Military Heritage

December 2011

Volume 13, No. 3

COVER: Men of the 1st Infantry Division, The Big Red One, land on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The Granger Collection, New York

December 2011

Military Heritage

The Glorious First of June

By David A. Norris

British Admiral Lord Richard Howe, standing on the quarterdeck of his 100-gun ship of the line Queen Charlotte, snapped his signal book shut on the morning of June 1, 1794. Read more

December 2011

Military Heritage

Black Day at Magersfontein

By Kelly Bell

During the third week in November 1899, British forces under the overall command of General Sir Redvers Buller were marching northward across South Africa’s Orange Free State in a campaign to relieve the strategically vital railroad center of Kimberley. Read more

Surrounded by Spanish pikemen at the climax of the Battle of Ravenna, French commander Gaston de Foix fights to stay on horseback. He would soon tumble to his inevitable death.

December 2011

Military Heritage

Death of the Fox: Battle of Ravenna (1512)

By William E. Welsh

As the first rays of sunlight chased away the shadows from the base of the high walls surrounding the village of Ravenna in northern Italy on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1512, the French army besieging the town began to form into columns. Read more

Weary GIs move inland after landing in Sicily in July 1943 in this contemporary painting, Red Beach at Gela, 1700, by Mitchell Jamieson.

December 2011

Military Heritage

The Big Red One in World War II

By Steven Weingartner

The outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, found the United States in an isolationist mood that precluded, for the time being, any direct involvement in the conflict. Read more

A Union doctor in a straw hat, foreground, examines a soldier’s leg wound while other casualties sprawl on the ground at a field hospital following the Battle of Savage’s Station, Virginia, on June 29, 1862.

December 2011

Military Heritage

Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine

By Richard A. Gabriel

Safe behind its ocean barriers, the United States paid scant attention to the wars that raged abroad during the early 19th century, taking little notice of the lessons that might have been learned from the European experience with mass killing. Read more

December 2011

Military Heritage, Soldiers

WWI Author: The Writings of Wilfred Owen

By Philip Burton Morris

When news began to circulate through the city of Bordeaux, France, in August 1914 that war had broken out with Germany, 21-year-old Englishman Wilfred Owen was as surprised as most. Read more

December 2011

Military Heritage, Weapons

Tactical Air Mobility: Birth of the Air Cav

By Glenn Birdwell

Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?” Read more

December 2011

Military Heritage, Games

Game Features: Toy Soldiers: Cold War

by Joseph Luster

Toy Soldiers: Cold War may have once been a part of Xbox’s “Summer of Arcade,” but the war being waged inside this toy box is a cold one. Read more