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The "Hawaii Mars II", one of two remaining Martin Mars, performs flybys and drops 7,200 gallons of water for the crowd at the 2016 EAA AirVenture airshow in Oshkosh, WI. This massive flying boat is the world's largest warbird, and an exceptionally rare sight. It was delivered to the US Navy in 1946 and later converted for civilian use as a fire fighting aircraft. During AirVenture, the Mars is flying off of Lake Winnebago just a couple miles east of Oshkosh.

Mel Gibson is nuts but he's a hell of a director. Desmond Doss was a Seventh Day Adventist conscientious objector in WWII to who was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing 75 casualties despite refusing to carry a weapon.

Seventy-five years ago, the world blew up in just six months. World War II ostensibly started two years earlier, when Germany invaded Poland. In truth, after the rapid German defeat of Poland in September 1939, the conflict was mostly confined to Western Europe for nearly the next two years. By summer of 1940, only Britain had survived Hitler's European victories. The dormant European war only went global on June 22, 1941, when Germany suddenly surprise-attacked the Soviet Union, its former partner. America and Asia were still not directly involved in the 1941 expansion of the war until the Japanese attacked...

A U.S. officer who helped liberate 2,500 Jews during the Holocaust has died at the age of 99. On April 7, 1945, Lt. Frank Winchester Towers, who was the division liaison officer of Regiment 743 of the 30th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army during World War II, approached (with his regiment’s tanks) a stopped train in which there were 2,500 Jewish prisoners bound for the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The Nazis stopped the train because they were ordered to destroy it and drown the passengers in the Elbe river. When the U.S. regiment approached, the passengers shouted, “We’re...

A terminally ill former World War Two Spitfire engineer's 'last wish' to be reunited with the iconic plane was granted after top brass saw him looking forlornly through a fence at one from his wheelchair. Ken Farlow, 95, was an electrical engineer during the war, carrying out vital work to keep Spitfires and Hurricanes in the air in Syria and Palestine. But after being diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, the father-of-three asked daughter Helen if he 'could see a Spitfire - one last time'. Helen, 52, took him to Gloucestershire Airport where the vintage planes were being maintained by the...

The name was terrible, but the “K Disease” was not a lethal virus. It was actually the clever invention of Professor Giovanni Borromeo and a religious of the Hospital of the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, to save the lives of dozens of Jews persecuted by the Nazis during World War II.When the SS entered the Fatebenefratelli hospital located on the Tiber Island in Rome, medical personnel and religious explained to the Germans that behind the doors of two special wards, there were patients suffering from this terrible K Disease, some of whom were terminally ill. The...

Multi-billionaire Jack Taylor, who made his fortune after founding Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the 1950s, has died aged 94. Taylor, who launched the company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957, passed away on Saturday after a short illness. This year, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $5.3 billion and listed him in the top 250 richest people in the world. But more than anything else, Taylor simply wanted to be remembered as 'a nice guy.'

1. In WWII a number of soldiers died of well, farts. When ascending in an unpressurized plane to 20,000 feet, it causes intestinal gas to expand 300%. I guess some guys couldn't fart quickly enough. They should have brought pigs along with them. Then when Porkie was ready to blow, fly over the enemy's plane and drop him. When Porkie goes Blammo you blow the enemy to hell!! Even if you miss, it's okay. The explosion and fire fries up Porko Boy nice and crispy and countryside below rains down bacon, so the starving countryside gets fed. Yay! 2. Speaking...

The B-29 bomber known as Doc may be flying again before the summer is over. On May 20th, the nonprofit group Doc’s Friends announced that they had accepted an airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. Several dozen members of the group, along with other supporters, attended a ceremony at Doc’s hangar at Air Capital Flight Line, the former Boeing Wichita factory complex. “The biggest thing is how important this airplane is to history,” said Jeff Turner, board chairman for Doc’s Friends. “The light of freedom was growing dimmer (during World War II), and the men and women of our...

This week America lost another hero. Retired Staff Sgt. David Jonathan Thatcher passed Wednesday in the Missoula hospital in Montana as a result of a Stroke. He was 94. After finishing High School, Thatcher joined the Army Air Corps in 1940. He was assigned to the Air Corps’ 17th Bomb Group as a B-25 Gunner. After the attack on Pearl Harbor that forced the United States into WWII, he volunteered for a top-secret mission. SSGT Thatcher was assigned and trained with 1st Lt Ted W. Lawson. Their B-25 was known as “The Ruptured Duck" and was made famous in Lawson’s...

Sixty-nine years after their burning plane plunged to the ground after being shot down by the Germans, the remains of seven Lancaster Bomber crewmen have been recovered. They were discovered by a team of German historians who spent hours digging a muddy field near Frankfurt looking for the RAF crew after an eyewitness who saw the plane crash guided them to the site. Lancaster ED427 was one of 327 bombers that took part in a raid on the Skoda armaments works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. On their return to their base at RAF Fiskerton, Lincs, they came under fire from German...

<p>MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — One of the last two surviving members of the Doolittle Raiders — who bombed Japan in an attack that stunned that nation and boosted U.S. morale — has died in Montana, his family said.</p> <p>Retired Staff Sgt. David Jonathan Thatcher died Wednesday in a Missoula hospital. He was 94. He suffered a stroke on Sunday, Thatcher's son Jeff told the Missoulian newspaper (http://bit.ly/28V8l2c).</p>

There is perhaps no lost-treasure mystery more seductive than that of the priceless Amber Room of Peter the Great, which disappeared in the chaotic closing hours of World War II. Now Bartlomiej Plebanczyk, an unassuming historian and museum director in northeastern Poland, believes he has found it. Elderly villagers told Mr. Plebanczyk that they had seen a German convoy unloading big crates into a secret chamber in a stark, moss-covered Nazi bunker near the Russian border in early 1945. So the Mamerki Museum, whichhe leads, recently completed a ground-penetrating radar scan of the derelict bunker that he said confirmed the...

Before dawn on June 22, 1941, German bombers began to rain destruction down on a swath of Soviet cities from Leningrad to Sevastopol. It was the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation in the history of the world. By the end of the day, three million German soldiers and their allies crossed the Soviet border, inaugurating the bloodiest phase of World War II. The invasion also brought to a bloody conclusion 20 years of secret cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union. While Soviet-German military cooperation between 1922 and 1933 is often forgotten, it had a decisive impact...

He must have looked a fearsome sight as he parachuted into the heart of occupied Europe. His keen eyes scoured the battlefield for enemy troops and he was poised to hit the ground running. It might not have been quite what the Germans were expecting from Britain's D-Day invasion force – but Bing the para-dog played a vital role in liberating France.

NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 17, 1944 – In the preceding column we told about the D-day wreckage among our machines of war that were expended in taking one of the Normandy beaches. But there is another and more human litter. It extends in a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach. This is the strewn personal gear, gear that will never be needed again, of those who fought and died to give us our entrance into Europe. Here in a jumbled row for mile on mile are soldiers’ packs. Here are socks and shoe polish,...

When allied forces landed on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, they did so alongside a fleet of bizarre tanks with very special roles – brought into life by an eccentric British commander. On 19 August 1942, Allied armies put their plan for an invasion of Occupied Europe to the ultimate test – by landing troops on the beaches and trying to capture a French port.

A navy vet returns to Omaha Beach. Two part video.

Historical arguments based on fantasy and a desire to present America as a villain have made the use of nuclear weapons to end World War II into a “controversy.” Ignorance of history is a very dangerous thing. The President recently visited Hiroshima Japan, site of the first atomic bomb ever used in combat. The bombing took place on August 6th, 1945. It was followed three days later by a second bomb on Nagasaki. Although he was very careful not to explicitly “apologize” for our use of atomic weapons -- mindful of the harsh backlash that awaited him should his trip...

China’s aircraft carrier program is maturing. The first photos have now emerged that show Liaoning operating with a decent clutch of J-15 fighters, as well as helicopters on deck. The aircraft are now painted in telltale battle gray, rather than the yellow used with the initial prototype aircraft. It is difficult to tell for sure, but one may assume that the testing and training regimen has been intense. True enough, the Liaoning was bought from Ukraine and it is, unlike American “big decks,” conventionally powered rather than relying on nuclear power. It also has a ski-jump bow to assist with...