ACG WebOps (3 March 2007)
Welcome to WebOps, Armchair General’s weekly recon of links to military history news, articles, websites, and more. In this week’s WebOps, I link you to the new military history magazine and website German War Machine – Magazine of the German Army of World War II. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Fort Ritchie, Fort Vancouver, the Knights Templar, and others are also to be found within. Clicks away!
News
Civil War Re-enactors Bring History to Life – WDEF News 12
Re-enactors from the 44th Tennessee United States Colored Troops told their story today. The group set up tents and demonstrated what life was like during the Civil War. The activities took place at Orchard Knob Military Park as part of Black History Month.
{default}Proposed museum to capture diverse history of Fort Ritchie – Waynesboro Record Herald
CASCADE – The former Fort Ritchie has a history that stretches back almost a century, and soon that history may be captured in a museum on the fort’s property.
Oral History Project to Preserve Military Heritage for Great Park – Yahoo! Finance
IRVINE, Calif., March 1 /PRNewswire/ — Voices of former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station veterans will now be preserved through a unique project at California State University – Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History. The Oral History Project, part of the Great Park History Program, aims to preserve the history of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and its transition to the Orange County Great Park by conducting and recording a series of oral interviews. Phase one of the Oral History Project will be financed by the Orange County Great Park Corporation.
German War Machine – Magazine of the German Army of World War II
Welcome to GERMANWARMACHINE.COM. Packed with free information, free film footage, first-hand accounts and carousels of photos with very detailed captions, it’s the first port of call for enthusiasts of the German Army of World War II. Explore the range of material available via the headings on the left of this screen – millions of words, hundreds of photos and maps and diagrams.
Articles
Learn military history at Atterbury museum – IndyStar.com
The sprawling grounds once hosted thousands of young American soldiers on their way to World War II and was home to Wakeman General Hospital, for many years the largest convalescent facility run by the U.S. Army.
Local collector revels in history – The Trentonian
LAWRENCE — Gary Hullfish, of Lawrence, has spent the last 40 years building a unique collection of military memorabilia, but the Stolen Valor Act is causing him to rethink the value of his work.
Wash. artifacts show history of old fort – Yahoo! News
VANCOUVER, Wash. – Archaeologists are using broken pottery, bullets and buttons found over the past 60 years to piece together the history of a 19th century fort along the Columbia River. Some 2 million artifacts have been dug up at Fort Vancouver, which from 1829 to 1866 served as a hub for fur and mercantile trade and military activity in the West.
History Series: A Freeze Hits US-Soviet Relations After World War Two – VOA News (audio)
The Cold War was a major force in world politics during much of the 20th century. Transcript of radio broadcast: 28 February 2007
‘The Legacy of the Black American Soldier’ – washingtonpost.com
Retired Brig. Gen. Leo A. Brooks Jr. was the featured speaker for a Black History Month ceremony in February at the Library of Congress. In his address, "The Legacy of the Black American Soldier," Brooks paid tribute to the military’s earliest black leaders, such as Henry O. Flipper, the first African American to graduate from West Point; Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the Army’s first black general and Davis’s son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who became a three-star general in the U.S. Air Force.
In this excerpt, Brooks shares some of his journey…
Announcements
Pentagon Channel Offers Special Coverage During Women’s History Month – DefenseLink
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2007 – More than 100 years before the Marine Corps actively recruited women, Lucy Brewer secretly signed up, served on “Old Ironsides,†and fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the War of 1812. That’s just one of many fascinating but little-known facts about women in the military the Pentagon Channel will offer its audience during March’s Women’s History Month.
Civil War Roundtable Hosts Wayne Motts – SOLANCONEWS.com
LANCASTER – Lancaster Civil War Round Table will host Wayne Motts, Military Historian and Licensed Battlefield Guide at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 8th, 2007. This program will take place at the Manheim Township Municipal Building located at 1840 Municipal Drive in Lancaster. Motts is a native of Groveport Ohio where his father is the director of the Motts Military Museum. He graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelors degree in the field of Military History and earned his Masters degree in American History from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.
Obituaries
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s Legacy – History News Network
He was never elected president of the American Historical Association, a sore subject with many that came up again at the recent Atlanta convention. But Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was without doubt one of the most influential historians of his generation. He was certainly the most famous. He is remembered as a public intellectual, stellar writer, confident liberal, and as the author of seminal books on four presidents–Jackson, FDR, JFK, and Nixon.
Blogs – Netcasts
Knights Templar – Military History Podcast
The Knights Templar was a Christian military order founded during the Crusades in order to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. These "Monks of War" were highly disciplined and they participated at many major battles during all nine Crusades, including the pivotal Battle of Hattin. They also founded the first modern checking/credit system, which made the organization wealthy enough to buy the island of Cyprus.
The relief of Kimberley and the Great Flank March – Military History Blog on the Web
Back to the Boer War with a look at the Great Flank March of February-March 1900. This was Field Marshal Lord Roberts’s first campaign in South Africa. Within five days it led to the relief of Kimberley (11-15 February 1900) and then to the capture of the main Boer army in the Orange Free State at Paardeberg (18-27 February 1900). From there Roberts was able to advance towards Bloemfontein. Two further attempts were made to stop him, at Poplar Grove (7 March 1900) where no meaningful resistance was offered, and at Driefontein (10 March 1900) where a small force of Boers managed to hold up Roberts for an entire day, but on 13 March the British captured the capital of the Orange Free State. The battlefield stage of the Boer War was coming to an end.
Black History; First Black Female Navy Flag Officer – Is America Burning?
In 1998, when then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen delivered the speech at an occasion honoring, among others, Rear Adm. Lillian Fishburne, he quoted retired Air Force Maj. Albert Murray, an acclaimed novelist: "Heroism… is measured in terms of the stress and strain it can endure, and the magnitude and complexity of the obstacles that it overcomes… which bring out the best in [potential heroes]."
The Galloping Ghost – Skunkfeathers
The USS Houston (CL 30, later CA 30) was launched on September 7, 1929, at Newport News, Virginia, and was commissioned on June 17, 1930. Classified a "heavy" cruiser, she sported a main battery of nine 8" guns in three independent turrets, along with eight 5" dual purpose (surface target or anti-aircraft) guns, as well as four quadruple mounts of 1.1" anti-aircraft guns and eight .50 caliber machine guns. She weighed in fully laden at about 14,000 tons, and possessed a top speed of at or just under 35 knots. For the time, she was an up-to-date, first-class fighting ship.
Fading Memories of World War I – Covenant Zone
From 1914 to 1918 Canada fought alongside Great Britain and France in the Great War, the "War to End All Wars", World War I.
Military Science in Western Europe in the Sixteenth Century – History of Leith, Edinburgh
What was an “army†in western Europe in the 16th century? Standing peacetime armies of any substantial strength were virtually unknown. They were too expensive, logistically unfeasible, and regarded as dangerous by populace and parliament alike. Much of the nominal military might of a country during peace was often in the form of sections of the nobility, whose traditional role it was to command and fight during war (e.g. France’s compagnies d’ordonnance, heavy cavalry companies). While feudalism as a military system was much diminished, feudal obligations in war could remain in some form. English nobility, for example, were required to provide strictly defined military materiel proscribed by title, while the kings of France could call the ban and arriére-ban, requiring military service (or a proxy) of all those holding land directly or indirectly.
WebOps is a weekly report linking to military history news and articles published in mainstream online media. Excerpts are taken exactly as they are on the noted source websites; quotation marks are not used. The hyperlinks are added by me as I can find them. Please visit the Armchair Forums to discuss the topics in WebOps and much more!
Stay Alert, Stay Alive!
Jim H. Moreno
