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Feb 20, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Jon Bock |David T. Zabecki
On Jan. 30, 1968, all U.S. combat units in Vietnam went to alert status when the Viet Cong violated the Tet Cease-fire by attacking Da Nang and eleven other cities in the center of the country. The 9th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry (Mechanized) deployed to overwatch positions around the sprawling American logistics base at Long Binh, which was also the headquarters of U.S. II Field Forces. Early the following morning, Jan.
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Feb 16, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Jon Bock |David T. Zabecki
British naval historian and geostrategist Sir Julian Corbett (1854–1922) was a contemporary of renowned American naval strategist Rear Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914). Unlike Mahan, Corbett had no personal military or naval experience, which prompted many senior officers in the Admiralty to view him and his theories with skepticism. A misconception persists that the ideas of Mahan and Corbett are in opposition, that one must accept one or the other. But that is an oversimplification.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Claire Barrett |David T. Zabecki
War Movie: The American Battle in Cinema (on DVD and Blu-ray, five-part documentary, 315 minutes), Cantilever Films, written and directed by Steve Summers, $24.99–$34.99, 2023What is a war movie? Is it a faithful restaging of an actual historical event? Or is it a fictional morality play set against a well-known historical background? Is it solely a story of a battle, of soldiers in combat?
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Brian Walker |David T. Zabecki
Ludwig August Theodor Beck was the Third Reich’s most enigmatic and tragic senior general. As the first chief of the resurrected German Army General Staff in 1935, he played a leading role in building the post-World War I rump-Reichswehr into the Wehrmacht of World War II. He was a brilliant military thinker and the primary author of the 1933 operations manual Truppenführung (Unit Command), which remained the foundation of Germany’s war-fighting doctrine until 1945—and beyond.
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Dec 22, 2023 | 
historynet.com | Jon Bock |David T. Zabecki
Battlefields are where history happened—for better or for worse. As Winston Churchill once observed, “Battles are the punctuation marks in history.” Battles, however, are very complex events. You can read many books and look at countless maps and still not have the gut-level understanding of what really happened and why it happened that way.
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Dec 15, 2023 | 
historynet.com | Jon Bock |David T. Zabecki
No general, the old saying goes, ever wakes up in the morning and decides he is going to lose a battle. Yet for every general who loses a battle, there is an opposite number who wins the fight. This has been a constant of warfare for as long as man has kept historical records. World War I, however, has been recorded somewhat differently by history, or at least by popular history.
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Nov 15, 2023 | 
historynet.com | David T. Zabecki
Land mines were used by all sides during the Vietnam War and caused significant casualties. In 1965 alone, more than one-third of U.S. Marine Corps casualties were caused by mines and explosive booby traps. A modern land mine is a concealed explosive device emplaced under, on, or even above the ground to kill or wound enemy troops, or destroy or disable vehicles. The land mines of the Vietnam era were triggered by direct contact or command-detonated by wire.
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Sep 11, 2023 | 
historynet.com | David T. Zabecki
Riverine warfare was a central element of combat in Vietnam. The French and Viet Minh struggled for control of the Red and Black Rivers. Later, the South Vietnamese and Americans contested with the Viet Cong for the lower Mekong and its tributaries. With 15,600 square miles of land and more than 15,000 miles of waterways, the Mekong Delta was of vital strategic importance. Producing some 16 million tons of rice per year, the Delta was the foundation of the Republic of Vietnam’s economy.
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Aug 29, 2023 | 
historynet.com | David T. Zabecki
Military history has given us some great teams of commanders and their chiefs of staff. Napoleon had Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier; Dwight D. Eisenhower had Walter Bedell Smith; and Bernard Law Montgomery had Francis Wilfred de Guingand. Fortunately for the Allies in World War II, Bedell Smith and de Guingand served not only in that same war, but also in the same theater starting in 1943.
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Aug 24, 2023 | 
historynet.com | David T. Zabecki
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Adelbert F. Waldron III was the highest-scoring American sniper of the Vietnam War, with 109 confirmed kills. He was also the most highly decorated, earning the Distinguished Service Cross twice, the Silver Star, and three Bronze Star Medals. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1933, Waldron served in the U.S. Navy from 1953 to 1965, leaving the service as a petty officer 2nd class. In 1968 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and at age 35 completed airborne school to earn his jump wings.
