Welcome to WebOps, Armchair General’s first website column! Here you’ll find an array of links relative to military history news, articles, websites, and more. In the news this week: ‘Thunderbirds’, ‘Flying Tigers’, and a ‘Tokyo Rose’. Oh, and has anyone seen a stray H-bomb missing since 1958? Clicks away!
News
"More than 60 years after two Canadian airmen were shot down over the Netherlands in World War II, their families are returning to Europe to bury the men’s recently recovered remains."
"Shinzo Abe is planning a revolution in Japan which will see the return of a full-strength imperial army for the first time since the Second World War."
"About 1,500 people attended Saturday’s re-enactment of a Civil War battle on the grounds of the Wade House, watching dozens of men in Union blue and Confederate gray match military wits and strategy for nearly an hour in a steady drizzle."
" The National Archives has microfilmed the records from the 14 Southern states and territories as well as the records of the general and staff members of the Confederate States of America."
"The 45th Infantry Museum in Oklahoma City is celebrating its 30th birthday today, and Edmond resident Bill Stearns looks back at every one of those 30 years with pride and fondness."
"She was the first of West Point’s "Class of 9-11" to die in war. Emily Perez, the highest ranking black and Hispanic woman cadet in corps history, was buried at this storied military academy Tuesday, two weeks after she was killed by a bomb in Iraq."
"Iva Toguri D’Aquino, the Japanese-American woman known as "Tokyo Rose" who disseminated propaganda on the radio against the U.S. military during World War II, died Tuesday of old age, the Associated Press reported Wednesday, quoting one of her relatives. She was 90."
"It’s been 54 years since the secret reconnaissance mission over Soviet air space during the Cold War, but the Air Force did not forget about each Airman who flew the hazardous mission."
"The "Flying Tigers" will be brought back from the past as the 347th Rescue Wing will be redesignated as the 23rd Wing during a ceremony here at 8:23 a.m. Sept. 29."
"Hundreds of military, base employees, and veterans gathered to pay tribute to the memory of Air Force Maj. John Francis Conlon III during a Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) ceremony Sept. 21 at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Mechanicsburg."
"Former and present aviators, maintainers, family members and supporters of the F-14 Tomcat gathered Sept. 21 for the dedication of the F-14 Tomcat memorial at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana Aviation Historical Park."
"Today, more than $1 million sits in a special university account for the Ambrose-Heseltine Chair in American History, named after its main benefactor and the long-dead professor who trained him. The chair remains vacant, however, and Wisconsin is not currently trying to fill it."
"A new Bailey bridge seems right at home in this area considering the military history of the property now known as the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie."
"The Alsace-Moselle Memorial at Schirmeck, in the Vosges Mountains south west of Strasbourg is one of the most poignant reminders of European conflicts that have taken place during the last 140 years. The Memorial, opened last year, is expected to attract many visitors in the next two months as Remembrance Day (November 11) approaches."
"Researchers in Monterey with the skills of archeologists and historians are examining the remains of the USS Macon, a blimp that went down seven decades ago. They’re getting remarkable pictures and very special insight."
"As a 20-year-old American soldier in post-World War II Japan, Ivan Hambley was tasked with helping transport the woman widely regarded as the war’s most notorious traitor after her arrest. "
"A descendant of a Union soldier who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor has donated the medal — actually two medals — to the Vermont Veterans Military Museum and Library."
"Just a couple hundred yards from the runway where state-of-the-art jet fighters thunder into the sky from Selfridge Air National Guard Base, a group of dedicated volunteers is building a plane that’s about as low-tech as they come."
"It’s pretty unusual for history lessons to jump out of a textbook and captivate the average teenager. But some Richards High School juniors proved that it’s not impossible when they packed into Paul Faeh’s history classroom late Friday afternoon."
"During the early morning hours of Feb. 5, 1958, an Air Force B-47 Stratojet bomber was soaring high above the Lowcountry coast on a simulated combat mission, but at approximately 2 a.m., disaster struck at 36,000 ft. A group of Air Force F-86 Saberjet fighters were in the vicinity, and without warning, one of the aircraft slammed into the bomber."
"In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped."
"World War II ended more than 60 years ago, but the aircraft that flew in that conflict are still popular. Three of those planes, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Consolidated B-24 Liberator and a North American B-25 Mitchell, will be on display this week at Pittsfield Municipal Airport when the "Wings of Freedom Tour" of vintage World War II aircraft visits the city for the first time in three years."
" Fall kicks off at the Gaylord Building Historic Site with a World War II theme. Soldiers, military items and posters are topics for historical talks and a new exhibit."
"F. Brooke Nihart, a highly decorated Marine colonel who oversaw the development of Marine Corps museums and was the author of the U.S. Military Code of Conduct recited by every member of the armed forces, died Aug. 30 at Inova Fairfax Hospital of heart and kidney ailments."
"A veteran from Ohio was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday amid nationwide acclaim. It was extraordinary, because he died 88 years ago in World War One. It took that long for him to be found and brought home."
"Flyboys is as earnest and idealistic as the young pilots it portrays. And though the characters tend to behave more like stereotypes than real people, the aerial battles are spectacularly staged and shot."
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