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ZAMBOANGA, PHILIPPINES U.S. troops in the southern Philippines face the prospect of battle with descendants of the Muslim insurgents that brought U.S. General John "Black Jack" Pershing to the country more than a century ago. Before deploying to Basilan on the weekend, the Green Berets took seminars on the roots of Muslim rebellion in the poverty-wracked south as they brought Washington's war on terrorism to one of the most remote parts of the former U.S. colony. "It's an old war," said Datu Amil Jumaani, a Muslim professor who lectured the U.S. troops. Arab missionaries brought Islam to the Philippines in ...

Harry Patch, the last British army veteran of World War I, has died at 111, the nursing home where he lived said Saturday. The Fletcher House care home in Wells, southwest England, said Patch died early Saturday. "He just quietly slipped away at 9 a.m. this morning," said care home manager Andrew Larpent. "It was how he would have wanted it, without having to be moved to hospitals but here, peacefully with his friends and carers." Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the whole country would mourn "the passing of a great man." "The noblest of all the generations has left...

Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War. But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915. Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target. The Cunard vessel, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was sunk eight miles off the Irish coast by a U-boat.

FOR 10 years, the grim visage of Australia's greatest soldier, Sir John Monash, stared across the scene of his triumphant "perfect battle" at Le Hamel, on France's Western Front. Now it is gone - a victim of shoddy workmanship and an unfortunate likeness to Adolf Hitler. In its place is a $6 million memorial to Australia's World War I Diggers that will be dedicated today. Monash's face may have been removed from the memorial, but his deeds have not been forgotten. The story of his meticulous planning and training for his first major attack after taking command of the five...

DONALD Clarkson came late to World War I. His first day on the front line was also his last. He was killed near Beaurevoir, northern France, on October 3, 1918, 39 days before the November 11 Armistice brought to an end four years of slaughter in Europe. A farmer from the gentle hills of the Avon Valley east of Perth, Clarkson battled through the drought of 1914-15 torn between his duty to his country and his love for his family. Clarkson, a sensitive, articulate man given to expressing himself in poetry, had married Helen Price, his childhood sweetheart, and had...

Postcard delivered 90 years too late By Nick Britten Last Updated: 9:40am GMT 16/02/2007 When Private Walter Butler posted a card to his sweetheart from the trenches in the First World War, neither thought too much about it when it failed to arrive. Pte Butler, who was fighting on the Western Front with the Dorset Regiment, went on to marry his girlfriend, Amy Hicks, and the pair lived long and happy lives in Chippenham, Wilts. Last week the card mysteriously reappeared when Martin Kay, a postman, found it had been placed in his delivery sack. With Pte Butler and his...

AN Army bugler sounded Last Post, old men saluted, and a true Anzac hero was officially farewelled in a windswept corner of Fawkner cemetery yesterday morning. For more than 50 years, Captain Edward Renata Mahunga "Tip" Broughton has lain in an abandoned, bare grave at Fawkner. He died intestate, aged 70, in 1955. Until yesterday, a weather-beaten bronze plaque was the only marker on the cracked grey clay of Tip Broughton's final resting place. The marker recorded that it had been placed by "the ex members of the 8th AEC, AMF -- mainly Dunera Boys -- in cherished memory of...

The Making of Billy Bishop By Brereton Greenhous Dundurn Press 232 pgs. US$19.99/C$29.99 ISBN: 1-5500-2390-X Reevaluating a Canadian heroBy Steven Martinovichweb posted June 3, 2002Although the First World War ended in 1918, the story of Billy Bishop remains engrained in the collective consciousness of Canadians. Credited with shooting down an incredible 72 enemy aircraft, Bishop's place in history was guaranteed with a daring raid on June 2, 1917. In an action that earned him the Victoria Cross, the world's most difficult combat decoration to win, Bishop attacked and destroyed a German airfield single-handedly.That event writes historian Brereton Greenhous, which consistently...