Free Republic

Around noon on June 6, 1944, a German soldier wielding a machine gun burst into a small church six miles from Utah Beach in Normandy, France, ignoring the Red Cross flag hanging from the door. He had been fighting most of the day against American paratroopers in the towns, farms, and hedgerows. Inside the church, he found wounded soldiers laid out on pews and the floor as two American medics tended to them. The German leveled his MG-42 machine gun at the occupants and prepared to fire, but then he noticed the medics were treating German soldiers as well as...

Eighty years ago, on December 16, the Germans launched the Ardennes Offensive, which proved the bloodiest American battle of WW II with 89,000 casualties including 19,000 dead. At the center of the offensive beleaguered Bastogne featured the 101st Airborne withstanding a German siege.However, these 10,000 paratroopers did not alone forge the severe impediment presented to 500,000 Germans troops attacking with tanks. Contributions from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, and the 28th Division’s 109th and 687th Field Artillery Battalions provided needed firepower. Remnants of the 9th Armored CCR including the 73rd Armored Field Artillery retreated into the town. The CCB...

On this day in 1985 I climbed aboard an ill fated Arrow Air DC8 Stretch at McChord AFB with a fresh gamma globulin shot in my ass (if you've ever had one you know) and 10 inches of snow on the ground, embarking on an adventure that would be both fun, exciting, and tragic. We spent 35 hours on that POS, several landings for re-fueling but they never let us off, and finally landed in Cairo. It was over 100 degrees in the shade... had there been any shade. They marched us into the terminal where we were fed a...

Helene deaths are in the tens of thousands. There are multiple reports that are at least suspecting this across the SM platforms. The news is lying. The govt is lying. FEMA is hindering the rescue and supply teams.

More than 1,000 active-duty soldiers deployed to the southeast to help thousands of National Guard troops as the death toll from the storm rises. More than 1,000 active-duty soldiers with the 101st and 82nd airborne divisions are on the ground and in the skies above North Carolina, working to help local National Guard units and emergency responders aid communities impacted by Hurricane Helene. As of the weekend, more than 7,000 service members from the United States Army and the National Guard are active across the southeast. The National Guard units from 16 states were joined by active-duty soldiers mobilized by...

Command Sgt. Major Veronica E. Knapp has been relieved as the senior enlisted leader of the sprawling military task force responsible for defense and day-to-day military operations in Washington D.C. following an investigation, an Army spokesman said. Knapp made news in 2021 as the first woman named Command Sgt. Major of the 101st Airborne Division. She was in a similar role for the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region/United States Army Military District of Washington, or JTF-NCR/USAMDW... The JTF-NCR/USAMDW’ is a sprawling military organization established after the 9/11 attacks as a central hub for defense and day-to-day military operations around Washington...

NEWDigging Band of Brothers:Time Team Special with Tony Robinson (2023)- FULL EPISODE | 1:36:56Time Team Official | 187K subscribers587,149 views | Premiered September 30, 2023

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London January 2, 1944 to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and to direct the last five months of planning for D-Day; the most difficult and complicated military operation ever attempted. Eisenhower’s study of leadership skills required he ignore opportunities for fear and doubt, which inevitably arise as strain and tension wear away endurance. He persevered to present confidence and optimism to those around him. For that reason, he brought with him a confident, battle tested team that had led successful landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, despite experiencing German counterattacks nearly...

79 years ago today, my grandfather jumped out of a plane. He was 17 years old when he joined the 101st Airborne Division, and at the ripe age of 18, he boarded a C-47 aircraft with the rest of his company destined for Normandy. On June 6, 1944, he jumped out of that plane onto Utah Beach, becoming a part of what would become the largest amphibious invasion in military history, Operation Overlord, or, as it's more commonly known, D-Day. Though only 18, my grandfather was one of the oldest soldiers in his company. He recounted how many, like himself,...

General McAuliffe issued a memorable Christmas message to his troops:Headquarters 101st Airborne Division Office of the Division Commander24 December 1944What’s Merry about all this, you ask? We’re fighting – it’s cold – we aren’t home. All true but what has the proud Eagle Division accomplished with its worthy comrades of the 10th Armored Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and all the rest? just this: We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the North, East, South and West. We have identifications from four German Panzer Divisions, two German Infantry Divisions and one German Parachute Division....

The U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division has been deployed to Europe for the first time in almost 80 years amid soaring tension between Russia and the American-led NATO military alliance. The light infantry unit, nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles," is trained to deploy on any battlefield in the world within hours, ready to fight. CBS News joined the division's Deputy Commander, Brigadier General John Lubas, and Colonel Edwin Matthaidess, Commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, on a Black Hawk helicopter for the hour-long ride to the very edge of NATO territory — only around three miles from Romania's border with...

WWII veteran Tom Rice celebrated his birthday in epic fashion. According to First Coast News, Rice wanted to do something a little extra special to celebrate his 100th birthday and that meant parachuting out of an airplane. Rice, who jumped into Normandy on D-Day with the 101st Airborne, parachuted out of a vintage WWII plane and landed at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego over the weekend for his birthday. The WWII veteran is from San Diego and lived there when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, according to the same report. You can watch the awesome moment unfold below.

CORONADO, Calif. - A World War II veteran took a giant leap to make his 100th birthday memorable — literally. WWII Airborne Veteran Thomas "Tom" Rice participated in a tandem parachute jump in his home town of Coronado, California on Aug. 15. Rice, along with a member of Skydive Palatka, jumped from the Commemorative Air Force's (CAF) D-Day Squadron C-53 D-Day Doll, Rice's favorite aircraft, according to CAF. "The airplane that he loves is our C-53D DO ‘D-DAY DOLL’ and refers to her as his favorite aircraft which he nicknamed DOLLY," a CAF spokesperson told FOX TV Stations. Rice served...

(CU News) - Joseph R. Beyrle was the first paratrooper to land in Normandy and the only soldier to fight for both the United States and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Beyrle survived interrogation by the NAZI Gestapo and escaped from German prison camps three different times. Joe Beyrle was married in the same church that held his funeral years. His life is the stuff of legends; And that life largely centered around the 101st Airborne Division. You see, Beyrle served in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Division. He specialized in radio communications and demolition. Before Beyrle’s journey...

Statue vandals seem to have mistaken WWII hero for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, museum officials say Vandals in North Carolina may be in need of a history lesson after having set fire to a statue honoring a World War II hero they apparently mistook for a Confederate general, officials said earlier this week. A white marble monument of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William C. Lee, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming Eagles" during World War II, was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire last week, museum officials said. The statue bears black scorch marks running up...

Maj. Gen. Andrew Poppas, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) commanding general, pins the Soldier’s Medal on Staff Sgt. Nicholas Davis, C Battery, 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment,deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, received the award for heroism and his lifesaving actions when he rescued a couple from a burning vehicle, June 9, 2017FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” The fitting Martin Luther King Jr. quote is a personal favorite of Staff Sgt. Nicholas...

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s iconic 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were the first to field the new M17 pistol this week. The era of the Beretta-made M9 for Army leaders is over with the introduction of Sig Sauer’s new Modular Handgun System. A select group of soldiers tested M17s on Monday. Roughly 2,000 pistols were inventoried and inspected prior to the demonstration.

Fifty years ago this weekend, a deadly urban riot began in Detroit. It started around 3:30 a.m., when police arrested 85 patrons of a blind pig -- an illegal after-hours bar -- in the midst of an all-black neighborhood that had been all-white 15 or 20 years before. The statistics are horrifying. Rioting went on for six nights, with some 2,500 stores looted and burnt, some 400 families displaced and property damage was estimated around $300 million in 2017 dollars. Forty-three people, many of them innocent bystanders, were killed. More than 1,000 people were wounded. The reality was even more...

Sens. Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer reportedly got into an angry confrontation on the Senate floor Friday over Senate Democrats delaying the confirmation of Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA director, The Weekly Standard reports. Cotton was reportedly irate with Schumer’s delay of the confirmation vote and loudly accosted him on the Senate floor. Schumer retorted that the Senate had never confirmed a CIA director on Inauguration Day, adding that Senate Republicans also did not do so for former President Barack Obama. He continued that Cotton would have known this precedent if he had been in the Senate eight years previously....

On June 6, 2012—the 68th anniversary of D-Day—a statue of Maj. Dick Winters was unveiled in the Normandy village of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Winters was the commander of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division after they parachuted into Normandy on June 6, 1944. His heroism and leadership was documented in the Stephen Ambrose book and mini-series "Band of Brothers". A young student named Jordan Brown—who lives just a few miles from Winters' Pennsylvania home—raised $99,000 selling armbands stamped with a phrase Winters used: "Hang Tough." The money was used to help pay for the statue of the late Mr....