http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/militaryhistory/ en-us Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:14:39 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2129892/posts He is the most pilloried military leader in British history, caricatured as a butcher and a bungler who sent hundreds of thousands of men over the top to their deaths. Now a new biography pins a further damning indictment on Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Late in the final year of the First World War, it argues, he was pushing for a peace that would have left Germany as the real winner of the war. According to Dr J. P. Harris, senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Haig was not quite the uncaring monster of... The Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2129892/posts#comment Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:14:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2086245/posts FORT MORGAN, Ala. – When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery — a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969. Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War. AP on Yahoo http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2086245/posts#comment Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:49:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2085585/posts Nathan G. Gordon, a Navy pilot who received the Medal of Honor for rescuing other aviators in World War II, and who later became Arkansas's longest-serving lieutenant governor, died Sept. 8 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. He was 92 and had pneumonia and other ailments. Washington Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2085585/posts#comment Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:48:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2084218/posts GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE'S first invasion of the North culminated with the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland (or Sharpsburg, as the South called it). The battle took place on Wednesday, September 17, 1862, just 18 days after the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, 40 miles to the southeast in Virginia. Not only was this the first major Civil War engagement on Northern soil, it was also the bloodiest single day battle in American history. To view the magnitude of the losses, consider that Antietam resulted in nine times as many Americans killed or wounded (23,000 soldiers) as took place on... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2084218/posts#comment Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:08:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2075906/posts SIERRA VISTA — Fon B. Huffman, the last survivor from the international Panay Incident of 1937, died Thursday, his family announced. Huffman, born in 1913, celebrated his 95th birthday on Aug. 19. He died peacefully in his sleep at noon in Hacienda Rehabilitation and Care Center. His daughter, Nancy Ferguson, was by his side. Advertisement Fon Huffman is pictured on Dec. 26, 2007, at his daughter Nancy’s home in Sierra Vista where he lived out his last days. File photo/Mark Levy•Herald/Review The Iowa farm boy who joined the Navy at age 16 was a 24-year-old sailor aboard the USS Panay... Sierra Vista Herald http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2075906/posts#comment Sat, 6 Sep 2008 08:14:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2073452/posts Video Herethe video is not the best quality but the narration is good http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2073452/posts#comment Wed, 3 Sep 2008 02:29:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2068333/posts Following the withdrawal of the British army from Boston on 17th March 1776, Washington in the expectation that Howe would attack New York which was held for the Congress marched much of his army south to that city. In fact the British had sailed north to Halifax in Nova Scotia. It was not until the summer of 1776 that Howe launched his attack on New York. The British fleet reached the entrance to the Hudson River on 29th June 1776 and Howe landed on Staten Island on 3rd July. The Congress declared independence the next day. Reinforcements began to arrive... BritishBattles.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2068333/posts#comment Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:34:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2063500/posts Ever since the document was examined several weeks ago, it's been a mystery. Initially, it appeared to be a reproduction of the terms and conditions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender in Appomattox, Va., in 1865. But staff members of the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum in Center City - who came upon the document while preparing for the museum's relocation - soon noticed pen indentations in the paper, and darker and lighter ink strokes consistent with handwriting. They also found a notation in a 1935 museum inventory identifying the document as an "original." Could this artifact, crudely... Inquirer http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2063500/posts#comment Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:16:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2063508/posts --Snip-- On this date: In 1863, Federal batteries and ships began bombarding South Carolina's Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding. AP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2063508/posts#comment Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:51:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2057366/posts "Scuba divers searching for hidden treasures at the bottom of the English Channel got more than they bargained for when they stumbled across two massive army tanks on the ocean floor." "Divers found the massive vehicles were relatively well preserved with guns still intact even after more than 64 years under sea. And by painstakingly checking minute details on the sunken vehicles against historical records, investigators managed to identify them as rare British Centaur CS IV tanks. The historic weapons were destined for battle during the D-Day landings but never arrived. Historians discovered the tanks fell overboard when a landing... Daily Mail http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2057366/posts#comment Wed, 6 Aug 2008 13:36:41 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2056403/posts Holidaymakers feeling nostalgic for the Cold War can now tour what was once a top secret bunker in the former East Germany. Opened to the public for the first time on Friday, it was meant to house the ruling Communist elite in the event of a nuclear attack.Something some visitors said they were relieved was no longer a concern:“What goes through my mind is that it is quite nice to stand around here, look at the bunker and talk to each other peacefully,” one man said.Close to the size of a football field, the bunker was designed to function... Euronews / various others http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2056403/posts#comment Mon, 4 Aug 2008 20:21:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2056114/posts Three Nazi bunkers on a beach have been uncovered by  violent storms off the Danish  coast, providing a store of material  for history buffs and military  archaeologists.   The bunkers were found in  practically the same condition as they were  on the day the last Nazi soldiers left them, down to the tobacco in one trooper‘s pipe and a half-finished bottle of  schnapps. (edit) They were located by two nine-year-old boys on holiday with their parents, who then informed the authorities. Archaeologists were able to carefully force a way, and were astounded at what they found.'What's so fantastic is... The Daily Mail (U.K.) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2056114/posts#comment Mon, 4 Aug 2008 11:48:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2046684/posts Paris in the month of May was in full aphrodisiac bloom. The girls were swinging along the boulevards in their short, flowery skirts, their hair flowing loose behind them. On the radio, the singer Tino Rossi - France's answer to Rudolph Valentino - belted out his latest romantic favourite. But a few short weeks later, on June, 14, 1940, the German army marched into the capital and occupied it for four years. France has never forgotten its humiliation - or its bewilderment - in having to adjust to a life of close proximity to the old enemy, with all the... The Daily Mail http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2046684/posts#comment Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:32:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2045956/posts A mentor to the generation of American generals who led the U.S. Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George S. Patton. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2045956/posts#comment Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:52:20 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2039693/posts July 2, 1863 The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000. While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal... virginiafamilyresearch,com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2039693/posts#comment Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:08:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2036413/posts SEOUL : Fifty-eight years ago, a war broke out on the Korean peninsula, and today, the two sides - South and North Korea - remain technically at war and divided. Although it has been more than five decades, there are still South Koreans - who were soldiers at the time - being kept against their will in North Korea. One of the prisoners of war (POW), Kim Jin Soo, recently escaped the North. The 74-year-old POW fought in the Korean War at the age of 17 and was captured by the North Koreans in 1953. All these years, he had... channelnewsasia.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2036413/posts#comment Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:18:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027257/posts Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, Americans heard on their radios that thousands of American and British soldiers had landed on the beaches of northern France. They were fighting German soldiers. This day marked the beginning of the end of one of the bloodiest wars ever: World War II. The American and British invasion of France was a top-secret mission called "Operation Overlord." When they landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, the goal of every soldier was to drive the German military back. Thousands of men died during that effort, either in the churning... MedalofHonor.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027257/posts#comment Fri, 6 Jun 2008 19:41:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027263/posts ON THE ROAD TO BERLIN OWING to a last-minute alteration in the arrangements, I didn't arrive on the beachhead until the morning after D-day, after our first wave of assault troops had hit the shore. By the time we got there the beaches had been taken and the fighting had moved a couple of miles inland. All that remained on the beach was some sniping and artillery fire, and the occasional startling blast of a mine geysering brown sand into the air. That plus a gigantic and pitiful litter of wreckage along miles of shore line. Submerged tanks and overturned... Brave Men http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027263/posts#comment Fri, 6 Jun 2008 19:54:48 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2022886/posts Victor Davis Hanson, a former classics professor, is a renowned conservative scholar of ancient history and military affairs who's recently become a nationally syndicated columnist and blogger. The author of 17 books with titles like "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War," "An Autumn of War" and "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming," he is the senior fellow in residence in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus. Hanson, whose scholarship and interest in individual freedom recently earned him a 2008 Bradley Prize worth $250,000 from the Bradley... FrontPageMagazine.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2022886/posts#comment Thu, 29 May 2008 11:41:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2020717/posts Death, disease and injury were the fate of thousands held at sea More Americans died in British prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War. There were at least 16 of these floating prisons anchored in Wallabout Bay on the East River for most of the war, and they were sinkholes of filth, vermin, infectious disease and despair. The ships were uniformly wretched, but the most notorious was the Jersey. Following the Battle of Long Island in August, 1776, and the fall of New York City soon after, the British found thousands of... Newsday http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2020717/posts#comment Sat, 24 May 2008 15:29:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2020658/posts This Day In Civil War History May 24th 1861: - Union soldiers occupy Alexandria and Arlington Heights in Virginia. During the day Col. Elmer Ellsworth of the 11th New York takes down a Confederate flag flying from atop the Marshall House Inn. As he proceeds down the stairs he is killed by innkeeper James Jackson who almost immediately thereafter is killed. Ellsworth is the first Union officer killed in the war and becomes a martyr in the north. 1862: - Confederate forces under Gen. Thomas Jackson assault the rear guard of Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks retreating army at Middletown... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2020658/posts#comment Sat, 24 May 2008 12:32:49 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017043/posts Pictured: Lancaster bomber in dramatic flypast to mark 65th anniversary of Dambusters raidLast updated at 18:49pm on 16th May 2008  It is one of the most stirring images of the Second World War - a Lancaster bomber coming in terrifyingly low over a huge dam.  Today, the last surviving pilot of the epic Dambusters operation was present to witness a spectacular re-enactment as one of the bombers flew again above the Derwent Valley dam in Derbyshire to mark the 65th anniversary of the raid. Scroll down for more...Bombs away: The world's only flying Lancaster makes a low pass over... The Daily Mail (U.K.) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017043/posts#comment Fri, 16 May 2008 21:03:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010764/posts The Robert L. Capp collection at the Hoover Institution Archives contains ten never-before-published photographs illustrating the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb. Mr. Capp donated them to the Hoover Archives in 1998 with the provision that they not be reproduced until 2008. Three... yawoot image collections http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010764/posts#comment Sat, 3 May 2008 17:58:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2009313/posts Five years into the war in Iraq, military history seems to be experiencing a golden age. Hollywood has been cranking out war movies. Publishers have been lining bookstore shelves with new battle tomes, which consumers are eagerly lapping up. Even the critics have been enjoying themselves. Two of the last five Pulitzer Prizes in history were awarded to books about the American military. Four of the five Oscar nominees for best documentary this year were about warfare. Business, for military historians, is good. MSN/US News and World Report http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2009313/posts#comment Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:20:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006728/posts I fear that the French are wasting their time. The problem is that every time they look at Waterloo they say that Napoleon won on points. Napoleon’s army was the best he had commanded since he advanced into Russia – an army of veterans, 200,000 strong. Wellington referred to his force as “an infamous army”. My predecessor, David Chandler, who wrote the definitive account of Napoleon’s campaigns, said that the Emperor’s idea had been to get between the Prussians and the British. “I will defeat the British and the Prussians, then the Austrians, then the Russians, and Europe will be... The Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006728/posts#comment Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:43:29 GMT