Book Preview Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov, was united in holy matrimony to Captain Edward J. Banning, USMC, of Charleston, South Carolina, by the Very Reverend James Fitzhugh Ferneyhough, D.D., canon of the cathedral, in a 10:45 A.m. Anglican ceremony on 12 November 1941. It was the first marriage for both. Throughout the ceremony, the … Read more
Book Preview Headquarters, U.S. Army Luzon Force Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippines 0915 Hours 7 April 1942 A Ford pickup truck turned off the Mariveles-Cabcaben “highway” into what was officially called “The Headquarters Area” but known universally as “Lit-tle Baguio.” The area held, in flimsy tropical buildings, the main ordnance and engineer depots and General Hospital … Read more
Book Preview Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands 0515 Hours 11 October 1942 First Lieutenant William Charles Dunn, USMCR, glanced up at the Pagoda through the scarred Plexiglas windshield of his battered, mud-splattered, bullet-holed Grumman F4F4 Wildcat. The Henderson Field control tower didn’t look like a pagoda, but Dunn had never heard the Japanese-built, three-story frame building called … Read more
Book Preview BUKA, SOLOMON ISLANDS SPRING AND SUMMER 1942 In the early months of 1942, a Major of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in Australia was forced to reconsider his long-held belief that he’d passed the point where the Army could surprise him. The Pacific & Far East Shipping Corporation’s freighter John J. Rogers Jr. … Read more
Book Preview 0455 HOURS 4 JUNE 1942 William Charles “Bill” Dunn, USMCR, of Point Clear, Alabama, was twenty-one years old, five feet six inches tall, and weighed 142 pounds; he’d been a First Lieutenant, USMCR, twelve, days, and a Naval Aviator not quite six months; and in all that time-in all his twenty-one years, even-he’d … Read more
Book Preview Oahu Island, Territory of Hawaii The Japanese Carrier Task Force charged with the destruc-tion of the United States Pacific Fleet began launching aircraft approximately 305 nautical miles north of Pearl Harbor. These aircraft proceeded in a single stream until they were about 12S miles from Pearl Harbor, where the stream split in two. … Read more
Book Preview THE CORPS is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Second Lieutenant Drew James Barrett III, USMC Company K, 3d Battalion, 26th Marines. Born Denver, Colorado, 3 January 1945, Died Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam, 27 February 1969 and Major Alfred Lee Butler 111, USMC Headquarters 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit. Born Washington, D.C., … Read more
Book Preview In 1900, with the approval of the Dowager Empress of China, a Chinese militia, the I Ho Chuan, ( or “Righteous Harmony Fists,” hence “Boxer”) began, under the motto “Protect the country, destroy the foreigner!” to kill both Westerners and Chinese Christians. The German ambassador in Peking was murdered, as were thousands of … Read more
Book Preview Since General Douglas MacArthur’s departure for Australia from the Fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay was in compliance with a direct order from President and Commander-in-Chief Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was the General’s belief that the move was nothing more than a transfer of his headquarters. He believed, in other words, that the … Read more
Book Preview On the night of November 7, Obersturm fuhrer SS-SD Wilhelm Peis, a tall, pale, blond man of twenty-eight, who was the senior Sicherheitsdienst SS Security Service) officer in Marburg an der Lahn, received the following message by Teletype from Berlin, YOU WILL PLEASE TAKE ALL NECESSARY STEPS To ENSURE THE SECURITY OF REICHSh{INISl2, … Read more
Book Preview Alameda Naval Air Station Alameda, California April 4, 1942 Although there were four passengers aboard the U.S. Navy PBY-5 from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, most of the plane’s cargo weight was mailbags regular mail from the fleet, official mail from various Army and Navy headquarters all over the Pacific, some from even as far … Read more
Book Preview In January 1939, Professor Niels Bohr, a German physicist who had fled Germany and was then living in Copenhagen, traveled to the United States and visited with Professor Albert Einstein, a German mathematician who had also fled Germany and was then living in Princeton, New Jersey. Among other things, they discussed an interesting … Read more
Book Preview During the spring of 1943, 240 German submarines were operating in the North and South Atlantic Ocean. Their mission was the interdiction of Allied shipping carrying war supplies from the United States to England and North Africa, and of Allied shipping carrying wool, beef, and other foodstuffs from (primarily) Argentina to England. During … Read more
Book Preview Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province Republic of Argentina The concentration el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade was devoting to the inch-thick document on his desk was interrupted by what sounded like the death agony of a water buffalo being stomped by an elephant. Frade, a six-foot-one, 195-pound, fifty-one-year-old, … Read more
Book Preview Guadalcanal. Solomon Islands Three Grumman F4F Wildcats approached Henderson Field from the west in a shallow descent from 15,000 feet. These three single-engine fighters represented one hundred per-cent of the aircraft available to Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-221-which put them at thirteen planes short of the sixteen they were authorized. The Cactus Air Force, … Read more
Book Preview The Brotherhood Of War 9 THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF WASHINGTON, D.C. Duplication Forbidden Copy 4 of Seven. For Distribution By Officer Courier Only Commanding General, United States Strike Commanding General, European Command Commanding General, United States Air Commanding General, Seventh United States 1. By Direction of the President; by Command of His … Read more
Book Preview Pleiku,RepublicofSouth Vietnam 1205 Hours 15 August 1963 When the glistening twin-engine Beechcraft U-8D, painted in the peacetime U.S. Army glossy white, black, and olive color scheme, touched down on. the runway at Pleiku, Major Warren H. Hightower,Infantry,USA , the commanding officer of the 170th Assault Helicopter Company, was on the parking ramp waiting … Read more
Book Preview The White HouseWashington,D.C. 12 December 1963 Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President Of the United, States, was sitting on a small couch in the Oval Office. Following the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy twenty days before, Johnson had acceded to the presidency. This was enough time for Johnson to grow to like what he … Read more