Military History

Given our respective interest in online military gaming, where does everyone fall in regards to the topics of military history they love the most?

For me, personally, I've always loved conflicts in Antiquity, the Napoleonic Era and the Second World War - curious to see where everyone else falls!

I am new to the 5th and I am happy to be here as well as looking forward to meeting you all and taking the field after training

Pvt. Drew Thompson

Ever since a very young age I've always been fascinated on the topic of World War II. My main interest lie in the European Theatre of Operations with the American and British Army. the Pacific Theatre has never intrigued me whatsoever.


My grandfather, Dan Spence served in the Merchant Navy with his brother Andrew Spence aboard the cargo ship SS Anthea as an Able Seaman in the boiler room. On 8th December 1940, crossing from Canada to the United Kingdom she was steaming in very thick fog when the Dutch tanker SS Maasdam collided into her at full speed, 11 knots amidships. SS Anthea began taking on water immediately and sank within minutes. A crewman aboard the SS Maasdam managed to deploy a life raft into the sea. My grandfather and another crewman managed to climb into the life raft. As soon as they were aboard they began searching for the rest of the crew in the sea, one by one the crew resurfaced. The last to resurface was Andrew, unable to swim he was grabbed from the collar of his shirt and lifted into the life raft. They were then taken aboard the SS Maasdam and a near by Merchant ship towed the SS Massdam to Canada.

On 27th June 1941 the SS Maasdam was torpedoed by U-564 and sank with the loss of two lives. At the time there were 48 crew and 32 passengers.

My grandfather then joined the Royal Navy and was deployed to the River Nile, Egypt on a minesweeping ship. Unfortunately that's all the information I have about him. He survived the war, but I was too young to have any real conversations with him.


When I get back to Scotland I will photograph and scan his images, medals and Tour of Duty and upload them to the site.

Yang Kyoungjong was a Korean soldier who fought during World War II in the Imperial Japanese Army, the Soviet Red Army, and later the German Wehrmacht. His story was revealed in an article of ‘Weekly Korea’ on Dec. 6th, 2002, which became a big topic in the Korean society at the time.

Yang Kyoungjong was born in Shin Euijoo, Northwestern Korea on March 3, 1920. He was conscripted to the Kwantung army in 1938 and captured by the Soviets in Nomonhan and captured again by Germans in Ukraine in the summer of 1943, probably during the battle of Kharkov, and captured finally by Americans at Utah beach, Normandy on June 6, 1944.

He was freed from a POW camp in Britain in May 1945 and moved to and settled in America in 1947. He lived near the Northwestern Univ. in Illinois until he died on April 7, 1992. He lived as an ordinary US citizen without telling his unbelievable life story even to his two sons and one daughter.

I personally find WW2 to be the most interesting.

Thompson if you like Napoleonic Wars you should check out the DLC for Mount and Blade Warband. Huge battles.

I'm real big into the WWII history too.  There's just something about the times that really interests me.  I studied American military history up to 1900 during my undergrad.  I took some really great classes.  Did a lot of research and writing on the War of 1812.  WWII is my favorite though.  Btw, Sir, that POW was a very interesting read..

What a move!!!

Spot on!

The Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi, aka The Stern Gang, was a jewish paramilitary group created by Avraham "Yair" Stern after the split of Irgun, in order to fight British rule over Palestine, ideologically similar to Mussolini's Italy.
Stern's plan was to fight alongside with the Axis, and free the lands of Palestine from the British, and to help Germany by forcing all the jews from Europe to migrate to his newly-formed Israel, which would become a country ruled by "nationalist and totalitarian principles".
In 1940, the Lehi sent a diplomat to Mussolini in order to gain his support and to assert Israel's will to become a satellite nation, and so he did, signing the document known as "The Jerusalem Agreement".
Yair also tried contact several times with Hitler, but either the British intercepted and/or killed them, or they were spies from the Irgun and were executed later.
After the war, with Stern's death, Lehi's chairmen and commanders became associated with Nazbol, until the party's merging with the Israeli Defense Forces in 1948.

Always been big into the Early Middle Ages, especially the vikings.


In 793, a Viking raid on Lindisfarne caused much consternation throughout the Christian west and is now often taken as the beginning of the Viking Age. The D and E versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record:

Her wæron reðe forebecna cumene ofer Norðhymbra land, ⁊ þæt folc earmlic bregdon, þæt wæron ormete þodenas ⁊ ligrescas, ⁊ fyrenne dracan wæron gesewene on þam lifte fleogende. Þam tacnum sona fyligde mycel hunger, ⁊ litel æfter þam, þæs ilcan geares on .vi. Idus Ianuarii, earmlice hæþenra manna hergunc adilegode Godes cyrican in Lindisfarnaee þurh hreaflac ⁊ mansliht.

In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen people destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.

The generally accepted date for the Viking raid on Lindisfarne is in fact 8 June; Michael Swanton writes: "vi id Ianr, presumably is an error for vi id Iun (8 June) which is the date given by the Annals of Lindisfarne (p. 505), when better sailing weather would favour coastal raids."

Alcuin, a Northumbrian scholar in Charlemagne's court at the time, wrote:

Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race ... The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.

The English seemed to have turned their back on the sea as they became more settled. Many monasteries were established on islands, peninsulas, river mouths and cliffs. Isolated communities were less susceptible to interference and the politics of the heartland. The amazement of the English at the raids from the sea must have been matched by the amazement of the raiders at such (to them) vulnerable, wealthy and unarmed settlements.

These preliminary raids, unsettling as they were, were not followed up. The main body of the raiders passed north around Scotland. The 9th century invasions came not from Norway, but from the Danes from around the entrance to the Baltic. The first Danish raids into England were in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent during 835 and from there their influence spread north. During this period religious art continued to flourish on Lindisfarne, and the Liber Vitae of Durham began in the priory.

By 866 the Danes were in York and in 873 the army was moving into Northumberland.[46] With the collapse of the Northumbrian kingdom the monks of Lindisfarne fled the island in 875 taking with them St. Cuthbert's bones (which are now buried at the cathedral in Durham).

Prior to the 9th century Lindisfarne Priory had, in common with other such establishments, held large tracts of land which were managed directly or leased to farmers with a life interest only. Following the Danish occupation land was increasingly owned by individuals and could be bought, sold and inherited. Following the Battle of Corbridge in 914 Ragnald seized the land giving some to his followers Scula and Onlafbal.

Another thing that fascinated me was the story of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons:

Ragnar Lodbrok or Lothbrok (Old Norse: Ragnarr Loðbrók, "Ragnar Shaggy-Breeches") was a legendary viking leader and hero of Old Norse poetry and sagas from the Viking age. According to this traditional literature, Ragnar distinguished himself by many raids against Francia and Anglo-Saxon England, during the 9th century.

According to traditional sources, Ragnar was:

-son of the Swedish king Sigurd Hring and a relative of the Danish king Gudfred;

-married three times, to the shieldmaiden Lagertha, the noblewoman Thóra Borgarhjǫrtr and Aslaug (also known as Kráka, Kraba and Randalin), a Norse queen;

-the father of historical viking figures including Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Hvitserk, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba;

-captured by King Ælla of Northumbria and died after Ælla had him thrown into a pit of snakes, and;

-avenged by the Great Heathen Army that invaded and occupied Northumbria and adjoining Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

It is believed that Ragnar was not one person but many historical figures that have been combined into one legendary figure. My favorite thing though is his supposed last words as he is tossed into the snake pit by King Ælla of Northumbria: "How the little piglets would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered."

Growing up in the jungle and desert, I've always been interested in the warfare that took place there. In regards to WW2, most of my knowledge lies in the Pacific Theater where a few family members served and the air war over Europe, which I also had family members partake in. Submarines of WW2 are a special interest of mine, especially U-Boats after I learned of my great grandmother's brother who passed away in a U-boat training accident towards the end of the war. (She lost two other brothers in the war as well but I've never heard stories about them.)


Vietnam is a HUGE interest to me, I read stories of men who served there and many of them were around my age at the time and have similar ideals to me, more easy to relate to them for me. The music, the culture at the time, all very interesting and it's still easy to find veterans of the war and as time has gone on I find that they are more willing to talk about their experiences.

Seeing as some of my earliest memories are of watching news footage of the invasions of Iraq/Afghanistan and that I have friends and family who served there, I have a definite interest in those conflicts as well, but it can be tough to hear stories about it. As is the case with any war I suppose.

I was able to dig up the debrief from the last mission my great grandfather flew in WW2, he was aboard the "No Name" plane that was shot down, in the tail gunner position.

Debrief

STUKA!!!!!!!!

BOOOOMM

*DEAD*

My great grandfather was in the navy during WW2 and he drove a amphibious boat thing on d-day (idk which beach head it was)

I became interested in the history of WWII at a pretty young age because my grandpa was a radio operator on a B17 in the Bloody 100th. I actually got into building WWII era aircraft models because of that. My dad was a huge history nut, and eventually got me into the American Civil War and the Revolutionary War as well. I've since grown to love all history leading up to and during war time. It's interesting to see the political climate that sparked a war.

I've been interested in military history since I was about five years old. I started with - and continue to love - Civil War history. I'm generally a raging history nerd, but I've been interested in other periods of military history as well. Recently, I've been interested in the wars that resulted in the colonial expansion of European nations (e.g., the Scramble for Africa and the Great Game).

it all really depends on what im into at the time, media contributes a big part in be delving into history. like if im playing a civil war game, ill spend a week just surfing the web on that war or the conflicts of. but  kind or really started with world war 2, but modern conflicts interest me as well lately, such as the conflict in Somalia, i mean i go back and forth a lot with wars and conflicts, im more of a military history buff.

Seeing as it's the 75th anniversary, I'm going to try to find some documentaries about Operation Chastise aka the "Dambusters" missions. This here is as balls to the wall (or barrels to the dam, in this case) as it gets boys. Strap in and read about it if you haven't before or take the time to remember the legends again!

I originally started watching this guy to suck less at the Close Combat games but he's shifted to mainly doing historical documentaries, this is a rather long documentary combining all of his videos about Operation Market Garden (which the 193rd would just miss). He's got tons of other videos in a similar vein mainly about the Eastern front and the North African theater.

i used to play close combat invasion of normandy all the time!!