Paratroopers
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Paratroopers Lost, Desperate in Italy March 22, 2023
The Fifth U.S. Army was in trouble and dropping 600 paratroops at Avellino to disrupt the communications of the 16th Panzer Division seemed like a sound solution. Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark’s command had landed in Italy at the Bay of Salerno ex...
What Life Was Like Inside Easy Company March 17, 2023
“The true picture of war is impossible to convey—even by those who did the bleeding and the fighting.”So wrote Burton “Pat” Christenson at the start of a pictorial journal he made for his three sons after the war. The journal is the size of a large p...
Aggression vs. Rigidity Decided Fate of Pacific February 16, 2023
There is nothing new in war. The weapons and fields may change, but since Alexander the Great conquered the known world with its first "fire and maneuver," conflict has been decided by aggression discipline, decisive leadership. I was given the excep...
Before Normandy, There Was the Battle of Graignes November 16, 2022
An account of an overlooked piece of World War II history.During the early hours before the massive Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied paratroopers descended behind German lines. Many missed their drop zones, including two companie...
Marines at Battle of Guadalcanal November 14, 2022
On Guadalcanal, the Marines gained a foothold after their landing on August 7, but the Japanese built up their forces. The 1st Raider Battalion and 1st Parachute Battalion were recalled from Tulagi and Gavutu and placed in reserve near Guadalcanal's ...
Overlooked D-Day Paratrooper Disaster May 04, 2022
Colonel Ed Raff kept glancing at his wristwatch while trying to control the growing sense of dread inside him. At any moment, he knew, dozens of American cargo gliders were due to arrive overhead.Yet well-armed enemy infantrymen and machine gunners d...
'Rounds Were Ripping Past' During Surprise Jump March 23, 2022
On June 25, 1950 the North Korean peoples army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded South Korea. The U.N. Council called for an immediate cease-fire. The North Koreans ignored the U.N. protest and continued south. They captured Seoul, the capitol...
India Beats Back Portugal in Forgotten War March 21, 2022
At dawn on Dec. 18, 1961, squadrons of Indian Air Force bombers crossed a border, bombed an airfield and a communications site. Paratroopers, tanks and artillery crossed that same border on the ground, intent on seizing territory. But the ground they...
French Helped Allied Paratroopers Find Marks June 11, 2020
or Normans, D-Day began with noise.This Startup is Changing the Way People RetireSmartAssetAds by RevcontentFind Out More >63,698Just before midnight the night before, hundreds of airplanes could be heard flying south over the Cotentin. Thousands of ...
Israel Wrests Holy City From Jordan June 08, 2020
Despite Israel’s appeal to Jordan to stay out of the war, Jordanian forces fired artillery barrages from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Although Israeli forces did not respond initially, not wanting to open up a Jordanian front in the war, Jordan continued t...
Poor Leadership, Errors Caused Fall of Crete June 01, 2020
Major General Sandy Thomas says poor leadership shown by Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force commanders on Crete directly led to the loss of the battle for the Mediterranean island in May 1941. Mr Thomas, 91, has waited 70 years to tell his versio...
German Invasion of Crete Begins By Air May 20, 2020
The German invasion of Crete in May 1941 stands as a landmark in the history of airborne warfare. Up until that point, airborne operations had been used mainly in a tactical and operational context to seize key objectives in advance of the ground for...
Paratroopers in Combat: Past and Present May 18, 2020
I graduated from U.S. Army Airborne School in December, 1968. I was a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division in the summer of 1969 before I went to Vietnam. In July, 1966, I was in an artillery battalion of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort C...
Camera, Cow, Dentist: Life in Easy Co. May 11, 2020
Paratrooper Ed Mauser never forgot the first thing he saw when he leaped from the doorway of his C-47 transport plane in the opening hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944. It was another plane, holding Lieutenant Thomas Meehan, the commander of Easy Company, ...
D-Day Paratrooper's Capture, Escape May 06, 2020
As the Allied Invasion of Normandy began, Henry Langrehr, an American paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, was among the thousands of Allies who parachuted into occupied France. Surviving heavy anti-aircraft fire, he crashed through the glass roof of ...
