Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine

Beyond the Call: Colonel John Riley Kane at Ploesti, 1943 follows a United States Army air group commander through one of World War II’s most dangerous low-level bombing raids, as he leads damaged B-24 Liberators into the firestorm over Romania’s vital oil refineries. Listeners hear the story of Kane’s early life in Texas, the long flight from North Africa, the chaos of Operation Tidal Wave, and t...

Headline Wednesday: Battle of Midway, World War II follows the carrier ambush that shattered Japan’s early momentum in the central Pacific. From the coral runways of Midway Atoll to the crowded flight decks of Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown, this episode traces how codebreakers, repair crews, and aircrews all fed into one decisive day. Headline Wednesday is the Wednesday feature of Dispatch: U.S...

This Week in U.S. Military History: March 24th, 2026–March 30th, 2026 follows a seven-day arc that runs from colonial anger over the Quartering Act and the birth of a permanent frigate navy through the siege of Veracruz, last-ditch Confederate attacks at Fort Stedman, and the hard-won declaration that Iwo Jima was finally secure. Listeners hear how a lost experimental submarine near Hawaii drove s...

Beyond the Call: Second Lieutenant Walter Edward Truemper over Leipzig, 1944 follows the story of a young American navigator whose damaged B-17 limps home from a deadly World War Two mission, only for him to refuse an order to bail out and instead stay with his gravely wounded pilot in a final attempt to land the crippled bomber. Listeners hear a detailed narrative of the mission, the air war over...

Arsenal: AH-1 Cobra in Vietnam, 1967–1973 follows the first dedicated United States attack helicopter from hot landing zones in the Central Highlands to hunter killer missions along the Laotian border in the Vietnam War, showing how this slim gunship reshaped air assault and close support. Listeners hear the Cobra in action over contested valleys, the tactical and strategic problems it was built t...

Headline Wednesday: USS Nautilus and the Birth of the Nuclear Navy, early Cold War. In this episode, we follow the gray hull that slipped away from Groton and quietly rewrote the rules beneath the waves. From the first “Underway on nuclear power” message to long submerged runs and Arctic operations, Nautilus turns a technical experiment into a working combat submarine. Headline Wednesday is the We...

This Week in U.S. Military History: March 17th, 2026–March 23rd, 2026 brings together moments when words, weapons, and technology steered the United States armed forces onto new paths. Listeners move from Patrick Henry’s fiery “liberty or death” plea and the British evacuation of Boston, through the desperate stand at Bentonville, MacArthur’s “I shall return” vow, and the inferno aboard the carrie...

Beyond the Call: Major William Arthur Shomo at Luzon, 1945 follows a United States Army Air Forces reconnaissance pilot who turned a routine photo mission into one of the most remarkable aerial combats of World War Two in the Pacific. Listeners hear how a quiet former mortician from Pennsylvania led a two-plane flight against a thirteen-ship enemy formation, destroyed seven aircraft himself, and p...

Arsenal: UH-1 Huey and Its Variants in Air Assault over Vietnam, Vietnam War follows the iconic turbine helicopter from the dust and fire of Ia Drang landing zones to its long service as a medevac, gunship, and troop carrier across the wider Vietnam theater. Listeners hear how the Huey solved the problem of moving infantry and casualties in brutal terrain, how its design and crew layout shaped lif...

Headline Wednesday: Raid on Son Tay, Vietnam War takes listeners into the low-level night flight toward a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp just west of Hanoi, where American Special Forces and Air Force crews risked everything to bring captured airmen home. This episode walks through the joint rescue force that crashed a helicopter into the courtyard, cleared the guard towers, and swept the c...

This Week in U.S. Military History: March 10th, 2026–March 16th, 2026 follows a week where questions of loyalty, power, and responsibility sit at the heart of the story. Listeners move from George Washington calming angry officers at Newburgh and the founding of the United States Military Academy at West Point to Ulysses Grant taking charge of all Union armies and United Nations forces recapturing...

Beyond the Call: Private First Class George Benjamin Jr. at Leyte, 1944 follows a young radio operator of the United States Army as he rises under fire, rallies a stalled attack, rescues a trapped tank crew, and ultimately gives his life trying to shield his comrades from a deadly explosion in the Philippines campaign of World War II. Listeners hear the story of the Leyte fighting, the terrain and...

Headline Wednesday: U-2 Shootdown over Sverdlovsk, Cold War. A lone spy plane cruising at 60,000 feet over the Soviet Union suddenly becomes the center of a global crisis when Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 is torn apart by a surface-to-air missile near Sverdlovsk. This episode traces the mission from the quiet, high-altitude world of the cockpit to the moment Powers falls under a parachute into hostile...

This Week in U.S. Military History: March 3rd, 2026–March 9th, 2026 traces a week when American forces leapt from island forts and border towns to Rhine bridges and Vietnamese beaches. Listeners follow Continental Marines raiding New Providence for desperately needed powder, volunteers falling at the Alamo, and soldiers storming ashore at Veracruz as the United States learns how to project power f...

Beyond the Call: Technical Sergeant Beauford T. Anderson at Kakazu Ridge, Okinawa, 1945 tells the story of a weapons platoon leader who faced an overwhelming predawn counterattack on Okinawa and chose to stand alone on a threatened flank to protect his men in the closing months of World War Two. Listeners hear how the fight for Kakazu Ridge fit into the brutal Pacific campaign, how Anderson improv...

Arsenal: EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler in Carrier-Based Electronic Warfare, Vietnam to the 21st Century follows the Navy and Marine Corps electronic attack lineage from the skies over North Vietnam to Desert Storm, Libya, and today’s contested airspace. Listeners hear how these aircraft fought enemy radars and missiles in action, the problem they were built to solve, how designers turned an att...

Headline Wednesday: Doolittle Raid, Second World War (Pacific Theater) traces the first American air strike on Japan’s home islands, from a crowded carrier deck in the western Pacific to the smoke drifting over Tokyo. This episode follows James Doolittle and his volunteer crews as they train B-25 medium bombers for a mission no manual had ever imagined, then ride Hornet and her escorts into waters...

This Week in U.S. Military History: February 24th, 2026–March 2nd, 2026 brings you from George Rogers Clark slogging through flooded frontier country at Vincennes to high-altitude firefights in Afghanistan’s Shah-i-Kot Valley. Along the way, you hear how a peacetime gunnery demonstration aboard USS Princeton turned to tragedy, how panic and flak filled the night sky over Los Angeles in early 1942,...

Beyond the Call: Staff Sergeant George John Hall at Anzio, 1944 follows a young infantry leader from Stoneham, Massachusetts into the brutal Italian campaign of World War II, where his one-man assault on multiple German machine-gun positions turns a stalled attack into a fighting chance for his company. Listeners hear the story of the Anzio beachhead, the exposed farmland his unit had to cross, an...

Arsenal: Oliver Hazard Perry–Class Frigates in NATO Sea Lanes, the Late Cold War follows the lean guided missile escorts that guarded convoys in the North Atlantic, faced missiles and mines in the Persian Gulf, and rode into Operation Desert Storm beside carriers and battleships. Listeners hear how Cold War arithmetic drove the need for an affordable general purpose frigate, how gas turbines, a si...

Headline Wednesday: The Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq War takes listeners back into the most intense urban fighting of the early 2000s, as Marines, soldiers, Iraqi units, and insurgent fighters clash street by street for control of a city that has become the symbol and engine of a wider insurgency. From the eerie November night when assault columns form up on the edge of Fallujah to the first br...

This Week in U.S. Military History: February 17th, 2026–February 23rd, 2026 traces a sweeping arc from nineteenth-century borderlands to the deserts of the Persian Gulf. Listeners move from the Adams–Onís Treaty that brought Florida into the United States orbit, through desperate stands at the Alamo and Buena Vista, to the fall of Columbia and Wilmington as the Civil War’s grip tightens. The story...

Beyond the Call: Brigadier General Frederick Walker Castle at the Christmas Eve Air Raids over Germany, 1944 traces the final mission of an American bomber commander during World War Two, from the frozen skies above the Ardennes to a burning Fortress falling over Belgium. Listeners hear the story of a massive bomber formation sent to shield troops in the Battle of the Bulge, the engine failure tha...

Arsenal: M109 Self-Propelled Howitzer in Desert Storm, 1991 follows tracked artillery batteries across the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, showing how they moved, fired, and survived alongside armored divisions. Listeners hear the M109 in action on the gun line, the problem it was built to solve for fast moving Cold War armies, the story of its design and evolution into variant...

Headline Wednesday: Black Hawk Down, Somalia 1993 follows the October raid over Mogadishu’s Bakara Market, where a quick snatch mission turned into a long urban survival fight around two fallen Black Hawks. From Rangers sprinting to blocking positions to Delta operators pushing through walled compounds, the episode traces how a raid built on speed and surprise collided with dense streets, rising m...