "Where the...

BG James “Jimmy” Stewart, U.S. Army Air Forces (1942-1968)

Profiles in Courage, World War II

One of the film's most beloved actors, Jimmy Stewart, made more than 80 films in his lifetime. He was known for his everyman quality, which made him both appealing and accessible to audiences. Stewart got his first taste of performing as a young man. At Princeton University, he was a member of the Triangle Club and acted in shows they produced. Stewart earned a degree in architecture in 1932, but he never practiced the trade. Instead, he joined the University Players in Falmouth, Massachusetts, the summer after he graduated. There Stewart met fellow actor Henry Fonda, who became a lifelong friend. That same year, Stewart made his Broadway debut in "Carrie Nation." The show didn't fare well, but he soon found more stage roles. In 1935, Stewart landed a movie contract with MGM and headed out west. In his early Hollywood days, Stewart shared an apartment with Henry Fonda. The tall, lanky actor worked a number of films before co-starring with Eleanor Powell in the 1936 popular...

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

Korean War, Profiles in Courage, Vietnam War

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...

80th Anniversary of The Pearl Harbor Attack

WW1 – Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Battlefield Chronicles, World War I

World War I will be remembered as one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Millions of soldiers died on both sides, and whole generations of young men were wiped out. Armies were bogged down in impenetrable trenches, resulting in thousands dying in futile assaults against fortified enemies. The war also introduced new and terrible weapons, such as the machine gun, which made the war even more horrific and bloody. There were many terrible battles, but the worst one for the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On August 30, 1918, the supreme commander of Allied forces, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, arrived at the headquarters of General John J. Pershing's 1st US Army. Foch ordered Pershing to effectively shelve a planned offensive against the St. Mihiel salient as he wished to use the American troops piecemeal to support a British offensive to the north. Outraged, Pershing refused to let his command be broken apart and argued in favor of moving forward with...

Bayonet Charge

Profiles in Courage, World War II

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...

Parallel Lives, Shared History

Profiles in Courage, World War II

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...

Veteran of Three Wars Under Three Flags

Profiles in Courage, Vietnam War, World War II

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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Military Campaign Stories

Women Of The Vietnam War

Vietnam War – Battle of Ngok Tavak & Kham Duc

Maj Clark Gable, U.S. Army Air Forces (1942-1947)

Korean War – Firefight at Outpost 3 (1952)

Women Combat Journalists

BG James “Jimmy” Stewart, U.S. Army Air Forces (1942-1968)

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

80th Anniversary of The Pearl Harbor Attack

WW1 – Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Bayonet Charge

Parallel Lives, Shared History

Veteran of Three Wars Under Three Flags

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