The USS Laffey is best remembered today as the "ship that would not die" - this moniker given after the 2,200 ton destroyer survived five kamikaze and four bomb strikes that caused 103 casualties, from a crew of 336, all while the ship was on picket duty off Okinawa in the spring of 1945. However, what also must be remembered is that the USS Laffey, launched in 1943, is also the sole surviving World War era US Navy destroyer to have participated in the epic Battle for the Atlantic fought
Blog
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 26 2012 - 6:23pm
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 20 2012 - 6:06pm
Though the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942 is often remembered as the seminal planning event of the Third Reich's genocidal strategic goals; in reality it represented a part of a much larger and horrific plan for mass murder. For on June 21, 1941, Heinrich Himmler had ordered planning to begin for a massive demographic reorganization of Eastern Europe, including the territories of the western Soviet Union. Professor Konrad Meyer authored this plan; labeled Generalplan Ost. Meyer’s
Review Type: Backe, Belarus, Eichmann, Generalplan Ost, genocide, Heydrich, Himmler, Holocaust, Meyer, Nazi, OKW, Poland, Soviet Union, Third Reich, Ukraine, Wannsee Conference, Wehrmacht, World War II
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 18 2012 - 7:15pm
For those of you who don't know - during my day job I am a tax attorney. And though I am not a specialist in Constitutional Law it is my judgment that SOPA and PIPA are two of the more downright anti-American bills, in the House and Senate respectively, that I have seen in recent years (probably the worst since the last time Congress tried this stunt and, if enacted, would be even a more direct assault on liberty and freedom than the Patriot Act).
In short, these bills are a colossal affront
Review Type: First Amendment, Liberty, U.S. Constitution
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 12 2012 - 2:02am
Gevork Vartanian died in Moscow at age 87. Vartanian was a veritable legend in Soviet espionage circles whose father and wife also worked as Soviet agents. Vartanian made his name when as a young Soviet agent he played a key role in helping to derail a Nazi plot to assassinate Franklin Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, and Winston Churchill at their famous conference in 1943 at Tehran.
Vartanian retired in 1992 after an epic career that began in 1940 at the age of 16. Though he also played a key role
Review Type: Assassination Plot, Churchill, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Gevork Vartanian, Iran, Nazi, Operation Long Jump, Otto Skorzeny, Persia, Roosevelt, Soviet, Stalin, Tehran Conference, WWII
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 8 2012 - 7:44pm
One of the great Allied advantages over Nazi Germany during World War II was their ability to regularly intercept and read otherwise encoded German communications. Though this capability was not comprehensive, with changes to the German code settings throwing the Allies off at repeated times during the war, it proved of significant assistance to the Allied war effort. Some believe Allied code-breaking efforts were so consequential as to have decisively altered the course of the war.
The
Review Type: Abwehr, Bletchley Park, Block C, code-breaking, Enigma, Intelligence War, UK, ULTRA, WWII
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Jan 3 2012 - 9:40pm
With the December 30, 2011 death of Mike Colalillo, aged 86, there are only 84 surviving holders of the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a member of the United States Armed Forces. Colalillo received his Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman on December 18, 1945 for the extroadinary valor and bravery shown by Colalillo in combat on April 7, 1945 near Untergriesheim, Germany.
The first Medal of Honor was awarded on March 25, 1863, the most recent on September 15, 2011. All told
Review Type: Medal of Honor, Second World War, Veterans, World War II
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Dec 24 2011 - 2:22pm
If in 1919 the question arose regarding which of the Great European Powers stood destined to drive Europe’s twentieth century fortunes, few candidates would have stood out as more unlikely than the Soviet Union.
Review Type: Cold War, Communist Party, genocide, Gorbachev, Gulag, Hitler, kulak, Lenin, purges, Soviet Union, Stalin, Third Reich, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, WWII, Yeltsin
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Dec 19 2011 - 9:32pm
The Battle of the Bulge that began on December 16, 1944 is widely remembered today as the greatest battle fought by the U.S. Army during the Second World War. For many, the focal point of this remembrance remains the Belgian town of Bastogne. Bastogne was a critical regional communications hub, ultimately encircled and besieged by German forces from December 19th to the 26th. The elite U.S.
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Dec 16 2011 - 7:54pm
In World War Two’s waning days, during the fall of 1944, Adolf Hitler ordered up one last role of the dice designed to stave off final defeat. This plan sought to punch through the densely forested, hilly, but lightly guarded Ardennes and reach Antwerp – thereby cutting off numerous Allied armies in a massive pocket similar to what his armies had accomplished four years prior.
German plans called for Sepp Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army to lead the assault through the Ardennes; as the northern
nothing
Steve Mercatante
on: Dec 12 2011 - 1:51am
Precisely seventy years ago, on December 11, 1941, Adolf Hitler declared war upon the United States. Today, this declaration of war is remembered as one of history’s great strategic blunders, and rightly so, nonetheless the reasons underpinning this remembrance have little to do with how and why war against the United States led to the Third Reich’s defeat.
Review Type: Germany, Soviet Union, U-boat, United States, Why Germany Nearly Won, WWII
