On August the 8th 1918 at 4:30 am let it be remembered that the heavens broke. After creeping through marshy ground and laying still since 3:00 the mighty guns of the Fourth Army all roared at once. Men around me lit cigarettes and cheered for the battle was on. That morning it was dreadfully misty and after the smoke from the barrage we couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of us. We charged relying on our officers for compass bearings and many of us got momentarily lost. We were able to pass over the Huns front trenches with ease. During the initial push we even caught a Hun with his pants in his hands, they were just getting up! Then the 30th Battalion formed up right next to Lamotte, a ruined country town and the tanks moved into position. We waited till 8:20 till the tanks waved their little green and white flags and we were on the move again. After moving …show more content…
As we snaked through the valley my mate next to me, Greg got shot in the thigh as we were running between cover. I managed to drag him under a small dip in the land and tried to wrap my waterproof sheet around the wound because it was the only material on me at the time. I then proceeded to stab his bayonet into the ground and tied his handkerchief to the butt of the rifle so the tanks wouldn’t run over him. By 10:40 we made it to our second objective and the officers fired off a success signal. Back at the Battalion HQ I heard from our Corporal that he made it out …show more content…
The adrenaline is still pumping through my veins and every time I hear the distant crack of machine gun I always jerk. War does that to you, you know? Anyway, it’s been a long day and apparently we are going to be spending some time here. So I am going to settle down and get comfortable. And as the natives here would say Au
Topic and Thesis Statement: The topic of this essay will concern the disastrous assault on Verrières Ridge by the Royal Highland Regiment (Black Watch) of Canada on the 25th and 27th of July, 1944. Codenamed OPERATION SPRING, the Battle of Verrières Ridge one of many battles that occurred in the overreaching Battle of Normandy beginning on June 6th, 1944. The significance of this historic event will be examined using the following thesis: The disaster of the OPERATION SPRING and the Battle of Verrières Ridge can be directly attributed to poor weather conditions postponing the assault, allowing for the reinforcement of the ridge by German forces.
In the early morning hours of May 15th, 1918, in the midst of war in France, a German raiding party approached a small outpost, stationed by just a few men. Private Henry Johnson, an American soldier assigned to the French Army, was the only line of defense for the outpost. Miraculously, his defense held. Using grenades, his rifle, and physical strikes with said rifle, he single-handedly repelled the raiders, defended the outpost, and saved his fellow soldiers from capture by the Germans. The vigilant combat he displayed had embodied his unit as a whole, the 369th Infantry Regiment, dubbed the “Harlem Hellfighters” for their place of creation, Harlem, and the nickname of “Hellfighters” given to them by their stunned German enemies.
General William Westmoreland called the helicopter air assault “the most innovative tactical development to emerge from the Vietnam War” (Carland, 2003). In February 1963 on the recommendation of the U.S. Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board, otherwise known as the Howze Board after its president LTG Hamilton Howze, the 11th Airborne Division was reactivated as the 11th Air Assault Division (test). Their mission, to train in the theory and evolution of the air assault concept. Training continued until 1965 when the division was deactivated and reflagged as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Shortly thereafter the division began deploying South Vietnam.
One of the major surgeries of note that took place in the United States in 1809 was the ovariotomy of a Kentucky surgeon. Expected twins came to naught and a 20 pound ovarian tumor in Jane Crawford’s protruding belly needed to excised. Performed on Dr. McDowell’s kitchen table, before anesthesia, before sterilization, Mrs. Crawford sang hymns, lost 20 pounds and went on to live another 31 years. Medicine in the United States during the Civil War era was almost at a standstill. There were some medical advancements to note: 1846 Chloric ether gas (Chloroform) was used regularly to anesthetize patients before tooth extractions and surgeries.
The soldiers “reached a line of Japanese bunkers defended by machine gunners” (“History”), and many of the front line soldiers were
The Great War occurred between July 28, 1914 and November 11, 1918. This was the first-time war was fought not just on land and sea but also in the sky and below sea. World War I was made up of two sides, Allies (France, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Germany.) The war caused change in geo-political landscape and destruction of three empires: Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian. While the men were off fighting in the war, women had to work in the factories.
Every Canadian soldier at the Battle felt the same pride whether they were from the western, maritime or central provinces. They shared in the accomplishment of taking Vimy Ridge no matter if they were Anglo-Canadian or French Canadian. Now they were now all Canadian. They had all taken an impregnable German hold in essentially one day in what H.P. Willmott, a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, called “one of the greatest single day’s achievements in the history of the Western Front.”
Denis Whittaker also explains how the discipline and performance of some of the soldiers was disgraceful during the battle as , “They went to ground and never got up”. The bad discipline of the troops can be blamed on the colonels and officers at higher levels who did not set the right example for the troops. Insufficient and ineffective artillery combined with undisciplined troops is a recipe for defeat and disaster
But in the middle of the night, I heard a distressing cry. Quickly I arose, fearful that the enemy was among us. The cry came again, but this time it sounded like my commander saying, “Alas! Woe, woe!”
We were all scared, myself included, and any man who says any different is a liar. We sat there for a few more minutes when our platoon leader came up to us. He was about to place barbed wire around our defense positions, so he ordered me to contact the platoon to our right while he contacted the platoon to our left. I did as I was told, crawling out of the foxhole and walking carefully towards the other platoon.
All Quiet on The Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel composed after World War One to convey the experiences of German soldiers during this horrific time of fighting. He brought to light many important issues that occur during wars. In this book, three horrors of war that had the largest impact were the lack of sanitation in the trenches, the loss of comrades, and the shock that came from unexpected and ongoing shelling. The lack of sanitation in the trenches caused many diseases, infections, and terrible memories to me made.
This crucial battle proved to be the turning point for Caputo and the others. In the monsoon rains, insects, diseases, random sniper fire, and finally full out battles, the Marines charge into their notions of the war. They searched villages full of Viet Cong and crept along passages laden with explosive mines, trip wire, or ambushes. They hardly slept, ate cold food, and slashed through miles of jungle in the middle of the rain and with every step, they were running on a high that comes from staring down at death, knowing any of them could be shot by a sniper or blown to bits by a mine. This environment of high tension, however, came at a high price.
Throught this powerful essay it is clear that MacArthur is passionate about his Country and the military who serves it. Being very vivid in the descriptions of the world at war, was a way that this essay provokes emotion. Stating “...many a weary march from dripping dusk to to drizzling dawn,slogging ankle-deep through the mire of shell-shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack,blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective…” Those striking words hit the audience like an arrow piercing the hearts of those in attendance. This diction drives home the the point through the use of the audience's emotions keeping their feeling on the surface to be further affected by the speaker's words.
Starting to feel uneasy about this battle I grabbed my rifle for comfort. It felt weird that I look at my gun as a safe object. I laid back and sighed. I let my guard down for too long, I needed to get it up again.
The sawdust flies by, I can taste it through the breeze. In the afternoon, soldiers take turns practicing their shooting and using their knives to prepare if they get ambushed. I can taste the gunpowder from the huge rifles. The gunpowder's thick, white puffs of smoke smell like burning firewood. Battles may not be here, but soldiers are on the tips of their toes afraid they must fight in their safe place.