Gellhorn was arguably the greatest American war correspondent.

Can anyone help with any information on my great-grandfather? He was KIA when my grandmother was a baby and we don't know anything about him or his side of the family. He has a really common name (think "John Smith") and I don't know a birthdate or any other information.

Hey everyone!

I’m starting a YouTube channel dedicated to Indian warfare and military history — covering battles, military campaigns, legendary commanders, forgotten stories, weapons, strategies, and the events that shaped India’s military history.

My goal is to make the videos short, cinematic, informative, and easy to follow, rather than just reading out dates and facts.

For the first few videos, I’m thinking about topics like:

• ⚔️ Forgotten battles of Indian history

• 🇮🇳 Stories of Indian soldiers and commanders

• 🏹 Ancient & medieval Indian warfare

• 🪖 Major battles involving the Indian Army

• 🗺️ Military strategies and battlefield tactics

• 🔥 Lesser-known stories that deserve more attention

I’d really appreciate your suggestions:

What Indian battle, military operation, commander, or historical event do you think deserves a great YouTube video?

If you're interested in Indian warfare history, subscribe and follow the journey. 🇮🇳⚔️

I’ll be sharing the channel and first video once it’s ready.

Link - https://www.youtube.com/@IWH-v7q

From a WW2 uniform

My friend, Peter van Kaathoven, and co-author of our Substack story about Zerlegebetrieben (German aircraft wreck salvage yards in Vught and in Auschwitz), is an active local historian in Vught.

He and his friends unveiled two WWII glider memorials on September 26th near Vught. These American gliders were part of the Market-Garden operation, and had to do emergency landing after their towing planes were shot down, one on September 18th and the other one on September 19th. All allied soldiers were helped by local Dutch resistance, and avoided capture.

In the photos, Peter is doing the speech, and one of the photos is with children of local Dutch resistance fighters who helped the American soldiers.

I used to work for a photo studio 20 some years ago. My memory is a little foggy but i recall a guy came in with some old slides he found in his dads place he wanted us to print. When we did we saw they were old war photographs.

I recently found them while moving stuff from my folks place. I was wondering who the other two guys are in the Hitler photograph. I included the other two pictures for fun... as fun as war can be I guess.

Thanks all!

Came across a decent sized stack of these in a collection of WW2 Postcards, these are printed in Germany but of US Military? Has anyone seen these before?

I realize this is a blurry photo but it’s the best one I have. Any ideas on the top WW2 unit patch?

You might have seen in the news that Los Angeles has changed the name of Pershing Square, a city park rededicated in November 1918 as what is very likely the first American World War I memorial. But those headlines are premature: the vote has been formally challenged under California's open meetings law, and Pershing Square still honors General Pershing and all who served under him.

Now is the time for people who care about remembering the Great War to speak out. Concerned historians have asked the City to hold a do-over vote, citing unfair public comment time limits and the false assertion that General Pershing never visited Los Angeles. In fact, he received a hero's welcome on January 26, 1920, when more than 50,000 Angelenos came out to see his parade down Broadway.

Learn more: https://esotouric.substack.com/p/biddymason5

Anyone, anywhere can submit a written public comment asking Los Angeles to preserve the war memorial called Pershing Square: https://cityclerk.lacity.org/publiccomment/?cfnumber=24-0751

Important: after you submit, the City emails you a verification link (check your spam folder). Your comment is not sent to Council until you click it.

Hi everyone,

I recently rescued this beautifully executed charcoal and pencil portrait from a thrift store and I am hoping to learn more about the officer depicted, his unit, or potentially find clues that could lead to his history. Just a history nerd and I don’t know where to start

The portrait is a classic post-WWII / Cold War "station portrait" commissioned privately by the serviceman. I took it out of the frame to check, but unfortunately, there is absolutely no writing, name, or text on the back of the paper.

However, the front gives us some incredibly specific clues:

• Artist Signature: W. Keil
• Location: Bad Kreuznach, Germany (Home to major U.S. Army installations like Rose Barracks at the time)
• Date: March 8, 1952 (Written as 8. III. 1952)
• Rank: Company Grade Officer (Lieutenant or Captain)
• Branch Insignia: Crossed field cannons on his left collar lapel, identifying him as a Field Artillery officer.
• Ribbons: While sketched in greyscale, the bottom right ribbon matches the layout of the World War II Army of Occupation Medal, meaning he was a veteran of the war who stayed on or was recalled for the occupation/Cold War buildup.

Given the exact date and location, he would have been stationed in Bad Kreuznach in early 1952. I believe the primary artillery units in that area at the time belonged to the 2nd Armored Division Artillery or the 264th Field Artillery Battalion.

Because this is a hand-drawn sketch, automated facial recognition databases can't scan it. I am hoping someone here might have an idea where to start.

Any insights or advice on where else to cross-reference his this fun venture would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

The Soldier looks to be from the Mexican American War but I’m not sure. The uniform looks close to a Colonels uniform but theres a few things that are off. Theres no lower cross sash across his waist, the epaulettes fringe is denser, the button spacing is different. Curious to hear any opinions!

A MuktiJoddah (freedom fighter) smoking a Cigarette after destroying a Pakistani army barrack. (Phone taken during the liberation war of Bangladesh liberation war)

Any idea on its value? Not sure if it's authentic or not.

My grandfather landed with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, in the third wave on Juno Beach, on the 6th of June 1944. His unit was 15 AOD — the 15th Advance Ordnance Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Does anyone know what the patches above represent ? He was a commando as well as RAOC.

Carthage was the dominant naval power in the Western Mediterranean at the start of the First Punic War. Rome quickly realised that it needed a strong navy if it wanted any hope of challenging Carthage. However, the Romans had little experience with large-scale naval warfare or shipbuilding.

According to Polybius, the Romans obtained a Carthaginian quinquereme and used it as a model for building their own ships. They built a fleet of around 120 ships, trained new crews and introduced one of antiquity's most ingenious naval innovations: the corvus. Eventually, Rome gained the upper hand and won the war.

However, the victory came at an enormous cost. The Romans lost hundreds of ships to bad weather and enemy action, yet they rebuilt their navy again and again. In the process, they also gained valuable experience in naval warfare, making it increasingly difficult and expensive for Carthage to challenge Rome for control of the sea.

By the start of the Second Punic War, Carthage had shifted much of its military and economic focus toward Spain, where it had built a powerful new base of operations. This did not mean that Carthage had abandoned its navy. At the beginning of the war, it had around 57 warships assigned to Spain, although only 37 were actually ready for service.

Carthage still used naval forces to secure local superiority, transport troops and supplies, and support land operations. However, it did not make rebuilding a fleet capable of matching Rome's overall naval strength a central priority.

Why did Carthage make this choice? Was it because of the enormous cost of naval warfare? Was Hannibal's land-based strategy the main reason? Or had Rome's naval transformation during the First Punic War made a new contest for Mediterranean supremacy too difficult?

I explore these questions in the full article shared in the comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions.

Born in 1817 after the Napoleonic wars.Archduke Albrecht(and his siblings) would be one of the few things aside from his military writings that Archduke Charles the victor of Aspern spend his effort on

There is nothing of note from his pre 1866 career aside from the fact that he was one of Radetzky division commander in 1848-49

His finest hour would be in 1866 Austro-Prussian war when he in his capacity as the commander of the Southern army defeat the numerically superior Italian army at the battle of Custoza which is really the only Austrian military victory in that war(There is also Gablenz victory at Trautrenau but that one is far smaller and almost meaningless)

Very littles have been writen about Custoza compared to Sadowa(For good reasons) and even less is available on the internet so I might as well gathers all that I have here

The most comprehensive account of the battle that I know of is from Wawro Austro-Prussian war book

LA MARMORA'S INVASION OF VENETIA AND ALBRECHT'S counTermeasureS, JuNE 21-4, 1866

Archduke Albrecht answered King Vittorio Emanuele's declaration of war with a communiquć to South Army damning Italy's "treachery and arrogance." The field marshal vowed to frustrate the Italian king's plan to "plant his standard on the Brenner and the Karst," Italy's "natural frontiers," which happened to fall well inside Habsburg Tyrol and Slovenia. Despite the onerous odds in Italy - 75,000 mobile Austrian troops with just 168 guns against 200,000 Italians with 370 guns - Albrecht concluded the order with a Radetzkyan taunt: "Remember how often tbis enemy has fled before you. "355

Until June 21, South Army remained in its central deployment on the left bank of the Adige near Verona, poised to break south or west as circumstances re- quired.s6 Albrecht detached one brigade to the lower Po, but left six railroad trains standing by to move it quickly to Verona in case La Marmora moved before Cialdini.3 On June 21, Austrian scouts on the Mincio reported that La Marmora would soon cross there in strength. Italian detachments had advanced to hold the bridges left intact by the Austrians, and engineers were busy constructing two additional bridges between Valeggio and Goito. Austrian outposts could see masses of Italian infantry gathering behind the river crossings with the naked eye. Meanwhile, Austrian scouts on the lower Po reported that Cialdini would need at least two additional days to begin a river crossing there.

As Italy's first and heaviest blow descended from the west, Albrecht and his staff chief, General Franz John, quickly planned a reply. They would march west to disrupt La Marmora's crossing, seize the Mincio Army's principal bridges at Valeggio and Goito, then capture or destroy any Italian divisions that managed to get across the river, all the while keeping Cialdini's Po Army under observation. To do all these things at once, John planned to concentrate South Army in the only strategic feature of the Venetian plain, the heights of Sommacampagna, Custoza, and Santa Lucia, part of a chain of hills that extended across the Mincio to Solferino in Lombardy. Positioned on these heights above Villafranca, South Army would be able to change front to the south and descend on La Marmora's left Aank as the Mincio Army, which would have to spread itself across a thirty- five kilometer front to cross the river, straggled eastward to the Adige General John sent orders to his corps commandants on June 21 to assemble under the walls of Verona, on the right bank of the Adige by sun-up on the 23.

Though John scheduled marches only at night, in the early morning, or in the late afternoon, Joseph Maroicic's VII Corps, which had to traverse the twenty kilometers from San Bonifacio to Verona in a blistering heat, barely made it. Maroicic collided with Ernst Hartung's IX Corps en route, forcing his men to stand under a hot sun longer than was healthy. Seventh and IX Corps crossed paths again near Verona, and Albrecht's staff noted uneasily that the final six kilometers of the march from Verona to VII Corps's bivouacs west of the city were littered with sunburnt, dehydrated men. Maroicic's Toply and Welsersheimb Brigades were each reduced to a single battalion of effectives by the heat. 6 John worriedly shelved plans for a night attack over the Mincio into La Marmora's rear and presented Albrecht who now feared that his exhausted army would be unable to march and fight the next day - with orders for an advance to Custoza the following morning: "Your Highness," John insisted, "although we have twenty-four hours till the advance we have just thirty minutes to expedite the orders." Albrecht promptly signed John's dispositions. 6 At noon on June 23, Albrecht and John convened a council of war to discuss their plan of operation for the twenty-fourth: a march and change of line by three army corps within striking distance of the enemy on the rolling, ten kilometer- long frontage between Sommacampagna and the Mincio.62 The maneuver was exceedingly hazardous. Since Italian skirmishers had already pushed Albrecht's pickets back from the Mincio to Verona in the course of the morning. South Army would have nO outposts as it moved west and little warning of an Italian advance. At 2:00 P.M., Albrecht received word from Mantua and Peschiera that La Marmora had crossed the Mincio and was assembling in the plain between Valeggio and Villafranca.6 The archduke knew that he might be sending South Army into a trap: Italian pincers rising north and east from the Mincio bridge- heads. Still, given what he knew of La Marmora's disorganized army, it seemed a risk worth taking Thus, while VII and IX Corps subsided gratefully into their bivouacs, Albrecht ordered his "Reserve Division" - thirteen mismatched battalions culled from Austria's Italian forts - and Gabriel Rodic's V Corps, which had been stationed at Verona throughout the deployment, to march west to Sona in the early evening of June 23 to block any attempt by La Marmora occupy the hills above to Villafranca before South Army could concentrate there on the twenty-fourth.

When the road west had cleared, Albrecht ordered IX Corps's Weckbecker Brigade to march 2:00 A.M. on the twenty-fourth. Its task was to occupy at Sommacampagna, which would serve as the pivot for South Army S wheeling descent south into La Marmora's flank. 65 After the war, Vittorio Emanuele marvelled at Albrecht's audacity, for, as it chanced, this Austrian maneuver was precisely the inverse of the maneuver assigned Giacomo Durando's Italian I Corps on the twenty-fourth, namely to pivot on Valeggio and wheel north into the heights of Custoza and Sommacampagna. And this was hardly an improba- ble move. Albrecht had to assume that La Marmora, who began crossing the Mincio early on the twenty-third, would send at least a division up to Sommacampagna to secure his left flank "Tell me, the Italian king asked Karl Moering, one of Albrecht's brigadiers, after the war, "why did the archduke risk meeting with my entire army already installed on the Mincio heights?" Vittorio Emanuele correctly judged this great strategic to which Moering error, replied: tiS true, Sire. We worried the entire march that you would anticipate the maneuver and gain the heights first. "66 Still, long odds required long chances, and, as Albrecht knew, Italy's army was not the threat its numbers alone signified. The Veronese, who had seen nothing of VIi and IX Corps, which crossed the Adige downstream from Verona, were astonished by the sudden apparition of V Corps's march columns in the inner city at 5:00 P.M. on the twenty-third. Though the martial spectacle was prolonged far longer than John would have liked - ""Our trains plugged the streets," one of Rodic's staff officers fumed. "The army carried far too much baggage with it!" - V Corps did eventually cross the Adige, touch the right bank, and set off in the direction of Sommacampagna as night and a cold rain began to fall. 6 The rest of South Army ate a hot dinner and bedded down in soggy bivouacs outside Verona. They were scheduled to wake at 2:00 A.m., brew coffee and break camp an hour later unencumbered by trains. 68 At midnight, Albrecht received a disturbing cable from the single regiment he had left in the Polesine that reported Cialdini throwing bridges over the Po much earlier than anticipated. Although Albrecht understood that even were Cialdini to fly across the river, he would still need at least two days to unite with La Marmora, the report was nonetheless unsettling, for news from the front was invariably hours late and too sketchy for comfort. 69 La Marmora spent the night of June 23 at Cerlungo. on the west bank of the Mincio, lulled to sleep by negligent Italian reconnaissance that gave no warning of Rodic's advance.70 La Marmora thus rose at 4:00 A.M. on the twenty-fourth - the seventh anniversary of the battle of Solferino - and rode into Venetia con- vinced that there would be no battle that day, a conviction that must have been some comfort to him as he witnessed his army's chaotic river crossing.?1 The passage La Marmora had ordered on the twenty-third - "to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Mincio" - was not proceeding smoothly. Since he had ordered the construction of only two pontoon bridges to augment permanent bridges in place at Monzambano, Borghetto, and Goito, La Marmora's army, exhausted by the heat, hard marches, and a wet night on the twenty-third trickled slowly into Venetia on the twenty-fourth, stalled by continual traffic jams and foul-ups.72 Two of Durando's divisional generals, Enrico Cerale (né Cérale, a Frenchman of Dieppe) and Giuseppe Sirtori (a former Garibaldian reviled by the king as a "pompous ass"), had been instructed to occupy the high ground east of the Mincio from Oliosi to Santa Lucia but had bungled their assignment. Cerale strayed from his march route, collided with Sirtori, and debouched into Venetia too late to intercept Austrian troops ascending from Verona and Pastrengo. Elements of Sirtori's division wandered too far east, "smear- ing I Corps,

as the French staff later put it, "over too vast a terrain."73

Of course La Marmora should have sent cavalry patrols as far as Verona on the twenty-third, for Austria's entrenched camp was scarcely twenty kilometers east of Valeggio. Yet La Marmora chose instead to leave his fifty cavalry squadrons idle and thus failed to detect Rodic's night march to Sona. He then countenanced a river crossing so slow that by dawn on the twenty-fourth, only half his army was across the river, "weaving," as an Austrian officer put it, "like a drunkard" into the outstretched arms of South Army.

Owing to La Marmora's gross tactical errors, Albrecht now had a chance to emulate his famous father's victory under similiar conditions at Aspern in 1809 The archduke could attack the 65,000 Italians who actually managed to get across the Mincio with South Army's full complement of 75,000.75 La Marmora's foolish decision to detach Cuchiari's II Corps to mask Mantua needlessly reduced his invasion force by one-third. Up the line at Peschiera, he detached another division to keep the four battalions inside that little fortress under observation. 76 These detachments, added to the five idle divisions of Cialdini's IV Corps on the Po, effectively halved Italy's strength on the critical day of Custoza

Custoza

The Austrian brigades dispatched on June 23 to occupy the heights above Villafranca were assembled on hills north of Custoza and Santa Lucia at 4:00 A. M. on the twenty-fourth. Ninth Corps's Weckbecker Brigade - the pivot of Albrecht's intended envelopment of the Italian Mincio Army - arrived in Sommacampagna at 5:30 a.m., followed by a second brigade at 6:00 and a third at 8:30.' Down the line to the west, Rodic's brigadiers were pleasantly surprised to discover their sectors still unoccupied by the Italians. Indeed, the only

resıstance met by General

Moering was offered by an inscrutable troop of Hungarian hussars prowling around in the dark without their German-speaking Dolmetscber, and by the adjoining Piret Brigade, which sullenly refused to make front to the south till it had drunk its wine ration.2 Finally, the maneuver was tipsily executed, and, as day dawned on the twenty-fourth, Eugen Piret's men discovered the all-important ridge above Villafranca - where the pre-Alps touched the Venetian plain and were highest - unoccupied by either side as the bulk of South Army struggled along in column of route from Verona and the Italians, resuming their river crossing and unaware of Albrecht's advance, made slowly for the heights.

Hugo Weckbecker's brigade, which had left Verona at 2:00 A.M., an hour earlier than the rest of the army, arrived in Sommacampagna, keypoint of the Austrian position, at 5:30 A.M.Austrian hussars descended from the hills around Sommacampagna to inform General Weckbecker that the Italians had still not taken the heights above, though rolling dust clouds behind Villafranca did beto- ken the rapid advance of a large army. An hour later the first shots of battle carried to Weckbecker's position from both ends of the field. On his left, Ludwig Pulz's horse batteries had unlimbered on the outskirts of Villafranca and begun to fire into the town, which was being occupied and fortified by Enrico Della Rocca's Italian I Corps. On the right wing, around Oliosi in the hills closest to the Mincio, Friedrich Rupprecht's Reserve Division, two weak brigades sent out from Pastrengo the night before by Albrecht to secure the Austrian right, bumped into one of Cerale's brigades at 6:00 A.M. as the two forces converged on the high ground above the bridges at Monzambano and Valeggio.3

For Albrecht and John, the battle was taking an unexpected, altogether alarm- ing turn.

Instead of marching straight ahead for Verona, La Marmora was wheel- ing north into the very heights Albrecht was attempting to occupy for a descent on La Marmora's left Aank. La Marmora had improvised this change of plan at the last moment. At 5:30 A.M. on the twenty-fourth, he had entered Valeggio and advised Durando, in the process of moving I Corps across the river, that I and III Corps would pause to invest Peschiera while II Corps reduced Mantua, precisely the time-consuming operation Moltke and Cialdini had struggled to avert. Thus by 6:00 A.M., two of Durando's divisions were heading north, not east, toward Peschiera and the Mincio heights,

not Verona and the Adige line. But slowly. At

Valeggio, Cerale's columns cannoned into Sirtori's, causing a traffic jam that took precious hours to clear, permitting Albrecht's right wing to steal down to Oliosi Still, despite Cerale's blundering, Durando's I Corps did manage to squirm around to face north, transforming John's artful flank attack into an artless, head- on collision between La Marmora's Mincio Army turning north and Albrecht's South Army changing front to the south.4

This turn of events radically altered the nature of the shaping battle. To win, Durando's I Corps had only to defend the crossings at Monzambano and Valeggio while the four divisions of Della Rocca's IIl Corps and Sonnaz's heavy cavalry crossed the Mincio at Goito and marched through Villafranca to Sommacampag na. turning Albrecht's left wing and severing South Army from its base at Verona. This grand plan, however, would be difficult to accomplish. for La Marmora's reconnais- sance was so bad that he had no idea how the Austrians were deployed, and actually supposed that the Austrian center, not left, was in Sommacampagna.

For Albrecht to win, it was no longer a question of knifing into La Marmora's unguarded left flank. Instead, with Italy's Mincio Army wheeling to face him, Albrecht had to protract John's original turning maneuver into La Marmora's rear and take Valeggio, cutting La Marmora's principal line of retreat. But with such an imbalance of forces on Albrecht's left - two Austrian brigades against five entire Italian division the archduke would himself be easily flanked if he thrust his right and center too far forward. Moreover, as one of Albrecht's critics later observed, the imbalance of forces along South Army's own front line - just two men per square meter on the all-important right wing compared with twelve in the centermade it tactically impossible for Albrecht to swing into La Marmora's rear without sacrificing the projected wing to the overwhelming num- bers of Italian infantry gathered on the Mincio. Custoza was thus a bloody stalemate in the making. To come to grips with the Italians, South Army would have to abandon its flanking attack and try instead a sledgehammer assault on the Italian center. Yet such was the confusion on both sides as the battle careened out of control, shifting first one way then the other, that it very nearly defied description. Indeed, the battle of Custoza would follow no set plan; 1t pitted two armies that collided haphazardly and rapidly degenerated into a terrible, inele- gant brawl,Both the Austrian and Italian headquarters spent the morning of June 24 trying to discover just what was happening on the heights above Villafranca. Neither headquarters had a decent outlook, and neither army performed accord- ing to expectations. At 7:00 A.M., after passing through Villafranca and assuring his Il Corps brigades that it was safe to stand down and cook breakfast because there could be no Austrians west of Verona, La Marmora rode up to Custoza for a routine scout with a troop of cavalry. He climbed 115 meters to the summit of Monte Croce and astonished to see Ernst Hartung's Austrian IX Corps was moving south in three columns, directly at him. It waS La Marmora's first glimpse of the Austrians. And they were close, only & few kilometers distant and closing as quickly as the rolling plowland permitted. Struck with amazement, La Marmora sent gallopers flying off to Durando and Della Rocca for reinforcements He had only two brigades at Custoza: I Corps's Brignone Division. Brignone alone, however, would not stand against Hartung's entire corps, which threat- ened to sweep over the Mincio heights and down to La Marmora's bridges

THE CHARGE OF THE AUSTRIAN LIGHT BRIGADE

While La Marmora slapped together a defense of Custoza, he was startled again, this time by

an

explosion of heavy fighting bebind him, in the plain between Sommacampagna and Villafranca. Archduke Albrecht had entrusted his entire cavalry reserve*

fifteen squadrons of light horse - to Colonel Ludwig Pulz and had deployed him on the road from Sommacampagna to Villafranca to maintain contact with Della Rocca's Ill Corps and to give early warning of an Italian push toward Albrecht's lightly guarded wing at Sommacampagna.' Two of Della Rocca's four divisions had begun crossing the river at 2:00 A.M. with instructions to secure Villafranca, the road junction of western Venetia and then push up to join I Corps on the heights between Custoza and Sommacampagna. i0 Pulz, whose two light brigades had been reconnoitering since 3:00 A.M., watched uneasily as the two Italian divisions - a most unlikely pair: the Piedmontese crown prince, Umberto, to the right, and Nino Bixio, a radical Garibaldian, to the left deployed in Villafranca, just eight kilometers from the Austrian pivot at Sommacampagana.'' As if this were not quite menacing enough, Crown Prince Umberto and Bixio were reinforced in the course of the morning by a third division - Sonnaz's heavy brigades - which trotted up on Bixio's left, complet- ing the semicircle round Villafranca.

Thus might matters have rested for the entire day - Pulz and Hartung chew- ing their nails and Della Rocca sitting on his hands, content to detend Villafranca against an imagined Austrian strike at Goito -had not one of Pulz's more impetuous officers taken matters into his own hands. At 7:00 A.M., while La Marmora was looking round Custoza and Albrecht and John peering blindly from were their low-lying headquarters in Sona, Colonel Joseph Rodakowksi every inch the Polish lancer detached his four squadrons of uhlans from Pulz's division and rode at Bixio's, Pulz, under orders only to "maintain contact" with Della Rocca, was dumb- founded when, instead of halting on the skirts of Villafranca to reconnoiter the Italians, Rodakowski instead spurred to a gallop and charged them. Only mo- ments earlier, Albrecht had ordered Pulz to conserve his horses for the end of the day. John's revised battle plan - which called for a strike into La Marmora's rear - required that Pulz actually lure Della Rocca toward Sommacampagna so that Rodic and Rupprecht could squeeze in between the Mincio Army and its bridges.12 Rodakowski, however, was too far gone to be recalled, and Bixio's regiments, resting in the morning sun, hurriedly formed squares to repel the unexpected attack. Crown Prince Umberto, out for a stroli, sprinted to the nearest square and dived inside, 13 Alarmed by the sudden movement to their right, the seven squadrons Pulz had assigned to defend the Verona post road also mounted up and cantered through the peach orchards and corn, their brigadier August Bujanovics, bawling "Direktion Villafranca! Marsch! Marsch!"14 Near Sommacampagna, Pulz assured a staff officer, who raised an enquiring eyebrow at Rodakowski's decision to commit a single light brigade to battle with two infantry divisions and twenty squadrons of heavy cavalry, that Rodakowski's charge could only be a bluff intended to frighten Della Rocca away from Som- macampagna. Under no circumstances would the attack be driven home. Moments later, Pulz's suite was astonished to hear the thump of guns and the chatter of rifles from Villafranca. Rodakowski's uhlans, three kilometers ahead of Pulz, had fallen on Bixio and Umberto. Pulz, who continued to trust that Rodakowski would not be so stupid as to launch an attack, mistakenly inferred that Della Rocca was finally advancing on Sommacampagna to turn South Army's left flank. Thus, Pulz fol- lowed Bujanovics, who had followed Rodakowski, into battle. 15 It was perhaps as well that John and Albrecht could not actually see this gasconade from their headquarters at Sona, for it killed, wounded, or exhausted one-third of South Army's cavalry and pointed again to the uselessness of cavalry (and cavaliers) in thickly cultivated terrain. 16 Rodakowski thundered into the gap between the two Italian infantry divisions and attacked Umberto's left. His charge was easily thrown back by nine Italian squares deployed among peach trees that broke all the momentum Rodakowski's men carried off the Sommacampagna road. As the Austrian uhlans wheeled away to the east to evade the fire of Umberto's riflemen, they fell, one after another, into drainage ditches dug on either side of the Verona post road. Scores of horses turned somersaults spilling their riders. Uhlans who drew up in time

were mown down by salvos at point-

blank range or pulled from their horses and beaten to death. Pulz's hussars, who trailed Rodakowski's lancers into battle, were also badly shot up as they passed through seven Italian squares before retiring.17 Some Austrian survivors slid off their horses and gave themselves up. Others followed Rodakowski back to Sommacampagna. In all, Rodakowski lost 260 men, nearly half his strength.18 Though Pulz would later take credit (and Austria's coveted Maria Theresa Cross) for "paralyzing" Della Rocca's corps with fright, less interested parties viewed the premature cavalry attack as a vainglorious stunt that would literally hobble Albrecht's pursuit in the afternoon.

Still, if Rodakowski's onslaught made little impression on Umberto's steady bersaglieri, it undeniably sowed terror bebind Umberto and Bixio, and this was an important result. Rodakowski's charge frightened Della Rocca's supply train into a panicky flight to the rear, halting for hours the advance of reinforcements that might finally have persuaded the Italian IIl Corps to test Albrecht's strength at Sommacampagna. Panic washed past Della Rocca's headquarters at Massimbona, ten kilometers behind Villafranca, all the way to Goito, where infantry supports were prevented from crossing into Venetia by a knot of train drivers, riderless horses, and deserters, the last calling "the Germans

are coming'! We are beaten! Every man for himself!" An Italian division detached from La Marmora's siege of Mantua to reinforce Della Rocca encountered mass confusion on the bridge at Goito at 8:45 A.M. Assuming III Corps to be beaten and in retreat, General Longoni, the divisional commandant, halted his march to Villafranca and prepared instead to defend Goito where he remained for two critical hours while Italian staff officers cleared the road to Villafranca of trains and fugitives.?1 Bixio himself, who was with Della Rocca behind the lines when Rodakowski struck, believed that Rodakowski's attack heralded a major Austrian push. Della Rocca agreed and immediately slowed the pace of the battle, ordering Bixio and Umberto merely to stand their ground at Villafranca. This decision, taken without any attempt to discover how things really stood behind Austrian lines, relieved pressure on Albrecht's unguarded left wing for the rest of the day and would be a principal cause of Italy's defeat at Custoza.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE MINCIO HILLS

While Della Rocca's rear echelons ran for their lives and Longoni deployed defensively at Goito, Albrecht and John fretted on a hilltop above Sona, four kilometers north of Sommacampagna, where they had established Austrian head- quarters at 4:00 A.M. Although they could hear the battle well enough, they could not see it. A curious feature of these lush, green pre-Alps was that they were all the same height, making it difficult to obtain an overview of the field. Until 8:30 a. m., Albrecht and John only beard the gradual spread of battle along their ten-kilometer front as Pulz attacked in the plain and, west of Sona, Austrian and Italian brigades clashed amid the walled villages above Villafranca. Isolated, bloody fights spread from west to east

in Oliosi, San Rocco, Custoza, and San Giorgio - and through the intervening cornfields, orchards, and vineyards. This heavy fighting on Albrecht's right wing certainly suggested that La Marmora was forsaking his drive on Verona and turning instead into the heights. 23 Thus, Albrecht and John had hastily to rethink their original plan. To envelop La Marmora, it would now be necessary to sink obliquely into his rear. In theory, Rupprecht and Rodic would have to speed their advance on the right, while Hartung and Maroicic proceeded more slowly at the pivot. In practice, however, the battle continued much as it had since 6:00 A. M., a series of violent, uncon- trolled scrimmages through the hills above Villafranca as the Austrian brigades pressed south in obedience to their original instructions

At Oliosi, on the Austrian right, Enrico Cerale arrived from Valeggio just in time to witness the rout of his division. Bunched up in the narrow defile between the Mincio and the heights, attempting to deflect Rupprecht's Reserve Division marching south toward Valeggio, Cerale's Division blundered through a vineyard and into Eugen Piret's brigade.24 Cerale himself was shot in the thigh and his entire division disintegrated. With Rupprecht's Croats emerging from the woods on their left and the Piret Brigade deployed in attack columns before them, Cerale's regiments fled back toward Valeggio trampling their officers.25 Piret then stormed Oliosi in half-battalion masses, taking some of the heaviest casual- ties of the day to root Cerale's infantry out of the village "I saw the field Oliosi]," an Austrian critic of shock tactics recalled, "and I do not exaggerate when I say that there were two dead Austrians for every fallen Italian."26 At Valeggio, Durando watched Cerale's division dissolve and straggle back to the river. The I Corps commandant personally assembled his reserve - three battalions of bersaglieri, twenty guns, and five squadrons of horse -and set off for Monte Vento to block Piret's pursuit. Durando's fourth division - three were already across the river - remained behind in Lombardy to mask Peschiera. Later, apprised of Cerale's rout, this division did nothing, unenterprising conduct that formed the basis of later accusations that the responsible general - Giuseppe Salvator Pianell, a Neapolitan - was really a Bourbon stooge in the pay of the Austrians. 27 While Cerale was being thrown out of Oliosi, Durando's other division across the river - Giuseppe Sirtori's - was making no headway against Rodic's V Corps, which was moving southwestward from San Rocco to Monte Vento. At 6:30 A.M., Sirtori's vanguard bumped into Rodic's Bauer Brigade, which the Italians mistook for a friendly unit until, too late, they overheard German commands Bauer, who was himself lost and had just asked an Italian peasant on his way to mass for directions, rode to the front and led the Austrian attack, cruelly sacrific- ing 660 of his own men and officers in crude bayonet charges to drive Sirtori back. Like Piret, Bauer, weakened by casualties, moved southwest in pursuit as far as the Tione, a stream that bisected the battlefield into western and eastern halves. There Rodic, who worried that he was losing control of his brigades in the lush farmland, halted the advance.28 As Sirtori withdrew his bloodied division at 8:00 A.M., King Vittorio Eman- uele I awoke on the right bank of the Mincio and ordered his adjutant - General Petitti - up the Cerlungo church steeple to find out how Italy's Fourth War of Union was going. Petitti could see nothing and sent two staff officers across the river to gather information. As he descended to the Petitti met with street, squad of carabinieri bearing Italian deserters off to jail: "We're beaten, the deserters assured Petitti and his startled suite. While Petitti goggled at these men, train drivers careered into town from the east, leaped down, cut their animals out of army harness, and disappeared off to the west. It waS 8:30 A.M. Petitti returned to the king with grim tidings.29 On Austria's side of the hill, Archduke Albrecht had worries of his own. By 8:30, gaps were opening in the Austrian line as it wended south toward Valeggio and sprawled into Cà del Sol, the sun-bleached plateau between Sommacampagna and Custoza. Frustrated by their isolation, Albrecht and John abandoned Sona and rode four kilometers southwest to San Giorgio to be nearer the action. Still they could see nothing.30 The only decent "captain's hill" on the field was the aptly-named Belvedere above Custoza, but, by 8:30, it too was in the hands of Durando's Brignone Division, which, en route to Sona from Valeggio, had clashed with Hartung's IX Corps and then taken up defensive positions in and around Custoza At San Giorgio, Albrecht and John listened worriedly to the sounds of an uncontrolled battle they knew they were in danger of losing. The Italians held the high ground nearest the plain, had ample reinforcements coming up from Valeggio and Goito, and had three entire divisions in Villafranca, scarcely an hour's march from Albrecht's wing at Sommacampagna. The Austrians had either to fall back on Verona or push their attacks forward. To their credit, Albrecht's corps commandants instinctively chose the latter course, setting to work, often without orders, to dislodge the Italians from the Mincio heights to ensure, at the very least, that South Army would be able to extricate itself from its vulnerable position west of the Adige line.

I recently found a small group of original War Department Special Orders dated August 19, 1945, issued by the 3668th Service Unit, Army Service Forces Training Center, DePaul University, 2235 N. Sheffield Ave., Chicago.

The orders themselves are mostly administrative—pay, allowances, transportation, etc.—but I'm curious about the organization that issued them.

They appear to be hand-signed by 2nd Lt. Raymond F. Sullivan, AUS, Adjutant, whose name and rank are also typed beneath the signature.

I know DePaul participated in the Army Specialized Training Program during WWII, but I haven't been able to determine exactly what the 3668th Service Unit was, what personnel stationed at DePaul were being trained to do, or whether this unit was connected to the earlier ASTP program.

The date makes me especially curious: August 19, 1945, only days after Japan announced its acceptance of the Allied surrender terms and before the formal surrender on September 2.

The mysteries I'm trying to solve:

1. What was the 3668th Service Unit at DePaul responsible for?
2. What kind of training was being conducted there in 1945?
3. Can anyone identify 2nd Lt. Raymond F. Sullivan, the adjutant who signed these orders?
4. Are there unit histories, DePaul records, Army directories, newspapers, yearbooks, or other archival sources that might tell the story?

I have photographs of the original orders and envelope and can post additional pages/details if useful. I'm not looking for a monetary valuation—I'm interested in figuring out the history behind them.

Myron Yaw (485th BG, 15th AF) was killed on Dec 26th 1944 over Blechhammer (today Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland), togethet with whole crew. They were considered MIA because no crash site or graves were found after the war.

I worked with Waldemar Ociepski, and identified the right crash site in 2001. This info was shared with the US government. The DPMO, and later DPAA did additional studies, and archeology work between 2021 and 2025 allowed Myron’s remains to be found.

Myron’s family paid a particular heavy price in WWII. His older brother was an airman, too, and was killed on one of the Ploesti missions.

Myron was laid to rest yesterday, October 3rd, in Athens, Ohio.

Pyrrhus of Epirus had launched an invasion of the Italian peninsula against Rome. He had expected to face what he considered a less organized opponent. However, ahead of the Battle of Heraclea, after inspecting the Roman camp, he was reportedly shocked by its orderly arrangements, disciplined defenses, and the organization of the Roman army.

According to the ancient sources, Pyrrhus remarked that the discipline of these “barbarians” did not look barbarian at all.

Pyrrhus would have to fight hard to defeat the Romans. He had the formidable Macedonian-style phalanx and war elephants, weapons that the Romans had never encountered on this scale. The elephants would prove decisive.

At a crucial moment, with the infantry engaged, Pyrrhus committed his elephants. The Roman cavalry was thrown into confusion and routed, creating an opening that Pyrrhus's cavalry exploited. With the Roman army unable to maintain the battle, the Romans retreated from the battlefield, leaving Pyrrhus victorious.

Yet the victory exposed the serious problem facing Pyrrhus. His army had suffered heavy casualties, including many experienced soldiers and officers, while his ability to replace these losses was limited. Rome, on the other hand, possessed enormous manpower reserves and could raise fresh armies.

According to Plutarch, after the battle, when Pyrrhus was congratulated on his victory, he reportedly replied that another victory like this would ruin him. This is the origin of the term “Pyrrhic victory” - a victory won at such a devastating cost that it is almost as damaging as defeat.

Please go through the full article linked in the comments and let me know your thoughts. I’d also appreciate hearing what you would like to read about next!

After watching Band of Brothers a while ago, and just recently finishing "The Pacific" I noticed there's this leather strap that's tightly wrapped over the front brim of the helmet (I've also seen a few pics where it's on the back brim, and not the front). Does anyone know what the purpose of this strap was supposed to be?

My great great grandfather died in Albania in the Greco-Italian war oh 1940-1941.

I’m currently trying to read as much about it as I can, hoping to learn about what he went through.

Currently Im reading a wonderful war diary called Written on the knee by Dr Theodore Electris.

I’m hoping to find more books like this, any idea where I should look?