Browsing: Military

A Brief History On October 26, 1917, a force of only 100 German Army soldiers led by Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant in American talk) Erwin Rommel took Mt. Matajur from an Italian defensive force of 7,000 men, a key part of the German/Austro-Hungarian victory at the Battle of Caporetto (aka The 12th Battle of the Isonzo). Digging Deeper Rommel earned the highest German military medal of the time for his exploits, the Pour le Merite (sometimes called colloquially The Blue Max) but his main comments were for his men to be better fed, which says a lot about his leadership. To…

A Brief History On October 23, 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, history saw the first use of airplanes for warfare purposes when an Italian airplane flew over Turkish positions as the first aerial reconnaissance mission by an airplane in history. Only 9 days later, on November 1, 1911, an Italian airplane dropped a bomb on Turkish troops, the first aerial bombardment in history. During this same conflict Italian pilots fired the first shots in anger from these planes, but only from pistols. All three of these milestones occurred in what is now Libya. Digging Deeper The aircraft involved was an…

A Brief History On October 20, 1944, Army and Naval forces of the United States landed on the Philippine island of Leyte in an amphibious assault to reclaim the islands from the Japanese who had taken the Philippines from the US and Philippine forces led by General Douglas MacArthur in 1942. MacArthur watched the landings from the deck of the cruiser USS Nashville and later that afternoon before conveniently located movie cameras the great man (just ask him!) waded ashore, keeping his famous “I shall return” promise when he fled the Philippines prior to his forces surrendering to the Japanese.…

A Brief History On October 13, 1775, an order of the Continental Congress established the Continental Navy, later better known as the United States Navy, the greatest maritime fighting force the world has ever seen. Digging Deeper During the American Revolution there was little time to build a world class navy that could go toe to toe with the British Royal Navy, then the grandest fleet in the world.  Still, merchant ships were pressed into duty as fighting ships armed with cannon, and despite some remarkably able and courageous engagements, the effect on the Revolution was minimal, with the French…

A Brief History On October 7, 1940, the Director of the Far East Section of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. Arthur McCollum, sent an infamous memo up his chain of command that seems to recommend the United States provoke Japan into attacking US forces, thus allowing the US an excuse to enter World War II (WWII) in spite of President Franklin Roosevelt’s promise to stay out of the war. Digging Deeper McCollum was responsible for reading and interpreting the decoded intercepts of Japanese secret radio traffic and for monitoring the political and military situation in the Far East.…