WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

A TERRIBLE ATTACK, HAPPENED TO THE US Navy medic of the 2nd navy battalion beach (USN) writing a letter of his family  on Utah Beach ( photography by Morris Engel). Navy medical personnel could be found on ship and shore during the invasion.  They served aboard land craft bringing the soldiers to the fight; and they were aboard battleships, cruisers, and destroyers that pounded German fortifications and cleared the way onto the beaches.  Navy physicians and hospital corpsmen also served with the 2nd, 6th and Naval Beach Battalions landing on the fabled Normandy shoreline.  Frank Snyder, a corpsman with the 6th Beach Battalion later remembered their mission was simple: “Treat the casualties and get them wherever we could find safe cover for them.”  Conditions for this were anything but ideal. These highly trained Sailors and officers treated an assortment of penetrating wounds to the head, face, neck, and extremities, and fractures, burns and blast  injuries...

This story is shocking but True:This is too wonderful and great not to share: Do you know who this is a photo of? Chances are you don’t, but don’t feel bad because probably not one American in one million does, and that is a National tragedy.  His name is Eugene Jacques Bullard, and he is the first African-American fighter pilot in history. But he is also much more then that:  He’s also a national hero, and his story is so incredible that I bet if you wrote a movie script based on it Hollywood would reject it as being too far-fetched. Bullard was an expat living in France, and when World War 1 broke out he joined the French Infantry. He was seriously wounded, and France awarded him the Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire.  In 1916 he joined the French air service and he first trained as a gunner but later he trained as a pilot. When American pilots volunteered to help France and formed the famous Lafayette Escadrille, he asked to join but by the time he became a qualif...

"When Stalin Was Caught Napping." ON THIS DATE, In 1941, OPERATION BARBAROSSA was launched ,  Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. The Germans had the largest invasion force in history with about 4 million men in the attacking force. They attacked along a 2900 mile front, with about 600,000 vehicles and another 600,000 horses. The initially obliterated the unprepared Soviet Red Army and took nearly 5,000,000 prisoners, most of whom never lived thru captivity.  Nearly 3.3 million Russian prisoners died in captivity under the German rule, who regarded them as lesser human beings. IN PREPARATION FOR BARBAROSSA, THE GERMAN MILITARY STOCKPILED 91,000 TONS OF AMMUNITION, HALF A MILLION TONS OF FUEL (40% OF ALL FUEL AVAILABLE TO GERMANY AT THE TIME), AND 600,000 TRUCKS AND 750,000 HORSES TO CARRY SUPPLIES. When the attack on Russia starts, the world will hold its breath” -Hitler On December 18, 1940, Hitler issued a secret order to Germany’s top generals ins...

German face of The battle of Bulge.Famous picture of Waffen-SS soldier: Walter Ambrusch, during the Battle of the Bulge.  The desperation on his face has come to symbolize the state of Germany's exhausted military in 1945. Some sources  states that this photo is not of Walter Ambrusch. Another source state that,  A young soldier from the 1st SS Panzer Division carrying ammunition boxes forward during the Battle of the Bulge after the men had ambushed and completely destroyed the US Army 14th Cavalry Group on the road between Poteau and Recht, Belgium, 18 December, 1944. Ambush at Poteau – Battle of the Bulge, December the 18th 1944.  MG42 Machine Gunner possibly belonging to the 2.Kompanie/1.SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment/LSSAH, Kampfgruppe Hansen at Poteauer Strasse, Belgium.    Early in the morning an American convoy of the 14th Cavalry Group was ambushed by SS Kampfgruppe “Hansen” .  With help from the heavy fog 'Hansen' achieved complete surprise and ...

How many medics were killed in action in Vietnam? 1,100 medics and 680 Navy Corpsmen were killed in action and 3,300 were wounded during the Vietnam War. Here is an answer I have before on Quora about a combat event I will never forget. Near Tay Ninh in a lovely place called War Zone C on a map. Delta Co. 11th. Armored Cav. This was a big fight; so far we lost two ACAV’s and some good men.  The battle was quieting a bit. These were NVA regulars not your VC guerillas. These guys knew how to fight and stayed and fought. Driving a Big Boy, code name for an M48A3 tank though we called them Buick’s because they drove like one, I checked my fuel gauge, I was down below half. This thing loved to gulp diesel fuel like I did strawberry malts. I was getting nervous. “Getting down on fuel Mav,” I said to our TC. “Resupply will be coming,” he said over the com. That was good. The big Chinooks would be bringing hot food, ammo, spare parts, fuel bladders and hopefully mail. Green tracers began c...

What did tankers have on their web gear during the Vietnam War? What was the weirdest thing you saw? Tankers never wore web gear or individual load carrying equipment like the infantry.  It would be caught up like crazy on the inside protrusions of a tank plus we didn’t need it.  Unlike the infantryman who had to carry everything on his person, we had a tank to carry ours either inside or outside on the bustle behind the turret or strapped on to the turret including coolers of beer.  Oh yeah, we were lucky that way. A roof over our head and armored walls around us. We were lucky we had armor between us and the enemy whereas the infantryman had just his shirt material. I had nothing but admiration for the grunt who fought with us in Vietnam. We did wear web belts at times. I had Colt 1911 .45 pistol in a shoulder holster.. still have the holster but not the gun.  I didn’t see a tanker have anything weird. We mostly wore t shirts or no shirts, flak vests at times and f...

What did Vietnam vets think of after returning home? A vet sitting at a diner, eating breakfast. Where is his mind at, what is he thinking? If he was a combat vet he was probably thinking, “Man, this sure as hell is better than a C rat tin of chopped eggs and ham!” Everyone was different. Some combat vets were glad to get home. Others were glad for awhile but then wanted to get back.  They were missing something at home and felt alone. There, their brothers had their backs, their brothers totally understood them, at home they missed the excitement and high of combat. Many of those types went into the police force or fire department. For many combat vets the return was too quick with no downtime to come back to civilian life, it took time to become a civilian. Many vets found solace with other vets who had come back. Brothers helped their brothers. A few could not cope and had a very hard time of it. PTSD became an unbearable problem. Unlike the drug crazed maniacs that the media, m...

Raymond J. Bowman, an American soldier, tragically lost his life during World War II in April 1945. Stationed in Leipzig, Germany, Bowman was fulfilling his duty by manning a machine gun position on a building balcony. His role was to provide cover for foot troops passing near his position. Unfortunately, a German sniper shot Bowman in the cheek, resulting in his immediate death. This poignant moment was captured by renowned photographer Robert Capa, who titled the photograph "The last man to die during World War II." It is important to note that while Bowman's sacrifice is deeply significant, he was not actually the last individual to perish in the war. Nonetheless, this iconic image serves as a reminder of the human cost of conflict. In 2016, the residents of Leipzig honored Bowman's memory by naming a street after him, Bowmanstraße (Bowman Street). Capa, reflecting on the photograph, described Bowman's death as a "very clean, somehow very beautiful de...

Did any veterans actually enjoy combat? Many soldiers enjoy combat- unless it’s getting too serious. War is a great adventure and combat is often only a small part of it. You can deploy to a warzone and be witness to a lot of action: Watching your own artillery or Air Force pounding the enemy’s positions is absolutely enjoyable. And even a firefight is exciting- as long as nobody from your own side is getting seriously hurt. Surprisingly, there are a lot of soldiers on the frontlines who have never been in a serious combat situation. I remember a guy in my unit in Bosnia who told us that he had never seen a dead body- after being on the frontline for almost two years. However, sooner or later the shit hits the fan and the fun is over. Then the adventure turns into a trauma. My own personal enjoyment of combat lasted maybe an hour. It was my first battle, I was really excited and I have to admit that in the beginning it was fun. Then we came under heavy enemy fire, there was a ...

On this day 4th August 1945. German prisoner of war Kurt Rossmeisl escaped from imprisonment in North Carolina, United States and evaded the immediate search.  He would later board a train for Chicago, Illinois, United States, established a false identity as "Frank Ellis", and remained at large until 1959. Kurt Rossmeisl, who had escaped from a North Carolina prison camp in 1945, made a life in Chicago under the alias Frank Ellis.  After 14 years of looking over his shoulder, he walked into an FBI field office and surrendered in 1959. 2,222 German POW’s escaped from their camps, most of these were recaptured quickly. Seven POW’s were unaccounted for when the repatriation operation concluded. The record for the German prisoner who evaded capture for the longest period was Georg Gartner, who escaped from captivity on September 21st 1945. He assumed a new identity as Dennis Whilesand lived quietly in California, Colorado, and Hawaii before coming forward in 1985.  The FBI ha...

On this day 5th October 1944, Germany begins conscription of sixteen-year-olds. As the war ground on, it became clear that the Hitler Youth’s real goal was to create more soldiers for the Reich.  Children who had been saturated in Nazi ideology for years made obedient, fanatical soldiers. Eventually, those soldiers became younger and younger. Starting in 1943, all boys 17 and older were forced to serve in the military. In 1945, the desperate Nazi leadership began pulling younger boys out of school and sending them to the front. These inexperienced children were essentially conscripted for suicide missions—and if they balked, they were executed. Those who survived faced harsh treatment at the hands of the Allies who captured them. One of these young soldiers was Willi Hübner, a 16-year-old messenger with the Führer Grenadier Division. At the beginning of March 1945, the Führer Grenadier Division was part of a counterattack to retake the Silesian town of Lauban. After 8 days of f...

On this day 28th February 1942.General Franz Halder noted in his diary that the campaign in the Soviet Union had thus far caused 1,005,636 German casualties, 202,251 of which were killed. He also noted that there were 112,627 cases of frostbite.When Germany invaded Poland on 1 Sep 1939, Halder was responsible for overseeing the military campaign. In this capacity he had the first-hand knowledge to the atrocities the SS conducted against the Polish, but many criticize that Halder did little to stop them despite not necessarily agreeing with them. Despite his profession as a soldier, Halder was a known pacifist, and on several occasions advised against waging further wars, but the loyal general always heeded to Hitler's orders. Hadler was promoted to the rank of colonel general on 19 Jul 1940. Subsequently, he had a role in the design of invasion plans against France and the Low Countries as well as the plans for the Balkans. In Aug 1940, he began participating in the invasion p...

On September 17, 1951, 22 year old Herbert Pililaau found himself fighting his life against the North Korean army on what would become known as the Heartbreak ridge. His squad was tasked with covering a retreat. When it was time, Pililaau ultimately volunteered to cover the retreat of his squad, telling his commanding officer to go on without him. U.S soldiers watching from far above then witnessed Pililaau first exhausting his ammunition, then expending all his hand grenades, at which point rather than retreat, he began throwing rocks at the advancing North Korean soldiers. Once the enemy soldiers reached him, he pulled out his trench knife and leapt upon them, stabbing with one arm and punching with the other. The following day, U.S. soldiers found Pililaau's body surrounded by the bodies of forty North Korean Soldiers he managed to kill before he was stabbed to death. For his action, Pililaau became the first Hawaiian to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

On this day 13th April 1942.Sergeant Anton Schmid: Saint in a Feldwebel’s Uniform. Anton Schmid was executed by his superiors in Vilnius, Lithuania as a traitor; he had helped about 250 Jews escape from certain death. According to one of the perhaps 300 people he would go on to rescue during the Holocaust, Austrian electrician Anton Schmid was “a simple sergeant” as well as “a socially awkward man in thought and speech.”  Schmid didn’t read, and devoted his adult life to his electrical work, his small radio shop, and his wife and daughter. That is, until this Christian man found a higher calling when World War II began. Schmid served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, and was conscripted into the German army during the second.  He was in charge of returning stranded German soldiers to their units when, in August of 1941, his life changed. Schmid was approached by two Jews who were on the run from the Nazis, and he decided to help them — one of the few Axi...

On this day 2nd August 1943. 200 Jews revolted in Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, burning down several buildings, and attempted to escape; camp guards found and killed most of them. The conspiracy among the Treblinka prisoners started in the spring of 1943. Marceli Galewski was its leader. Despite receiving authority over the prisoners from the Germans, he gained trust of his fellow prisoners. Prisoners with military experience played an important role in the secret organisation. Among them were Polish Army captain and a doctor - Julian Chorążycki and Czechoslovak Army lieutenant - Želomir Bloch. The conspirators successfully managed to copy a key to the German weapon arsenal which allowed them to enter it and steal rifles and grenades when they were ready. However, most of the prisoners were armed with axes, crowbars, knives and Molotov cocktails. The preparations did not always go smoothly. The date of the uprising was moved many times due to unforeseen events and acci...

As is well known John Wayne did not serve in WWll and this seemed to affect his politics following the war. I don’t intend to get into the whys or wherefores of his behaviour. He made some classic war pictures which I love. They Were Expendable, Sands Of Iwo Jima and a small part in the stellar, The Longest Day. In the latter he played a real hero, Lt Col Benjamin Vandervoort. Charlton Heston had lobbied for the role, but the producer, Darryl F Zanuck, wanted Wayne. As big a star as Heston was, Wayne was bigger. There were a couple of problems though. Wayne did not like Zanuck for a slight Zanuck had made on him following the Wayne produced and directed, The Alamo. After the relative failure of the movie due to a bloated budget Zanuck had gone on the record chastising actors for taking on producer roles. “I’ve got a great affection for Duke Wayne, but what right has he to write, direct, and produce a motion picture? Look at poor old Duke now. He’s never going to see a nickel, a...

22nd September 1944, the noose tightens around allied forces in Arnhem, Holland. After the successes encountered in the Normandy Breakout from July through August, it was believed that the German Army was a beaten foe and in retreat.  As such, British General Montgomery lay forth a brazen plan to capture key bridges that would be required conquests for the final push into Germany, perhaps ending the war in Europe by Christmas of 1944.  Montgomery relayed his plan and, following acceptance by Supreme Allied Commander in Europe -US General Dwight Eisenhower -put the plan into action.  On September 17th - just seven days after the official approval, Operation Market Garden was set in motion. The operation was to be made up of two distinct forces - the airborne elements (falling under the "Market" designation) and the ground forces (falling under the "Garden" designation).  The airborne groups would be charged with seizing key bridges and choke points while the ground f...

Pictured below is Hans Conrad Schumann, also known as Konrad Schumann (1942-1998), escaping to West Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Between 1945 and 1988, around 4 million East Germans migrated to the West, with 3.45 million of them leaving between 1945 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The great majority simply walked across the border or, after 1952, exited through West Berlin.  However, the situation changed significantly after the border was fortified and the Berlin Wall was constructed.  In 1961, approximately 8,507 people fled across the border, with most of them using West Berlin as their route.  The construction of the Berlin Wall that year reduced the number of escapees by 75% to around 2,300 per annum for the rest of the decade. The Wall transformed Berlin from being one of the easiest places to cross the border from the East to one of the most difficult.  The number of escapees decreased further to 868 per annum d...

The White Death, the deadliest sniper who ever lived, 1939-1940. Simo Häyhä was a Finnish farmer who took part in hunting and target practice from a young age. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland.  It began the Winter War or the Russo-Finnish War, and a young Simo Häyhä answered the patriotic call by joining the Finnish army to defend his homeland.  Häyhä's home was also close to the border with Russia, which further fuelled his drive to defend his country. Häyhä demonstrated incredible marksman abilities. He could fire 16 rounds per minute while hitting his target.  This was exceptional as his rifle was the bolt action SAKO M/28-30, a Finnish version of the Russian Mosin Nagant.  This rifle only took five bullets using stripper clips. He also used the Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun.  Häyhä also showed extraordinary abilities in skiing, which allowed him to travel quickly to new locations with very little noise. Häyhä had several advantages. He knew his envir...

This is Sabrina Pasterski, a girl who already knew how to build an airplane engine at the age of 14. At age 16, she became the youngest person ever to travel in a plane she built herself. She has a doctorate in physics and is currently impressing with her studies of black holes. Sabrina Pasterski received her Ph.D. from Harvard and studies one of the most challenging subjects in physics: black holes, the nature of gravity, and space-time. The way he approaches the subject has led university institutions to claim that they are working with a "new Einstein". The daughter of an American father and a Cuban mother, she was born in Chicago and attended a school for super-intelligent children. In 2013, she was the first woman in two decades to graduate from MIT with a degree in physics at the top of her class. Stephen Hawking cited her work several times in his article published in 2016. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, wore a fan T-shirt with her image and invited her to...

On this day 15th November 1941, Erich Muhsfeldt was transferred from Auschwitz Concentration Camp to Majdanek Concentration Camp as the chief of the crematorium. Erich Muhsfeldt (also spelt Muβfeldt), was the chief of the crematoria at Majdanek, he spent time at Auschwitz honing his skills. His main task was the disposal of dead bodies and overtime he became a specialist. In November 1943 his expertise was needed again, this time with particular urgency. The day after the massacre of 3 November 1943 (in Operation Harvest Festival), on the orders of the departing Commandant Florstedt and his successor, Weiss, Muhsfeldt's squad set about cremating 18,000 corpses behind the crematorium, in the pits. Here, the chief of the crematorium used the cremation technique he had learned in Auschwitz, and which he explained in detail at an interrogation: On the 4th I collected wood and planks and on 5 November 1943 I began cremating the corpses. Because the part of the ditch where the v...

On this day 16th November 1943The Battle of Leros ended when Allied troops on the island surrendered. For Germany, it was a pyrrhic victory, as an estimated 4,000 men had been lost, mostly in sunken landing-craft. But the Germans were to hold the Dodecanese until the end of the war. For Britain, it was a humiliating defeat in an operation that should never have been attempted.  Churchill came in for particular criticism, although he laid the blame for failure firmly at the door of the Americans. The campaign cost the British Army 4,800 casualties, most of whom were taken prisoner.  Given the chronic shortage of infantry replacements, which plagued the British in Normandy less than a year later, this was an unnecessary sacrifice. Six British and Greek destroyers were sunk, along with two submarines and a number of smaller craft.  Four cruisers were damaged, and the Royal Air Force lost 115 aircraft. The damage to morale cannot be calculated.  Lieutenant Ted Johnson took p...