The Patriot Files :: Dedicated to the preservation of military history

807th MASH, Dec. 1990 - Mar. 1991

The mission began as it should, with prayer. Members of our unit and our family and friends assembled at the drill hall on 17th Street in Paducah, Kentucky for a prayer service. It was a time to think about the mission that lay before us the hazards that would be endured. We prayed for the strength to carry out this important mission, as well as for a quick and safe return home.

Note: by Brian Ginn 15476 Reads

Operation Hickory

In May of 1967, and as a young Marine PFC aboard the USS Okinawa (LPH-3), attached to the 1st Bn. 3rd Marines, RLT 26, I was already years older than my chronological number of 19. Our Battalion had been using this ship as a Combat Assault Base since we left Khe Shan in late February.

Note: As remembered by PFC Joseph C. Connelly, Alpha Co., Ist Bn 3rd Marines. 9805 Reads

Casualty Clearing Station

In April 1918 I volunteered to go to France in response to the urgent call for more surgeons. For twenty years I had been in general practice in a suburb, and did a fair amount of surgery among patients and at the local hospitals. I had also had some war experience as one of the surgeons at the British Red Cross Hospital, Netley, in the first six months of the War, but I had no experience of cases fresh from the battlefield, and the surgical technique which had recently been adopted in dealing with them.

Note: by Captain John A. Hayward 15449 Reads

Captivity in the Ardennes

I shall never forget the morning of March 28th, 1918, when I watched our trenches and the familiar landmarks disappear under the intense bombardment of hundreds of minenwerfers - those earthquakes in miniature. I watched and waited in a state of mental numbness or apathy, and at last the bit reserved for me hit me in the head. When I took a further interest in matters I was a prisoner.

Note: by Rifleman Victor Denham, London Rifle Brigade 15734 Reads

The Red Fighter Pilot

The members of my family - that of Richthofen - have taken no very great part in wars until now. The Richthofens have always lived in the country; indeed, there has scarcely been one of them without a landed estate, and the few who did not live in the country have, as a rule, entered the State service. My grandfather and all my ancestors before him had estates about Breslau and Striegau. Only in the generation of my grandfather it happened that the first Richthofen. his cousin, became a General.

Note: by Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (The Red Baron) 11281 Reads

Bombing Run

When I got to the hangar, navigators were working around a large table with their topographical maps and plotting charts. Navigators made their own calculations, and then compared results with others. When we had finished we went to the locker room. Dressing up was a long process for the gunners. It was a cold ride in the turrets and gunners wore as much clothing as they could from woollen underwear to electrically heated suits.

Note: by Jerrold Morris, 419 Squadron, RCAF 8856 Reads

The End of Bulgaria

After nine months in France, I joined the East Lancs. at Gugunci, travelling overland from Cherbourg to Taranto, thence by steamer to Itea, and finally by motor and rail across wild Greece to Salonika. On disembarking at Dudulah, an enemy aeroplane greeted us with its heavy drone, but proceeded on its way to bomb an ammunition dump some distance away.

Note: by Private N. C. Powell, 3/5th East Lancs. Regt. 10294 Reads

The Battle of Long Tan

It began with a bit of a buzz over the mortaring the night before and the normal scuttle butt as information slowly emerged as to damage and casualties. Willie and I where a bit hung over we had a party in our tent the night before when the mess closed, and had a few over the prescribed 2 cans per day (so did the company HQ radio ops who where with us).

Note: by Murray Broomhall, Delta Company 6 RAR 11836 Reads

Civil War Diary, Jan. 24th-Nov.7th, 1863

Jan. 24th: I commenced keeping diary in Tom Sandle's book he being gone the Devil knows where. This morning inspection of arms weather cloudy and damp. No camp guards furnished by our Brigadier yesterday we were on pickett had the easiest duty our company ever done.

Note: by Melville Cox Follett 10511 Reads

Battle of Midway

On 15 December 1941 I was detached from the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine, Pensacola, Florida, destined to eventually join the crew of USS Yorktown. After a short cruise in USS Hornet and her plane guard USS Noa (DD-343) in the Atlantic, I drove across country by auto to San Diego and served briefly in Aircraft Scouting Force Pacific, Transition Training Squadron.

Note: by LT Joseph P. Pollard, MC, USN, Medical Officer on board USS Yorktown (CV-5) 11049 Reads

An Australian At Messines, 1917

France 16th June 1917.
Dear Mother & Father,
Please forgive me for making such a wide gap since I last wrote for truly it has been impossible. Since my last letter of the 2nd, our division has been through the fire and is now resting, resting as victors and as men who have done their bit. I feel at a loss to give an account of myself and of events generally during the past two weeks, for such a poor pen as mine cannot compass the tremendous events the awe-inspiring sights and the terrible ordeals which we have seen and gone through.

Note: by Len Newton, Sapper, 3rd Division Signal Coy, A.I.F. 9657 Reads

One Name on the Wall

Of all those who made up our platoon, Michael Robert Shapard, or "Shap" as he was called, was to become my closest friend. From the time I had joined the unit at Ft. Hood, it was Shap I had been instantly drawn to, likely because it was he who had made me feel truly welcome at the time of my awkward infusion into the Platoon. Having under gone training with my new unit's sister battalion the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 50th Infantry, I wouldn't report into the 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 50th Infantry until after the standard 2 week deployment leave.

Note: by William Moore, B Company, 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 50th Infantry 11793 Reads

A Journey Into A Frigid Land

This story begins on the Yellow Sea. The Yellow Sea is between Japan and Korea. We are aboard Navy Ship LST 715. An LST is a landing ship tank. It was built in World War II for transporting Army tanks and / or trucks and Howitzers. It has a flat bottom as opposed to other designs of ships.

Note: by Bill Arnold - B Battery 143rd Field Artillery 11411 Reads

The Black Swan

A week or so before the December 31, 1943, mission, my crew, the Mendelsohn crew, was breaking apart. Our navigator, Bill Borellis, was promoted to the exalted position of 91st Bomb Group navigator; our bombardier, Harold Fox, (later to be killed in action over Hamburg) had applied for special training as a navigator and was leaving the crew, and the pilot, Stuart Mendelsohn, had been designated, but not yet officially installed, as the new operations officer of the 324th squadron. And I had just been checked out as first pilot and was about to take over what remained of our original crew.

Note: by Verne Woods, 91st BG 18082 Reads

Death Of An Archduke, 1914 , bodyguards account.

As the car quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness's mouth onto my right check. As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, 'In Heaven's name, what has happened to you?' At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car, with her face between his knees.

Note: By Count Franz von Harrach, who rode on the running board of the royal car. 8968 Reads

Should Saddam Hussein be executed for his crimes against humanity?