Odin & Aesop

The U.S. Army’s Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division was part of the force that invaded Iraq in March of 2003.  It raced out of Kuwait in Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles across open terrain, fighting a battle for which they'd trained. Mechanized infantry combined with the tank sledgehammer brushed aside any resistance losing more vehicles to maintenance than enemy action. ...

In 1942 the British were fighting for control of the Atlantic Ocean.  If they lost this battle they would starve and be put out of the war.  German submarines were pushing the British to their limits and they could ill afford to have the German battleship Tirpitz sortie into the Atlantic and join the fight. To stop this from happening the British determined the best way to neutralize the Tirpitz w...

The Marine Corps grew to 485,000 Marines during the Second World War.  This was twenty-five times larger than it was in 1939.  This greatly expanded Corps attacked and captured Japanese held islands across the Central Pacific from 1942 until the war ended in 1945.  Each island landing brought the United States closer to invading the Japanese home islands.  One Marine that participated in the Pacif...

North Korea tried to unify the peninsula by invading South Korea in June 1950.  Initially the North Koreans had great success.  They quickly advanced south while the United States tried to get forces onto the peninsula to stop them.  This soon became a United Nations’ mission, and the North Koreans were stopped right around the southern port of Pusan.  Then the United States landed in the rear of...

James Nelson’s “I Will Hold” tells the story of Clifton B. Cates.  Cates began serving in the Marine Corps in June 1917.  He deployed to France as part of the 6th Marine Regiment and participated in the Third Battle of Aisne, the Battle of Belleau Wood, and the Battle of Soissons.  Cates was awarded the Navy Cross, two Distinguished Service Crosses, the Star, and Purple Heart for his service durin...

In April 1968 large elements of the North Vietnamese Army’s 320th Division crossed the Demilitarized Zone into South Vietnam.  They were advancing towards the 3rd Marine Division’s command post and major logistics hub at Dong Ha when they were engaged by the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines.  Fighting raged in and around the village of Dai Do from April 30th until May 3rd.  This was some of the Vietnam...

The Battle of Guadalcanal took place from August 1942 until February 1943.  Because Guadalcanal is an island, both the Japanese and the Americans relied on the sea to supply their forces and bring in reinforcements.    James D. Hornfischer’s “Neptune’s Inferno” tells the story of the fight to control the seas around Guadalcanal.  These sea battles cost roughly three times as many American lives as...

The Allies landed in Normandy as the sun came up on June 6th, 1944.  A couple of hours before about 13,100 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions jumped into the night inland of the Utah and Omaha beaches.  The 82nd's mission was to seize the town of Saint Marie Eglise and the causeways off Utah beach.  Ed Ruggero’s “First Men In” tells the story of how they did it...

The U.S. entered the Second World War in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  In January 1942, the United States established the 8th Bomber Group.  By February 1942, the 8th Bomber Group had a detachment in England, its first combat units arrived in June, and it launched its first raid on July 4th, 1942 as the 8th Air Force.  The 8th Air Force was the c...

This is part 2 of 2 on Sean Naylor’s “Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command”.  In April 1980, the U.S. military tried to rescue 52 Americans captured when Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  The rescue attempt was called Operation Eagle Claw and it failed.  Eagle Claw involved helicopters flying from a Navy ship and fixed wing aircraft carrying...

In April 1980, the U.S. military tried to rescue 52 Americans captured when Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  The rescue attempt was called Operation Eagle Claw and it failed.  Eagle Claw involved helicopters flying from a Navy ship and fixed wing aircraft carrying the assault force and extra fuel flying from another country.  All the pieces converged in the middle of the Irani...

The U.S. Navy started World War Two leaning towards the idea that its submarines were supposed to remain hidden and cautiously scout ahead of the surface fleet.  With the surface fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor, that idea got turned around.  Instead a new generation of aggressive commanders rose up.  They roamed the vast Pacific on independent war patrols that lasted months.  By war’s end the Japa...

On the night of 30-31 March 1944, 795 Royal Air Force bombers attacked the city of Nuremberg.  95 of those bombers were shot down, ten more were written off as complete losses after landing, and 545 bomber crewmen were lost.  More aircrew were lost that night than the whole of the Battle of Britain.  It is the bloodiest day in Royal Air Force history. 

On September 11th, 2001 the terrorist group Al Qaeda hijacked four civilian airliners and used them to attack the United States.  Two planes were deliberately flown into and destroyed New York’s World Trade Center; another plane was flown into the Pentagon; and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.  It appears the fourth plane was headed to attack another target in Washington, DC but cr...

The Allies kicked in the door on NAZI occupied Europe on June 6th, 1944.  The 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, lead the way on the eastern part of Omaha beach.  John C. McManus’ book “The Dead and Those About to Die” is the story of what they did that day.

The 1st Marine Division landed at Wonsan on Korea's east coast in October 1953.  When the 12,000-man division started advancing north it looked like the North Korean Army was defeated and maybe the Marines would all be home by Christmas.  As they got higher into the mountains the weather turned much colder and the Marines started to get some indications the Chinese Army had entered Korea also...

Hans Ulrich Rudel was Germany’s most decorated soldier of the Second World War.  He flew over 2,500 combat missions, destroyed over 500 Soviet tanks, sank a battleship and cruiser, was shot down more than 30 times and somehow lived through all of it.  Join us for a review of his autobiography “Stuka Pilot”. 

Britain was facing NAZI Germany alone when David Stirling had an idea.  He imagined using the vast emptiness of the harsh North African desert to allow small bands of raiders to attack enemy airfields and overextended supply lines along the coast.  Join us for a review of Virginia Cowles "The Phantom Major" to learn how Stirling and his men lived their motto of "Who Dares Wins"...