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

One of the things you have to watch out for in the field are tracks. Tracks of any kind can put a real damper on your day when they come rolling across your site without warning. To avoid such confrontations we took special care to build deep and well fortified fighting positions when time allowed.

Note: by David Bailey, A Company, 13th Signal Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division 6353 Reads

5th Iowa Infantry

Jefferson City Aug 1861 Dear Folks at Home I take this opportunity of writing you a few lines to let you know that I am well at present and hope these few lines will find you all enjoying god Health

Note: by William Hirst Gift 5770 Reads

Diary of Albigence Waldo

December 6
The Enemy forming a Line from towards our right to the extremity of our left upon an opposite long height to ours in a Wood. Our men were under Arms all Day and this Night also, as our Wise General was determined not to be attack'd Napping....

Note: Albigence Waldo was a Surgeon at Valley Forge, 1777. 8575 Reads

Letter to Chloe Unity Blair by James Booker - 1

Manassas Junction Va Dec the 15 1861
Dear Cousin
I received your kind and interresting letter a few days ago, I was verry glad to hear from you all and also to hear from my sweat hearts I wan to see them verry bad indeed tho I dont think thare is eny chance for me to git a furlow,

Note: Company D of the 38th Virginia Infantry in Whitmell. 5910 Reads

Givenchy Road

It was near the end of the great German bid for victory in April 1918. We left Beuvry and passed the hamlet of Le Fresnoy and crossed the bridge over the La Bassee Canal into the village of Gorre. There we struck a route past the famous Brewery to make for the open fields and the front-line trenches.

Note: by Lance-Corporal Thomas A. Owen 6183 Reads

The Close Call

Sometime in the spring of 1969, a U.S. plane was shot down by North Korea. We responded by sending an amazing armada of Naval vessels to "show them our shit." I remember waking at sunrise and going out on deck after having joined up with the task force sometime during the night. We were totally surrounded by ships of all shapes and sizes: cruisers, carriers, destroyers, tankers, supply ships, and the battleship New Jersey. I was on a destroyer and felt dwarfed by the firepower around us.

Note: by John Paul Rossie 7031 Reads

High Adventure

It was on a cool, starlit evening, early in September, 1916, that I first met Drew of Massachusetts, and actually began my adventures as a prospective member of the Escadrille Americaine. We had sailed from New York by the same boat, had made our applications for enlistment in the Foreign Legion on the same day, without being aware of each other's existence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, we had gone, every evening, for dinner, to the same large and gloomy-looking restaurant in the neighborhood of the Seine.

Note: by James Hall, Lafayette Escadrille, 94th pursuit squadron 9176 Reads

H. J. Lynch, 6 May 1915: we fixed bayonets and with a maddening shout, we charge

I will endeavor to give you a fuller account of our experiences whilst landing. I dare say long ere this reaches you, you will have read all about it in the papers, but here is the part I saw and took part in. It was on Sunday, April 25th at 3 a.m., we disembarked from our transport ship, the "Galeka," our kit consisted of an extra change of clothing, 200 rounds of ammunition, as well as plenty of tobacco, the entire lot weighing just on 90 lbs., and with that weight we had to climb down over the side of the ship - per Jacob's ladder, which by the way, is made of rope, - into rowing boats, 50 men in each. We were towed by naval pinnaces as near as possible to the shore, being under very heavy fire made it a very difficult task.

Note: by Pte. H. J. Lynch writing from Victoria Hospital, Alexandria. 6592 Reads

Letter to Chloe Unity Blair by James Booker - 2

Camp Near Yorktown April the 19 1862
My Dear Cousin
I write you afew lines to let you know whare we are, we are on the out post the yankees are shooting at our men constantly tho it is very cildom thay hit eny of them, thay havent shot but one man in our Regiment he was shot thursday,

Note: Company D of the 38th Virginia Infantry in Whitmell. 6199 Reads

Service in the Desert

It was 3:00 A.M.. Although the sun’s rays had retreated hours before, its hot breath refused to dissipate from the steppes of Kuwait’s Ad Dibdibah plain. The heat attacked us from all sides. Airborne sandy powder hung above us and dimmed lights as if in a London fog.

Note: by Richard L. Klingler, MD LTC MC USAR, U.S. Army 310th MP Battalion 7855 Reads

Combat in the Battle of Saipan

On June 15th 1944 the 2nd Armored Amphibian Bn invaded the Island of Saipan. The 2nd Armored was the first amtrac to be fitted with a open turret and a 75 mm canon, and was to be used as an assualt weapon to get heavy fire power to the beach before the infantry landed. We left the LST's with 72 Armored Amtracs, and only 23 made it all the way to the beach. The Japanese had zeroed in on exact places on the reef, and as the armored tanks got to that spot, they opened fire with heavy artillery and heavy mortars.

Note: by Bill Hoover 6417 Reads

We Captured a Town

On April 20, 1945 the Russians were firing artillery into and around the prison forced labor camp near Juderbog, Germany, where I was confined with a number of the privates and PFC’s. The attack including blowing down one of the fences of the compound. As a result, we decided to escape the prison encampment and work our way back to the American lines, which we accomplished in five days, walking cross-country across Germany.

Note: by Pendleton Woods 7577 Reads

Square Needles

I had the pleasure of being assigned to Ft Lewis from 3/67 to 6/68. During that time I worked at the post dispensory and occasionally had the bad luck of being assigned to the dreaded "shot line".

Note: By Jim Calbreath 6452 Reads

Seawolf Down

Early on the morning of December 3, 1971, Paddy Control contacted Dustoff Operations with an emergency scramble mission. A Navy Seawolf helicopter had just given a mayday call near Tra Vinh, indicating he had been hit by enemy fire and was going down. We scrambled immediately, and Paddy vectored us to the coordinates where he'd last seen the Seawolf on radar.

Note: by David Freeman 5812 Reads

Howitzers on ducks

It was July 1951. I was training with the division in Japan on the island of Honshu. The next part of our training was to be a mock invasion on Yokohama Beach. This landing would be exactly like a real invasion. All our vehicles were equipped for land service, but when the orders came down, they were to be retrofitted with snorkels, which would allow them to operate in shallow water such as beaches.

Note: by Bill Arnold, 143d FA 40th ID 7537 Reads

What is the most important program of the Veterans Administration?