Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Disney in WWII Just one day after Pearl Harbor, Walt Disney received his first military contract and began creating promotional reels, war bond advertisements, short training and instructional films, and other WWII materials.? Also at this time, he received requests from military units all over the world requesting Disney-designed insignia’s…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5bKPUaojLw Watch the surrender of a I-400 class Supersubmarine. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto called for the construction of 18 of the massive submarines carrying a total of 36 attack planes. The name of the special submarine class was abbreviated to Sen-toku. The attack planes had to be designed from scratch. The…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
I-400 Series Super-submarine Lieutenant Commander Stephen L. Johnson had a problem on his hands; a very large problem. His Balao-class submarine, the Segundo, had just picked up a large radar contact on the surface about 100 miles off Honshu, one of Japan’s home islands, heading south toward Tokyo.  World War II in…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Operation Downfall/Olympic In a memo from the Undersecretary of the Navy, a project named “Dagwood” was mentioned, but I am unable to locate any details. MacArthur sent out a deceptive message (with slip-shot secrecy) to be intercepted by the Japanese called “Pastel Two.” This showed a detailed “plan” about Allied…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Plans for Japan – click to enlarge The original idea for the invasion of Japan was approved in July 1944 and received constant, precise detailing up until the actual signing of the surrender. Operation Downfall was broken into two separate plans, Operation Olympic which would be followed by Operation Coronet.…

Originally posted on Almost Chosen People:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rmQiyuQmYU ? The last major engagement of the Southern Campaign, the battle of Eutaw Springs was fought on September 8, 1781.  The sides were numerically evenly matched with each side having about 2000 men involved.  Although tactically a draw or a slight British victory, strategically the battle was an…

The War of 1812 comes across these days as basically a footnote in US History. At the time, Britain was engaged in a life or death struggle with Napoleon and so acted like the high-handed Empire they were. The impressment issue was huge. On the other hand, many in Congress had designs on Canada which […]

…and yet we judge historical figures like Jefferson on the basis of what we think is our own moral superiority, not realizing our own massive flaws, nor understanding history in its historical context.

Originally posted on Presidential History Blog:
When Theodore Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919, the world was stunned. TR Dies Not only was the world stunned at the death of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who was only sixty, but perhaps TR himself would have also been surprised, had he not succumbed to a heart attack,…