Matt Fratus is a history staff writer for Coffee or Die. He prides himself on uncovering the most fascinating tales of history by sharing them through any means of engaging storytelling. He writes for his micro-blog @LateNightHistory
The US Navy SEALs established their reputation as a fierce maritime commando force during the Vietnam War. These “men with green faces,” as they were known to their Viet Cong enemies, often wore green face paint and disguised themselves in black ...
Marketed to potential recruits as “the best kept secret in the US Navy,” Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman, or SWCC, units comprise elite gunboat drivers who support Navy SEALs and other special operations units. Colloquially known as “boat ...
“Landed. Killed Germans. Fucked off.” This unadorned after-action review by British commando Anders “Andy” Lassen tellingly illustrated his no-nonsense attitude toward conducting covert warfare against the Nazis in World War II. Lassen, ...
When Margaret Bourke-White retired from Life magazine in 1969, she was at the pinnacle of her career. The legendary photojournalist, affectionately known as “Maggie the Indestructible” to her colleagues, had established a reputation of being in the ...
Army Sgt. 1st Class Modesto Cartagena de Jesús is considered the most decorated Hispanic soldier of the Korean War. He was awarded nearly every medal for valor except the Medal of Honor, including the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the ...
After US Army Air Forces Capt. Alwin "Max" Juchheim Jr. had expended all of his ammunition during a dogfight with a German aircraft, he wasn't going to call it a day and head home. Rather, he attempted to ram his P-47 fighter plane into the German ...
Following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Maj. John Ohmer Jr. received an urgent call from the US Army. One of the leading experts of camouflage experimentation for Army bases on the entire West Coast, Ohmer was tasked by top leaders with ...
The number of testicles attached to the body of one Adolf Hitler, a matter of the utmost historical importance, has been debated for decades. It also spurred mockery among Allied soldiers at the height of Hitler's supreme reign of Nazi Germany during ...
US Navy Lt. j.g. Everett Alvarez Jr. survived more than eight years as a prisoner of war inside North Vietnam's notorious Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi. The North Vietnamese called the prison the “fiery furnace,” while Americans sarcastically nicknamed it ...
Richard “Dick” E. Cavazos made history in 1982 as the US Army’s first Hispanic four-star general. However, Cavazos had already earned a revered reputation among his troops while leading combat operations during the Korean War and the Vietnam ...
In 1915, Old Fire Station Number Six proudly served the community of Little Italy in downtown San Diego. Today, the location is home to the San Diego Firehouse Museum, which features firefighting memorabilia and artifacts dating back to the 1800s. ...
Surf culture's influence on the Vietnam War is a familiar fact for every cinephile who has watched Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. In the movie, Robert Duvall’s infamous character, Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, popularized the ...
On Oct. 7, 2001, the New York Rangers took to the ice at Madison Square Garden for their home opener against the Buffalo Sabres. During their introductions, the NHL players skated through a gauntlet of players from the FDNY and NYPD hockey teams. The ...
It all started with a simple pronouncement. “There is an incident in New York,” an FBI agent from the Washington Field Office SWAT team told the group of FBI agents and Navy SEALs. “A plane hit the World Trade Center.” Training at the Naval ...
When civilians in war-torn Bosnia pleaded for foreign humanitarian assistance, a former Danish commando came to the rescue in his tricked-out, 1979 “Ghost” Camaro. From 1992 to 1995, following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the nations of Serbia, ...
In 1985, the US Congress approved a controversial $500,000 media program with the goal of teaching ordinary Afghans how to distribute reliable and accurate accounts of the Soviet-Afghan War. Led by the United States Information Agency, a group of ...
In desperation to escape the floodwaters in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive natural disaster in US history, some 60,000 people in New Orleans needed a miracle. Thousands were left huddled together on rooftops ...
On Sept. 9, 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud agreed to meet for an interview with two Arab men posing as TV journalists. The Sunday meeting was held in Khawja Bahaouddin (also spelled Khwaja Bahauddin) at one of Massoud's forts in northeastern Afghanistan's ...
Maxton “Max” Soviak, 22, did a little of everything a little better than everyone. A four-sport athlete from Berlin Heights, Ohio, who played in his high school's band and made the honor roll, he told friends he planned to make a career in the Navy ...
For just the third time in history, passenger airliners from several major American airlines have been activated to help carry out an emergency airborne evacuation — this time, to help American citizens, Afghan partner forces, and Afghan refugees ...
On Jan. 13, 1842, a lone figure appeared on the outskirts of Jalalabad, slowly riding an exhausted pony across Afghanistan's desolate lowland plains. A young officer on the walls of the British fort dispatched a rescue party. When they reached the ...
For more than 40 years across nearly 30 wars and conflicts, the Russian-made Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter gunship has been one of the most feared airframes in military history. It built its legendary status, however, against the Afghan mujahedeen in ...
The women of Afghanistan's nomadic tribes have woven rugs by hand for thousands of years. But when the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, these carpet weavers incorporated symbols from the nine-year armed conflict into their rugs. These rugs — or war rugs ...
During the island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific during World War II, US soldiers, sailors, and Marines assaulted sophisticated cave complexes and entrenched Japanese positions. At the outset, conventional small arms and artillery did little to ...
World War II paratrooper Tom Rice parachuted into his hometown of Coronado, California, to celebrate his 100th birthday. The Commemorative Air Force’s C-53 D-Day Doll — which flew missions on D-Day and has since been restored — transported Rice over ...
Early Sunday morning, Aug. 15, an anonymous 24-year-old Afghan woman wrote in The Guardian about the Taliban’s siege on the city of Kabul. The Afghan police had evacuated the women’s dormitory at Kabul's American University due to Taliban threats to ...
The Afghan mujahedeen and the Taliban are not one and the same. From 1979 to 1989, the CIA provided covert support to Afghan freedom fighters during the Soviet-Afghan War. The Afghan resistance, better known as the Afghan mujahedeen or “holy ...
The immediate withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of sustained combat is eerily reminiscent of the end of the Soviet-Afghan War. After entering Afghanistan in 1979, the Soviet Union's military established a pro-Moscow regime in ...
On Monday, Aug. 9, Congress agreed to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Harlem Hellfighters, the legendary all-Black World War I National Guard unit. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor alongside the Presidential ...
On Aug. 5, 1967, eight new names were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The last name listed, in alphabetical order, was that of Emlen Tunnell, a defensive back and the first Black football player in the NFL to earn Hall of Fame ...
