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Operation Alamo at 80
Markham Valley, Nadzab Airfield, near Lae, New Guinea: An Australian Digger and a U.S. Army Paratrooper link up on 6 September 1943. The day before, the paratroops had taken the valley in a surprise...
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Introducing Captain Patton
This notable oath, via the 1,572-page Official Military Personnel File for George S. Patton Jr., digitized in the National Archives, was signed some years 106 ago today. When his promotion was...
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Viking Flag Waving
The Royal Danish Navy recently changed out the flag at remote Isbjørneø in Baffin Bay, some 60 miles from Thule AB in Greenland. Uninhabited except for seabirds for at least the past 170 years, the...
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Grendel in its Cave, 80 Years Ago
Here we see the Kriegsmarine battleship Tirpitz at Kåfjord in German-occupied Norway, in September 1943. Note the triple torpedo nets surrounding the beast and the flotilla of attending patrol and...
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Backpacking through Italy, with a PIAT
80 years ago today: Canadian Army Corporal Earl Harold Pruner, 19, of The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, carries both a PIAT anti-tank weapon and an M1 Thompson sub-machine gun through war-torn...
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Take me out to the ballgame
With the 1943 World Series some 80 years in the rearview this week, one famed offshoot of that 5-game near-blowout by the Yankees over the Cards comes to mind. The aviators of the newly-formed Marine...
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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023: Sink Em All
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Warship Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023: The Duel of the Deputado and the Knight
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
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Renowned Handgunner Philip Hemphill Passes at 71
Two-time NRA Precision Pistol Champion and holder of 10 National Police Pistol Championship titles, Philip Hemphill, has passed away. Hemphill, who retired from the Mississippi Highway Patrol as a...
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Lt. Schneider, of New Guinea, I presume?
Somewhere in New Guinea, 1943. Official caption: “Displaying all the traits of a true air ace, Second Lieutenant Edwin A. Schneider of Passaic, N.J., shot down three of 23 Japanese aircraft destroyed...
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One of our own needs a boost
Chase Welch, a 0311 Marine with two combat tours in Afghanistan and an all-around good guy who was once a lowly Guns.com writer long ago left GDC for a bigger and better deal over at EoTech where he...
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Get that Christmas Tree permit
Rather than support “Big Tree” this year just spend $15 and go harvest your own on public land– helping the forest in the process. Via the USDA: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service is...
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Lady Lex Pow Wow
Some 80 years ago this month, aboard the Essex-class fleet carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) in the Pacific: A great period Kodachrome of The “Fighting Airedales” of Fighting Squadron Sixteen (VF-16)’s...
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The Lousy Lousy Lounge: Happy Birthday, Devils
80 years ago this month. Tarawa, November 1943. Japanese RADM Keiji Shibasaki proclaimed, “A million men cannot take Tarawa in 100 years.” The Second Marine Division did it in four days. Official...
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Big O
Some 80 years ago today, on Armistice Day, now Veterans’ Day, we see the svelte 26-year-old fighter pilot that is Major Robert Gordon Owens Jr. of the “Fighting Corsairs” of Marine Fighting Squadron...
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Vampire over Ocean
Talk about old-school cool. How about this full-page ad from the 1946 edition of Jane’s in my collection? Taken out by the De Havilland company, it shows one of its new Sea Vampire jets– LZ551G– over...
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82nd Commemoration…
The destroyer tender USS Dobbin (AD-3) was at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941. Her crew sprang to action and, in addition to her own armament, broke out four spare .50 caliber machine...
View ArticleGetting Muddy with the ‘Bees
One of the best “events” I ever attended in Las Vegas was a talk given by Mike Rowe several years ago during the SHOT Show. To be sure, it was a very red-blooded crowd (Lt. Col. Oliver North was like...
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Coasties Swatting Vals on the Cape
As a follow-up to our coverage of the 80th passing of the Cape Gloucester operations that saw the 1st Marine Division hit the beaches on the day after Chrismas 1943, we touched on the fact that a lot...
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Tea, Rope, and Tommy Guns
80 years ago this morning: Men from British Army’s No. 9 Commando “having a cuppa” on the morning following a raid on the night of 29/30 December near the Garigliano river in Italy as part of...
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