Real Life Heroes: 2nd Lt. Audie Murphy

By Lorelie Brown

When I went through Basic Training for the US Army ten years ago, we'd have whole days or afternoons when we watched old black-and-white movies. Some of my fellow recruits bitched that they were boring, but I'd been an old-movie-addict for a long time and had already seen most of them. Despite that, one of them was new to me--as was the information that the lead character really was the man who'd done all the amazing things in the movie.

The movie: To Hell and Back. The actor and hero: Audie Murphy.

So who was Audie Murphy? A good ole boy from Texas, he was one of twelve children, though only ten lived to adulthood. When his father abandoned the family in the mid-1930s, Audie went to work. He also put food on the table by hunting and learned to be an excellent shot simply because if he didn't make his kill, his family didn't eat.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Murphy tried to enlist. But whoops--he was only 16 at the time. A year later, his sister helped him fudge his birth certificate so that he could enlist even though he was still only seventeen. He still had to struggle to avoid assignment to a cook and bakers' school, but eventually he got his wish. He became a private in the Infantry. (Although, let's think that one through for a while. Not only did he bust his ass in order to join the military, he fought like hell to be a grunt. Cannon fodder. Got to wonder about a guy like that.)

Murphy kicked around Africa for a while without seeing action. But then...oh boy, then. He was part of the invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943. After slamming their way through Italy, the 3rd Division (now with Sergeant Murphy in tow) moved on to Southern France. Not long after they got there, Murphy saw a German machine gun nest kill his best friend, Lattie Tipton. Apparently that set Murphy off, because he single-handedly took out the machine gun nest, then used it to take out several nearby German positions. Not only did the incident net him the Distinguished Service Cross, it would later become the crux of his autobiography, To Hell and Back, which would also later become a movie.

But Staff Sergeant Murphy (from private to staff sergeant in a matter of months of battle--and it didn't stop there) wasn't done picking up awards. After two Silver Stars, he was promoted to First Lieutenant, which also got him promoted from Platoon Sergeant to Platoon Leader. (The attrition rates tangentially related to such wicked fast promotions are very sad if you stop to think about them.) He spent ten weeks recuperating from a sniper's bullet and returned to his unit in France.

On 25 January, 1945, Second Lieutenant Audie Murphy was appointed commander of Company B 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division. Big day, right? But apparently 2LT Murphy didn't think that was a big enough deal for January. The very next day, the Battle of Holtzwihr, France began. Murphy established a position, sending all his men to the rear, but he stayed on. He used the machine gun from a burning tank destroyer to take out huge swaths of the German infantry, including an entire squad that had tried to hide in a ditch. For his actions, Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor, fully rounding out his medal collection. In less than two years, 2LT Murphy had collected every single medal of valor available to US service personnel.

The Army, obviously realizing the marketing gold mine they had in Murphy, immediately moved him to a liaison position, taking him off the front line. After his determination to get to the front line and his wanton disregard for his own safety, I'm sure Murphy was pissed. He eventually returned to the States, but life was tough for a while. Much later on, Murphy came clean about his struggles with what was then called "battle fatigue" and is now known as PTSD. His first wife claimed he once held her at gunpoint and his insomnia and nightmares were rampant. He did go on to create a good life eventually, staying with his second wife until his death and being an actor in more than 44 films.

Lorelie Brown's first book, JAZZ BABY, is currently available from Samhain Publishing and will be released 4 January in paperback. Her second romance, an 1880s-set western, will be published by Carina Press in Summer 2011.

Real Life Heroes: Gen. James M. Gavin

By Carrie Lofty

Born in New York to poor Irish parents, possibly illegitimately, in 1907, James Gavin was adopted by a coal mining family in 1909. Knowing his parents would want him to go into coal mining too, he ran away from home at age 17 and convinced an army recruiter to let him volunteer as an orphan. His first assignment was in Panama, where he showed great promise as a young enlistee with a thirst for knowledge. A sergeant and mentor suggested that he apply to the local Army school in Belize, where top graduates could merit the opportunity to study at West Point.

Despite only a 7th grade education and his many duties as a soldier, Gavin's dedication and daily hours of tutoring earned his acceptance to West Point. He graduated, barely 22 at the time, after having spent each morning in the bathroom to study. (The bathroom was the only place with enough light at 4:30am.) After his commissioning as a second lieutenant, he married Irma Baulsir in 1929.

Following postings in Arizona, Georgia, and Oklahoma, he wound up in the Philippines in 1936 and saw first-hand the Japanese build-up of troops, whereas the US military in the region consisted of 20,000 men still equipped with WWI-era technology. He was promoted to captain 18 months later and was put in charge of his own company in Vancouver. By this time his marriage was seriously damaged, no matter the birth of his daughter, Barbara.

All of this might seem like a rather determined up-by-your-bootstraps story, if somewhat ordinary.

But then came WWII.

Gavin once again returned to West Point, this time as a tactical instructor. He became fascinated with German blitzkrieg operations, Stonewall Jackson's movement tactics, and the German use of paratroop infantry. Eventually these threads would coalesce as he volunteered for a brand new US airborne unit in spring of 1941.

He did so well at the airborne school that he was made head tactician to institute a unified code of rules and procedures for the new unit, which went along with his promotion to major. He literally wrote the book on airborne strategy for the US Army, called FM 31-30: Tactics and Technique of Air-Borne Troops. The war accelerated his positions of leadership as general after general realized his potential. Upon the creation of the 82nd Airborne division--the "All Americans"--Gavin was given command of the 505th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) and was promoted to colonel.

Gavin continued to be instrumental in utilizing airborne techniques in combat. He learned from the mistakes of Operation Husky, battled the fierce conditions in North Africa, and prepared the 82nd for D-Day in 1944, where he was brigadier general in charge of parachute troops. At the time he only expected three out of every ten men who jumped would survive, a frank estimate that was among his most difficult to bear. He jumped with his men on June 6, becoming the youngest general to participate in D-Day operations. He was 37.

After leading the 82nd into combat during the failed Operation Market Garden drop into the Netherlands, Gavin and his men survived the horrors of that dreadful 1944-45 winter. He became very close to Marlene Dietrich. She was a tremendous force in the USO, and some argued that she stayed with Gavin because many assumed his men would be the first to enter Berlin. Wanted by Hitler because of her decision to become an American, Dietrich was in search of her mother and sister, who had been held for years in a concentration camp. (Dietrich was reunited with her mother month's before the woman's death. Her sister, however, had not been held against her will, but had married a camp guard. Dietrich never spoke to her again.) This relationship between Gavin and Dietrich ended his turbulent marriage.

Despite his troublesome home life, Gavin's post-war career remained ground-breaking. He worked throughout his remaining thirteen years in the army to desegregate the military, and many claimed Gavin to be the most "color-blind" commander in the US. His continued fascination with swift, safe deployment and extraction of troops led to a heavy reliance on helicopters during Vietnam, as well as early strategies involving mechanized troops and automated planes.

Upon retiring as a lieutenant general with the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart, he transformed industrial consulting firm Arthur D. Little from a $10 million domestic enterprise to a $70 million international powerhouse. He served as president and CEO for 17 years before his retirement in 1977. He also served as Kennedy's ambassador to France because of close post-war ties to Charles De Gaulle, and authored or co-authored five books on history and military tactics.

He even managed to turn himself into a real-life hero on the personal front. After his difficult first marriage, Gavin married Jean Emert Duncan in 1948. They were husband and wife for 42 years until his death in 1990, survived by five daughters, ten grandkids, and three great-grandkids. Not bad for an Irish orphan from Brooklyn who began his military career as a barely-literate 17-year-old private.

Carrie Lofty's latest historical romances, SCOUNDREL'S KISS and SONG OF SEDUCTION, are available now. In 2011 watch for Carrie's new Victorian series from Pocket, as well as her "Dark Age Dawning" romance trilogy from Berkley, co-written with Ann Aguirre under the name Ellen Connor. "Historical romance needs more risk-takers like Lofty." ~ Wendy the Super Librarian

Disasters: Friendly Fire Over Sicily

By Carrie Lofty

Friendly fire in almost any instance can be considered a disaster. Think about it: brothers-in-arms working together...who accidentally fire on one another. It's epically tragic, no matter the scale, because of the damage to morale and confidence in command decisions. Friendly fire during WWII took many forms, from Allied army mishaps to civilians deaths in Allied nations as air raids disabled the German infrastructure. But the US Army's first significant instance of amicide resulted in far-reaching changes in how its newest regiments, the paratroopers, were utilized.

Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July of 1943, was intended as the first significant Allied push into Fortress Europa. One of the most significant combat tests during Husky was the deployment of US paratroopers for the first time. Among other units, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment under the command of 36-year-old hottie Gen. James Gavin landed in Sicily despite heavy winds and enemy fire. Troops were scattered miles from their drop zones.

Future landings were not so lucky and endured heavy friendly fire. A British glider unit suffered considerable losses when Allied anti-aircraft gunners opened fire. Pilots of their C-47 tow planes released the gliders so as to increase maneuverability, but that left gliders miles from shore. They plunged into the Mediterranean, resulting in 326 British dead. Resentment against the American tow pilots was so intense that the units had to be separated when they returned to North Africa, for fear of violence.

Gens. Patton and Ridgeway warned forces that drops from the reserve company, the 504th PIR, would be taking place, but the 144 C-47 troop transports flew over the beaches on the same day as an Axis air raid. Allied anti-aircraft gunners again opened fire. Because they'd been trying to increase drop accuracy, pilots flew their transports at only 700 feet, an altitude that almost guaranteed anti-aircraft accuracy. Thirty-three planes were shot down immediately and 60 would never fly again.

All told, more than 1,200 men died of amicide. Patton could only stare in horror, repeating, "Oh, my God," over and over while Ridgeway cried. Anti-aircraft gunner Herbert Blair later wrote, "Only then does the dreadful realization descend like a sledgehammer upon us. We have wantonly, though inadvertently, slaughtered our own gallant buddies. I feel sick in body and mind."

Because this incident coincided with the first US combat drop of paratroopers, the feasibility of such landings was called into question. Would future troops also suffer the threat of friendly fire? Had the preparations made by other Airborne commanders and their troops been made in vain?

But Gen. Gavin, ever the pragmatist, had always expected between seven to eight casualties for every ten men who dropped. Command simply changed tactics to avoid a repeat in the future, which resulted in the eventual decision to drop paratroopers in the hours before the arrival of land and naval forces. Thus while the loss of Allied troops to friendly fire over Sicily was a military and public relations disaster, the practical experience of what not to do when utilizing paratroopers probably saved lives on D-Day.

Greatest Hits: So You Wanna Re-Create a Revolution?

By Anna C. Bowling

Long ago, in a not so faraway (for me) land called New York state, I gloried in the splendor of an autumn afternoon, my long skirt swishing about my ankles as I traversed the dirt road adjacent to the home of John Jay, the United States' first Chief Justice. To my left, behind a stone wall, an endless sea of identical white tents covered the green lawn. I felt a rumble behind me, and a deep male voice called out, "Make way for the king's men." I stepped quickly to the side, and a long column of scarlet-coated soldiers streamed by, posture ramrod-perfect, marching in step behind a Union Jack toted high.

The actual calendar year was of somewhat more recent vintage, 2003, but for that one particular day, I found myself swept back in time to when a native New Yorker could well have been a loyal British subject...and also to my own childhood, when the Bicentennial meant fife and drum corps everywhere, beginning a fascination with those gents in the red coats that continues to this day. Cue music. Leonard Bernstein British Grenadiers

The procession was only the start of the day's events, followed by a muster, where the historical interpreters demonstrated how their unit might attract new recruits. Hint; free liquor was involved for any able bodied male of adult years willing to sign or make his mark. This, apparently, was a valid recruiting technique. Speeches of the glory of king and country, of the sterling reputation of soldiers (which one may snort at without qualms once one mucks about the tents for a while, as I did) and thus swelled the ranks.

Being the nosy historical author I am, I took the first opportunity to venture into the tents and hunt down the interpreter playing the commanding officer. What was life really like after the free liquor wore off or commissions were purchased? What sort of men would have inhabited these tents two hundred plus years ago, and furthermore, what sorts of men recreate British Army life in the country where the redcoats were the antagonists during our revolution?

The answers to the above may surprise some readers. Reenactment units such as His Majesty's Tenth Regiment of Foot can give a different perspective on what we think we know about life in the eighteenth century British Army. Though the unit I saw that day was re-creating 1740s life, the gentlemen (and that they were, to a man) were more than happy to discuss Redcoat life up to and beyond the Revolution. Whatever the period, a soldier's life was seldom one of comfort. Even the officers' tents I inspected were of necessity small, to be easily packed up and moved to the next site at a moment's notice. A cot, a trunk for personal items, perhaps a few comforts of home such as a deck of cards or musical instrument, perhaps a book for those so inclined, but with space at a premium, functionality ruled over pleasure.

The soldier's life might not always be a lonely one; those who could afford it could sometimes bring along wives, and where wives (and other women) go, babies could follow. Even bringing one's dog was not entirely unheard of, and visitors to reenactments can often see all of the above as important parts of the units as a whole. Add in camp followers, noting that "laundress" did not always mean laundress, wink wink, and my mind started to fill in those rows of tents with people who might have inhabited each one. Some aspects of the military life are universal, no matter what era or affiliation.

The soldiers themselves, on these colonial shores, could come from any walk of life. A younger son from a noble English family might have bought his commission, to find himself shoulder to shoulder with a young recruit born to laborers in the colonies, or during the Revolution, even a German Hussar or a former slave. Male slaves who enlisted in the British army would be considered immediately freed from slavery, certainly an extremely appealing incentive. After the Revolution, when British and Hussar forces returned home, several former slaves stayed with their units, making new lives for themselves in England or Germany. Great story potential right there, methinks.

Story potential as well in the Grenadiers, those gentlemen memorialized in the music above. Dealing with explosives at such close range takes a special sort of man; calm under pressure, willing to do what it takes to get the job done, knowing, as all soldiers do, that any engagement may be their last, but hoping to come through to the end of the day.

Why would a modern American choose to devote his (or her) free time to interpreting the other side of our country's first war? Perhaps the most succinct answer is that somebody has to. The British Army is part of our history, and those who comprised it were individuals who also deserve to be remembered. While some British (civilians and military alike) did oppose colonial independence, others were actually for it, but believed that a different time or method for that independence would be better for all involved. Some interpreters do also interpret patriot units, and I spoke to one, an actor by trade, who has appeared on the History Channel, in different productions, as both Benedict Arnold and George Washington. Talk about seeing things from both sides.

Which is, really, one of the best parts about historical reenactments. We can muck about in as close as we can get to the real thing, interact with those who study hard to get the feel of the era and convey it to those who may not be as familiar with the big picture. If the reenactment includes a battle, consider traipsing over to those re-creating the other side, whatever that might be, for a different perspective. Who knows, you might meet a new character along the way.

Food & Drink: WWII Rations

By Carrie Lofty

The standard K ration was commissioned by the U.S. Army in 1941, when they employed Dr. Ancel Keys, a University of Minnesota physiologist, to design a non-perishable emergency combat ration. The ration was intended to supply soldiers with three meals containing enough calories and nutrition to sustain combat operations for a short duration. Keys' initial menu consisted of hard biscuits, sausage, chocolate, hard candy, and a vitamin. The menu was dubbed "better than nothing" by initial test subjects, and a new menu was commissioned, eventually including more variety:

Breakfast: a canned entree such as chopped ham and eggs or veal loaf; hard biscuits; dried fruit bar or cereal bar; water purification tablets; a 4-pack of cigarettes; chewing gum; instant coffee; and sugar

Lunch: a canned entree such as processed ham and cheese; hard biscuits; malted milk tablets or caramels; sugar; salt; 4-pack of cigarettes; book of matches; chewing gum; powdered beverage packet

Dinner: canned meat such as chicken paté or pork luncheon meat; carrot and apple; hard biscuits; two-ounce D ration emergency chocolate bar; commercial sweet chocolate bar; packet of toilet paper tissues; 4-pack of cigarettes; chewing gum; bouillon soup cube or powder packet


Tests were conducted in Panama over rolling hills at a light march pace in 1942, and after three days, none of the soldiers in the test had lost significant weight. The complete daily intake of calories totaled between 2,800 and 3,000 and was recommended for only up to 15 days' use.

However, the caloric needs of men on extended marches, digging trenches, or other combat-related activities well exceed that total, especially in very hot climates such as in the Pacific Theater. Malnutrition became a factor for these men, and for those in besieged European areas where K rations were eaten for months at a time. Men in Burma lost in excess of 35 pounds during their campaigns and became less resistant to tropical diseases.

Some soldiers were able to supplement their meals with rations taken from other soldiers (German rations, in particular, were coveted because their cheese and sausage tasted better), but the pork loaf and acidic lemon power were considered completely unpalatable by many. They simply tossed the offending items, thus reducing the calories available to them.

Jungle and mountain rations were also produced, but Army supply officers hated them because their production required additional local contacts to supply fresher foods, and the expense of supplying 4,000 daily calories per man was considered too high. Both the jungle and mountain rations were cut completely in 1943 in favor of the inadequate--yet cost effective!--K rations. But that same year, the Army declared that K rations should only be used for up to five days, but by then many units were already in the field and had little access to updated replacements.

Other rations such as the C ration were deemed too unwieldy on long marches, although they were more nutritious, and the monotony of the menu caused morale problems. Accessory packs containing different flavors of water tablets, candy, and hard crackers helped, but even these improvements couldn't assuage the dullness of weeks and even months eating the same food every day.

Weapons and Armies: Research Links

By Penny Ash

I thought I'd do something just a mite different for this Thursday. Instead of a list of different weapons or fighting styles, I present a short list of links to various sites with information on weapons and warfare.

1. Gallica.Co.Uk
2. Ancient History.Com
3. Bible History.Com
4. Probert Encyclopaedia.Com
5. BBC.Co.UK
6. Basicint.Org
7. Regia.Org
8. Leonardo.Net
9. Find Article.Com
10. Direct Essays.Com
11. Strategy Page.Com
12. Space.Com
13. Janes.Com

And for even more, just Google weapons and warfare.

Weapons and Armies: The Gun That Changed the World

By Jennifer Linforth

One man changed warfare forever.

Simply ask those who stood at the battle of Königgrätz, where in twenty minutes the Austrians lost 276 officers and 10,000 men. Brilliant military planning or did the opposing side, the Prussians, have something the Austrians did not?

They did. They had Dreyse.

Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse, a German working in a Parisian gun factory, changed the way wars are fought forever. He created the first modern breech loading military rifle. Prior to this, the flintlock musket was the state of the art weapon—accurate, reliable, but not without flaws. Dreyse's weapon standardized ammunition, utilizing a bullet, charge and primer in one. The musket loaders kept all parts separate. Having the cartridges in one unit greatly reduced the time needed to reload and yielded a higher rate of fire. Its interchangeable parts made it battlefield ready for maintenance and it could crank out ten shots per minute rather than three.

It took Dreyse twelve years to perfect his design. It did have its early flaws. Its range was short compared to muzzled loaders. Gas escaped at the breech when the rifle was fired with a paper cartridge often causing the breech to close completely. Soldiers suffered burns as a result causing inaccurate aiming capability. The needle, or firing pin, also had a tendency to become encased in gunpowder causing it to break after 200 rounds. Soldiers had to carry two replacement pins with them as a result. An improved model with greater muzzle velocity and increased loading speed was introduced later, and in 1836 Dreyse made a move that would change warfare.

He sold it to the Prussians.

In 1848 the Dreyse Züdnadelgewehr, or Needle Gun as it was called due to its firing mechanism, revolutionized rifle design. In the Seven Weeks War of 1866 it proved its military might. Able to be fired from horseback and from a prone position it proved its worth in battle. The Austrians, who were offered the Needle Gun for purchase but declined, were still using musket loaders. Since the Austrians had to stand in order to reload—the Prussians were at an advantage. Four years later the Needle Gun met its match in the French Chassepot Rifle which had a greater range and more effective firing. Despite this, the Prussian forces were able to overwhelm the French during Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). At conflict's end, the Prussians retired the Needle Gun in favor of the new Mauser Rifle.

Weapons and Armies: The Duel

By Evangeline Holland

In my quest to experience as much of what typical upper-class Edwardians experienced, I enrolled in a fencing class this past spring. The duel is a popular concept in fiction--it was symbolic of honor, masculinity and justice. From the 16th century and even into the 20th, the duel and its sportier sibling, fencing, were held in high esteem. Though dueling was outlawed in many countries by the mid-nineteenth century, in places like Germany, the American South and in France, the Code Duello was the handbook for the settlement of offenses. No turning the other cheek here; an eye for an eye was the style.

The cult of dueling was most prevalent amongst the officers and university students of Germany. One wasn't considered a man unless one had dueled and more importantly, suffered a wound (facial scars the most coveted). So revered was the duel, many German aristocrats opted to pay a doctor or surgeon to slice open his cheek or forehead, or create a wound on another part of the body, to impress both ladies and their contemporaries.

However, no where was the duel more popular than in belle époque France. Nearly everyone dueled: politicians, artists, authors, journalists, etc, and apparently, over 200 were fought annually. In 1870, Édouard Manet challenged the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty after Duranty had written only the briefest of commentary on two works of art that Manet had entered for exhibition.

The frustrated Manet collared Duranty at the Café Guerbois and slapped him. Duranty's demands for an apology were refused and so the men fought a duel with swords in the forest of Saint-Germain three days later on the 23rd. Émile Zola acted as Manet's second and Paul Alexis acted for Duranty. After Duranty received a wound above the right breast the seconds stepped in and declared that honor had been satisfied. The men remained friends despite the encounter.

In 1897, the frail, reclusive Marcel Proust challenged the effete gossip journalist Jean Lorrain to a duel when the latter, under the name "Raitiff de la Bretonne" insinuated that Proust and the young son of Alphonse Daudet were having an affair. For his seconds, Proust chose the painter Jean Beraud, and Gustave de Borda, whose dexterity and finesse in so many duels had earned him the nickname "Sword-Thrust Borda," while Lorrain chose painter Octave Uzanne and the novelist Paul Adam. When a meeting between seconds could not come to an agreement, the duel was arranged to be fought with pistols on Saturday, February 6, in the forest of Meudon, just ouside of Paris. Proust's primary worry was not the bullets, but having to rise, dress and go out in the morning. Thankfully, his seconds were able to arrange an afternoon confrontation. In the end, the pistols were discharged in the general vicinity of one another (though Proust apparently aimed at Lorrain, for the bullet hit the ground next Lorrain's right foot), and honor was satisfied.

The most explosive challenge ever was in 1911: Arria Ly versus Louis Casalé. Ly was an ardent feminist in a time where the movement hadn't taken to Continental Europe as it had Britain and America. She gained extensive controversy in the French national press with the publication of her article "Vive 'Mademoiselle!'" in THE FEMINIST JOURNALIST. In it, she stated:

...that a new class of single, professional women practice permanent sexual abstinence and adopt the title "Mademoiselle" as an exalted expression of the "purity, independence, and pride" attached to the state of virginity. Ly insisted that only by breaking the psycho-sexual chains that bound them to men could women hope to achieve sociopolitical and legal autonomy. Emphasizing the relevance of celibate singleness for the French women's movement, Ly affirmed that "more and more, we will recruit the elite of our adepts and militants from these noble freethinkers, these inspiring rebels" who were not legally "under their husbands' authority" or otherwise restricted by familial obligations.

The response was scathing, Casalé, a writer for the weekly radical-socialist newspaper the Toulouse Reporter, attributing Ly's proposal to her degenerate personality and to an:

...old maid's hatred for the man who never desired her, an anticipated disgust of men due to an overly-exclusive love of women (Lesbos stood in for Cythera many times), a morbid aversion felt by the de-sexed neurotic, cerebral over-excitation due to the abuse of anesthetics, or more simply, the affected attitude of the politicienne.

Ly's challenge was further ridiculed and Casale felt secure enough in his opinion, which was supported by the majority of people who wrote in to the newspaper, to ignore it and continue his abuse of Ly and other "voluntary virgins" who were depicted--naturally--as shriveled, wrinkled old women.

The duel is now generally seen as a romantic gesture, a relic from the Victorian era to be snickered at. But the practice was taken very seriously by all involved and even into the 20th and 21st centuries, the duel is considered a proper--in fact, the only manner for a gentleman-step towards solving insult.

Weapons and Armies: Secret War, Secret Weapons

By Vicki Gaia

Many of us were raised on James Bond movies, especially loving all those cool weapons he had in his arsenal. There is always some truth to fiction, and in World War II, secret agents needed secret weapons. Weapons that were imaginative, easy to carry, easy to hide and use. For the OSS alone, scientist and inventors enthusiastically invented over 25,000 items, many successful.

From The Secret War: World War II from Time/Life Books, I've listed 13 of my favorites:

1. Guns that were silent and flash less were favored by OSS agents. Scientists muffled 90% of the noise of a standard issued .22 caliber pistol simply by adding a baffle of wire mesh to the barrel. This slowed the escape of gas released in the firing.

2. The "Woolworth" .45 gun was dropped to partisans in Axis-occupied Europe. Costing $1.50 each, they were parachuted by the tens of thousands. Small and compact, they were 'a great gun to get another gun with.'

3. "William Tell" was a crossbow intended to eliminate Japanese sentries and watchdogs in the Pacific.

4. One concoction, used to ignite oil, was named "Paul Revere" because it worked well for oil tanks on land, as well as oil slicks at sea.

5. Another device, a firecracker that stimulated the noise of a bomb, was used for distracting soldiers in a crowd, allowing for agents to escape. The inventor named it "Hedy" for the movie star, Hedy Lamarr...since she created a panic whenever she went.

6. There was the "Bushmaster," an eight-and-a-half inch tube clipped to a tree branch, set to fire a bullet at a specific moment. The purpose: to provoke the enemy to fire back and reveal his position.

7. There were many types of sharp objects invented. The "Smatchet" combined a heavy solid metal pommel with a machete-like blade of high tempered steel.

8. Another sharp object was a spike that an agent could strap to the arm underneath his clothing. One thrust to the eye or ear could kill the enemy.

9. The British developed a specially designed dagger for their women agents. It combined a pick-like blade with a contoured hand grip to add more power to the thrust.

10. A cool fountain pen (no ball point pens in WWII) was redesigned to fire a dart no bigger than a record-player needle. The dart's range was forty feet.

11. The OSS had the "Matchbox camera", a camera disguised as a Japanese or Swedish matchbox.

12. Specially designed latchkeys carried microfilm messages between Britain and German-occupied Denmark. Microfilm was sealed inside a hole in the key's oval handle.

13. Not all inventions made the grade. One of the craziest projects that backfired was to employ bats as arsonist by attaching walnut-sized bombs to their wings! During the testing process, several buildings were burned down to the ground!

Happy Reading!

Weapons and Armies: Viking Threats from the Sea

By Michelle Styles

Men will quake with terror
Ere the seventy sea oars
Gained their well earned respite
From the labours of the ocean
Norwegian arms are driving
This iron studded dragon
Down the storm tossed river,
Like an eagle with wings beating.
Snorri Sturuluson: KING HAROLD'S SAGA Ch. 60
(translated by Magnus Magnusson)

It is impossible to think of the Vikings without thinking about their raids and most importantly, their ships. For the Vikings, their ships were more than transportation, they were the reason of their being. The vast majority of their sagas use ship imagery and revolve around the ships and their raids. To be a Viking warrior was also to be a sailor.

The reason for this lauding of all things nautical is simple. Because of the difficulty of the terrain, most of the commerce and transport was done by boat. The Nordic people in order to survive had to trade, and to trade over long distances. And the greatest warriors were afforded ship burials.

The Viking dragon ship or long boat did not emerge suddenly, but was a series of technological innovations.

The earliest Nordic boat discovered, Als Boat, dates from around 350BC and was basically a canoe with a a dug out lime tree as a base and two planks and was designed to be paddled.

Although we know the Romans and Greeks used rowers, the earliest Nordic boat displaying this feature, so far discovered dates from around 400 AD. The greatest ship burials--the Gokstad Ship and the Oseburg ships--have not only given us the most accurate information about the lifestyle during the early Viking period, but also information about the ships themselves and why they were so effective.

It is the combination of the sail and the oars which gave the long boats speed and maneuverability. During raids, there is a theory that the boats carried two crews--one to row while the other one rested. This is because the Gokstad ship had 32 oars, but was hung with 64 shields. There are, however, no benches and it is thought that the oarsmen perched on their sea chests.

The narrow hulls twisted and turned on the sea, like a serpent. Indeed, the prows of the ships were adorned with detachable dragon figureheads. In the Oseburg burial chamber, a number of the figureheads were discovered.

The ships had relatively shallow draughts and this enabled the Vikings to sail up rivers and to land their boats without harbours. Thus various rich inland cities such as London became targets as did places like Lindisfarne which did not have the anchorage for war ships.

The steering oar was always on the right side of the boat and hence the reason for the word--starboard. The old Norse word is styra and means to steer.

But how good were the boats? In 1893, a replica of the Gokstad ship took 28 days to sail from Bergen to Newfoundland Canada. The men who participated in the voyage recorded that the hull twisted and turned like a serpent, and this aided the quick crossing. The boat became the toast of the Chicago world fair, and apparently today is in a park at the Chicago Zoo.

The long ship was the secret to the Viking success--swift, responsive to the oarsmen and able to land warriors as and when the Vikings wanted. They were the engineering marvels of their time and gave the Vikings added advantage in their preferred method of warfare--raiding.

Weapons and Armies: The English Civil War

By Erastes

The causes of the English Civil War were complicated and diverse. Poverty, Puritanism, unrest and the growing dissatisfaction of the general populace against the Monarchy to name just a few.

However, when it did start, how many everyday soldiers knew anything about these causes, or the machinations behind the scenes? For them it would have been a daily misery of mud, dirt, lice, bad food, long marches and the fear of whether they would be ambushed--or what the outcome of the next battle would be.

In fact, even many of the ordinary folk didn't even know that there was a war on at all, contrary to the belief that the entire country was split into two. There's a famous story that a farmer was asked permission to use his field for a battle and he asked "Who's fighting who, then?"

When I was researching this for my novel TRANSGRESSIONS, I found it a particularly difficult time to research satisfactorily. Not because there weren't any details on the war, there were, The internet is stuffed full of information. There are hundreds of books on the war.

However, the main problem I came up against was that it was difficult to find any details on the ordinary person's life of the period. I could find details of battles, names of generals, every minute detail of the uniforms throughout the entire war but there was little nitty gritty when it came down to what people ate, what houses they lived in, how much they earned--that sort of thing.

So I angled the book from a poor man's point of view. A young boy who wants to join up to escape his father's boring farm, and to get a bit of excitement. However--when he does--he soon finds out how little glamour there is. He finds it just as boring as being at home. To load a matchlock musket for example took around 40 separate operations to load it, and there picture manuals demonstrating each move.


A rather gruesome video. Note that the wooden powder charges he wears on the bandolier around his body were called Apostles, because there were 12 of them. They were made of wood, too, and were really unsafe things to be wearing in battle. Many a man was blown to pieces if his match touched the wrong place, or he was hit by a bullet in the wrong place. Cromwell addressed this problem when he created his New Model Army, and changed the carrying of powder to being wrapped in pieces of waxed paper, a tradition that continued for hundreds of years after.

Here's a little snippet from TRANSGRESSIONS about the training.

On the third week the drills moved on to wheeling and counter-marching. Apart from being massively boring, it was also complicated and difficult for the Sergeant to explain a move that enabled the swift relocation of some three hundred men, when he only had between twenty to thirty to demonstrate with. The Sergeant was not a patient man, and he did not explain manoeuvres well, and the more the recruits got it wrong the more incoherent he became.

For wheeling on an angle, the line had to close up close to the men either side, look to the direction of the wheel, (either right or left) and shuffle around in that direction until the line was pointing in the appropriate direction. This did not take long with the small number of soldiers David practised with, but David could only imagine how long a full line would take, all the time having their muskets out of action and vulnerable to the enemy as they shuffled helplessly in a semicircle, with nothing but pikemen to keep the enemy at bay.

At first they were hopeless at it, and Sergeant's Winter's screams of "Watch your dressings" were all that could be heard as the line buckled and bent, lost shape and direction, or forgot to look the opposite way to which they were pressing, but after days of dizzying and tiny steps they accomplished it well enough to stop their Sergeant from dishing out punishments.

Then they had to master centre-wheeling, which was worse, as the pivotal point became the soldier in the very middle of the line, and the column spun around him. The significant difference was that whilst one half of the unit was marching forwards, the other half was moving backwards and the first time they tried it, it was utter chaos. It was after a day of constant angle wheeling, which they just about mastered and Winter had explained the new manoeuvre so badly no-one understood it and no-one dared to ask him to repeat himself. Consequently everyone went in opposite directions; half the troop tripped over the other half and most ended up on the ground, helpless with laughter. Needless to say, most men were on punishment detail that night, including David, which surprised no one.

It is ironic to note that, other than to show how well trained your brigade is, the act of countermarching is considered to be completely useless on the battlefield.

For further reading, I highly recommend The Knowledge Base of the Sealed Knot without whose inestimable help, the book would not have been written.

Weapons and Armies: Seige Warfare During the Early Crusades

By Lisa Yarde

On November 27, 1095 at Clermont in France, Pope Urban II inaugurated the bloody period of history known as the Crusades, with the rousing cry, "Deus vult" meaning God wills it. Knights, nobles and ordinary citizens of France, Germany and Italy were first to respond, mobilizing to re-take the Holy Land from its Muslim rulers.

With each military campaign, stretching from the First Crusade of 1095-1099 until the thirteenth century, the European armies enhanced and perfected their use of siege weapons. Such devices had existed since ancient times, but with the development of stone castles and citadel walls, an attacking force needed powerful weapons to breach enemy fortifications.

Sieges could seem like never-ending contests of wills. At varying stages, the defenders of the Holy Land lost or held out against increasing attacks by the Crusaders. For both sides, morale as much as an adequate supply of food and water determined the outcome. Neither would have wanted a prolonged siege, risking desertion, disease and the loss of resources. Most sieges began after an unsuccessful attempt to take an area.

After negotiations for surrender failed, each side had ample time to prepare for a siege. For the Crusaders, it meant assessing the weakest section of a defensive wall, but it also allowed those behind the wall time to prepare. There were three methods to breach a site; to tunnel under its walls, climb over them or to knock them down. The sandy ditches around citadels in the Holy Land didn't always allow the attackers to undermine walls at their bases, so that often meant going over them or through them.

During the First Crusade, Christian armies relied on towers. At the seven-month Siege of Antioch (October 1097-June 1098), the Crusaders used three towers in their attacks against this Syrian city. Under the control of Byzantine Emperors for centuries, Antioch fell to the Muslims in 1085. Its capture would allow the Crusaders to move on to their ultimate prize--Jerusalem. Constructed of timber, and mobilized on wheels or rollers, the rectangular siege tower allowed attacking armies to advance on a defensive castle wall, under some protection from enemy arrow fire.

At the site, engineers built the towers to an equivalent height of the wall their army wanted to scale. Inside, there were several storeys, reachable by ladders. They covered the wood with animal hide to protect from flaming arrows. The army pushed the tower toward the wall and when it was judged close enough, they extended a platform to abut the wall, allowing them to rush across the top of it, or to scale ladders to its height. Archers inside kept the defenders from getting too close, but not always.

Antioch did not submit to the Crusaders because of their siege; it fell by treachery from inside the walls. The European armies recognized that siege towers were vulnerable to fire and determined defenders could quickly put an end to any intrusion by setting them ablaze. They needed another way to breach enemy walls while minimizing the casualties sustained in an attack. One method of doing so involved the refinement of the ancient catapult system to batter down walls.

Two types of artillery weapons were particularly important in Crusader assaults on the Holy Land; the mangonel, primarily a stone-throwing machine and the counterpoise trebuchet, which used gravity and a sling method to hurl any kind of projectile. Both siege machines had their origins in earlier history but were used to devastating effect in the medieval period. The mangonel had a bowl-shaped bucket at the end of its wooden throwing arm and maneuvered on wheels. Ropes attached to the arm were twisted to provide the torsion. An attacker placed projectiles, usually stones, into the bucket from which they were thrown up to a distance of over a thousand feet.

But the mangonel had its limits. The amount of weight used was limited by a person's strength and this in turn, reduced the damage that might be done . The counterpoise trebuchet eliminated this problem. While the mangonel's design allowed it to smash through masonry or rock, the trebuchet's projectiles were sent through walls or over them.

One of the most accurate developments of the catapult system, the trebuchet had a greater throwing distance and was more powerful than the mangonel. With its sling and arm swing mechanism, armies used the trebuchet to terrify their enemies, including hurling dead animals or people over the walls. At the Sieges of Acre and Jerusalem, the Crusader kings relied on these devastating machines of warfare, giving them nicknames, "Bad Neighbor" and "God's Own Catapult" as they sought to wrest further control of the Holy Land from the Muslims or keep the regions they captured in earlier warfare.

Siege weapons were costly and required skilled engineers for their design, a sizable force for their construction and dismantling, and the materials for building them. Their use shaped the balance of power in the Middle Ages for centuries until the introduction of more advanced methods of warfare.

Weapons and Armies: 13 Weapons that Won the West

By Jacquie Rogers

Not all weapons that won the Old West for the East Coast immigrants were firearms. Technology won the west. And yes, firearms were an important part of it. Here are thirteen technological weapons without which settling the West would have been much more difficult.

1. Communications (Pony Express, then the telegraph)
2. Barbed wire
3. Stagecoach and freight system
4. The Homestead Act
5. Transcontinental Railroad
6. Square-set timbering (deep mine structure)
7. Colt Peacemaker
8. Henry Repeating Rifle
9. Deringer Handgun
10. Gatling Gun
11. Sharps Rifles (buffalo guns, 50-90 calibre)
12. Model 1873 Winchester Rifle

And the ultimate weapon the won the west:
13. Harvey Girls



Myspace *** Bebo *** Faery World

Faery Special Romances *** See the book video
Royalties go to Children's Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Coming soon: Down Home Ever Lovin' Mule Blues

Weapons and Armies: The War in the Sky

By Delia DeLeest

On the 17th of December, 1903, Orville Wright flew an airplane 120 and the history of motorized flight began. Men had been yearning to fly for thousands of years and the Wright brothers had made it a fact. What's really amazing is that within the next ten years, flight took on a life of its own.

In its early years, flying was considered a sport for extreme risk-takers and was considered unethical to use for war. The shooting or dropping of bombs from the air was considered immoral and illegal. This soon changed.

The French were the first to develop an air force, but it was only used for spying and reconnaissance and the planes were not equipped with weapons of any sort. There have been stories of enemy recon planes passing each other and merely exchanging grins and waves. This soon escalated into rivals tossing bricks, grenades and rope (in an attempt to tangle it in the propeller) at each other Though still not equipped with on board weapons, the first dogfight took place between a German and a British plane, the pilots shooting at each other using conventional pistols. The first downed plane as the result of a dogfight was when a Russian pilot rammed another plane, the Russian died in the attack.

Germany quickly came out on top in the air wars. Despite having a much smaller air force, they frequently defeated their enemies, sometimes being outnumbered as much as eight to one. They came up with many innovations, such as painting their crafts with luminescent paint to protect against collisions during night bombing raids and developing a timer on their front-mounted machine guns to prevent the bullets from hitting the propeller when firing. They also had one of the most famous pilots in history on their roster, Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron of Peanuts fame. He's credited with shooting down 80 Allied planes before being shot down himself. His abilities were so respected that, at his death, the enemy even held a memorial service for him.

From being considered immoral and unethical at the beginning of the war, these Knights of the Sky soon became revered and respected for their abilities, resourcefulness and bravery. In those days, it was simply brave to even fly in an airplane, since parachutes were not standard issue equipment for pilots during World War One, when your plane went down, you had no choice, you went with it.

After the war, pilots were at loose ends. They'd experienced the thrill and freedom of the air and had a hard time going back to the staid stability of civilian life. With commercial air travel only just emerging, there were few jobs for pilots in peacetime 1920s. Unwilling to give up life in the sky, many pilots bought surplus warplanes rather cheaply and began life as barnstormers, an exciting topic for a future post.

Weapons and Armies: The Cantonese Water World

By Karen Mercury

Before 1793, China had a relaxed, complacent attitude toward their mellow pirates, when an imperial junk could easily round them up or scare them off. The Emperor declared, "In Kwangtung there are no urgent affairs...the pirates have gradually withdrawn and not a trace of them remains." Such sanguinity of mood was abruptly changed with the organization of large fleets that overwhelmed the coasts for more than a decade and became the biggest maritime menace since the conquest of Taiwan and the suppression of Koxinga more than a decade earlier.

Kwangtung province was the hotbed of piracy, where 50,000 to 70,000 pirates took charge of fishing and coastal trade. They moved into interior waterways, extorting payments from towns, burning those who wouldn't pay. They nearly brought about the demise of all Kwantung trade by dissolving communication between Canton and Macao, causing runaway inflation, and bottoming out the foreign market. In a decade, the radical escalation of piracy from the Han River basin reaching into Vietnam had transformed from a trivial annoyance into an international peril.

Most pirates began as fishermen or sailors themselves, unmarried Cantonese-speaking "water people" who voluntarily adopted the vocation. The riparian geography and island chains made it easy for them to hide. There were few roads, so the denizens of the Cantonese water world could move with impunity in the complex network of creeks linking hamlets, villages, and towns. The pirate junks seemed as though floating on green waves through the watery rice plains, much to the terror of those farmers who viewed them.

A Western pirate in my 1827 novel Strangely Wonderful describes the scene thusly:

"Now, them ricemen, you've seen how they comport themselves. They's not exactly high flown themselves. Why, Wenkai's men mix their putrid gunpowder--much less sparky than ours, and given to failing to ignite--into their beverages! Makes 'em choke and turn red, and they think it looks bluff. We used to see the outcomes of their raids, aye. The 'Black Squadrons' would raid villages, Miss, not just other vessels, and take harmless old women with their feet wrapped so tight they had to be dragged, plundered their sorry old fishtanks and gardens. Can't tell you how many of them prisoners we set free when we'd gain a junk as a prize. No, Cap'n Balásházy's more like the kind pirates of the Île Sainte-Marie, back in the glory days. Not one on his crew as wants to leave."

The average prizes were the cargoes of the two-masted sea-going hai-ch'uan junks, transporting lumber, charcoal, cotton, silk, and barnyard animals. Late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was the height of the "Straits' produce" monopoly--rattan, seaweed, and pepper, the pirates' bread and butter. Adding to the confusion were Portuguese missionaries, men actually mostly interested in trade, then British, Swedish, French, German, and American ships. Canton being the sole port through which European trade was allowed, a wild mishmash of vessels clogged the waterways, trading the grand prizes of salt, knives, cotton, cattle--such a torrent of items Western handbooks could only mention a few.

These ricemen operated undetected from the gun-slinging frontier headquarters of Chiang-p'ing, the Sino-Vietnamese equivalent of Jean Lafitte's Barataria, the markets overflowing with pirate produce. Aside from sailors and fishermen, Chiang-p'ing attracted scores of urban misfits and criminals who populated the gambling parlors, opium dens, and floating bordellos. They brandished simple weapons: knives, bamboo pikes, and cutting blades. It was easy to outfit an expedition when the employees were completely familiar with every sandbar, hidden rock, and tide. They struck with guerrilla swift blows, retreating before the shocked victims realized what was happening.

My cabin boy successfully strikes terror into the heroine's heart by proclaiming:

"Celestine mines?" Bellingham gaped. Half-standing, he waved a cautioning hand in the direction of the kitchen. "Miss, your brother can't go up there, not with these bilgey ricemen jaunting about the island! Why, they've got those swords what are sharpened on both sides, and even the lubberly junkmen give what they call ling chih. I didn't tell you this before so as not to scare you, that's 'death by a thousand cuts,' where they slice off one part of your body at a time, say a nose or a finger, and--"

By 1801, Tay-son sponsorship radically boosted piratical battle skills, and they learned how to wield weapons and make stands at sea. These pirates now had plans, joined forces, and sailed each spring from Kwangtung, returning each autumn to Vietnam, coordinating with shore bandits. Suddenly they were elevated from "scum of the sea" to "sailors in the King's navy, "receiving rank, honor, and recognition, many pirates holding titles such as "King of the Eastern Seas" or "King Who Pacifies the Waves." The desperadoes of Chiang-p'ing became the mariners of Tonkin, and they set to building "great war junks to transport Vietnamese war elephants to Canton."

The monumental pirate junks had masts more than 80 feet tall, and sides armored with layers of ox-hide to repel shot and spears, and nets to prevent boarders. Hearty vessels that mounted 30 cannon or more, these ironwood ships ran more than 150 feet in length and could carry up to 400 men. They seemed to Westerners to be "rudely constructed" and most comparable to American schooners or Portuguese brigs and snows, two-masted ships or less than 200 tons.

The captain and his often 6 wives (aggressive pirate women with unbound feet who sometimes held rank and commanded their own junks) occupied the poop, and the rest of the crew crammed into cargo holds under the main deck, odoriferous, dark, and stuffy "cabins" divided only by feeble screens. Once they targeted their victims, the pirates surprised with cutlasses slung over their shoulders and knives sheathed under their arms. If thwarted from directly boarding, they'd plunge into the water to attack from the sea. Resisters were rewarded most commonly by being stripped, hands tied behind their backs, hoisted above the deck, and beaten with twisted rattan rods.

Occasionally pirates would fire their guns when close to their prey, pitiful cannon that I described:

The junk had evidently remasted with the assistance of the friendly Frogs in the Île Sainte-Marie, but it was the usual yang-ch'uan ocean-going junk with guns that were mounted by a rope rove through a hole in the gunwale and made fast to the muzzle of the gun, stationery rigs with no train tackle to allow room for reloading. Since most could not be maneuvered at all, the Kwangtungmen were compelled to position their junks with the enemy in their sights. By the time Broadhecker had hove into view and let loose with his bow guns, mauling the junk square amidships, the best the junkmen could do was elevate their guns. These were guns of the roughly cast pai-tzu turtledove type, badly made and smelted from scrap iron, so disgracefully inaccurate the junk was only able to get off a volley of nails and iron pot fragments that roundly hit a mark--a gaggle of ducks in the center of the bay.

Their small arms included the Chinese blunderbuss. With a barrel seven feet long and weighing 12 pounds, it had to be steadied on someone's shoulder or mounted on a tripod. (Much less likely to burst than other period small arms, it was still used in China in 1945.) They also possessed a medley of old matchlocks and fowling pieces of which they knew little, sometimes capturing Westerners simply in order to learn their usage. The worst were the matchlocks, fired by holding a slow-burning cord over the hole, or the small caliber muskets ("wretched things") with touch holes large enough to admit a tenpenny nail. In the end, Chinese pirates relied mostly on hand-to-hand combat, hurling bamboo pikes like javelins, or fighting with shorter pikes and knives. Of gunpowder and shot they had plenty, carelessly strewn about deck in huge chests where they sat to smoke.

Weapons and Armies: So You Want To Re-Create A Revolution

By Anna C. Bowling

Long ago, in a not so faraway (for me) land called New York state, I gloried in the splendor of an autumn afternoon, my long skirt swishing about my ankles as I traversed the dirt road adjacent to the home of John Jay, the United States' first Chief Justice. To my left, behind a stone wall, an endless sea of identical white tents covered the green lawn. I felt a rumble behind me, and a deep male voice called out, "Make way for the king's men." I stepped quickly to the side, and a long column of scarlet-coated soldiers streamed by, posture ramrod-perfect, marching in step behind a Union Jack toted high.

The actual calendar year was of somewhat more recent vintage, 2003, but for that one particular day, I found myself swept back in time to when a native New Yorker could well have been a loyal British subject...and also to my own childhood, when the Bicentennial meant fife and drum corps everywhere, beginning a fascination with those gents in the red coats that continues to this day. Cue music. Leonard Bernstein British Grenadiers

The procession was only the start of the day's events, followed by a muster, where the historical interpreters demonstrated how their unit might attract new recruits. Hint; free liquor was involved for any able bodied male of adult years willing to sign or make his mark. This, apparently, was a valid recruiting technique. Speeches of the glory of king and country, of the sterling reputation of soldiers (which one may snort at without qualms once one mucks about the tents for a while, as I did) and thus swelled the ranks.

Being the nosy historical author I am, I took the first opportunity to venture into the tents and hunt down the interpreter playing the commanding officer. What was life really like after the free liquor wore off or commissions were purchased? What sort of men would have inhabited these tents two hundred plus years ago, and furthermore, what sorts of men recreate British Army life in the country where the redcoats were the antagonists during our revolution?

The answers to the above may surprise some readers. Reenactment units such as His Majesty's Tenth Regiment of Foot can give a different perspective on what we think we know about life in the eighteenth century British Army. Though the unit I saw that day was re-creating 1740s life, the gentlemen (and that they were, to a man) were more than happy to discuss Redcoat life up to and beyond the Revolution. Whatever the period, a soldier's life was seldom one of comfort. Even the officers' tents I inspected were of necessity small, to be easily packed up and moved to the next site at a moment's notice. A cot, a trunk for personal items, perhaps a few comforts of home such as a deck of cards or musical instrument, perhaps a book for those so inclined, but with space at a premium, functionality ruled over pleasure.

The soldier's life might not always be a lonely one; those who could afford it could sometimes bring along wives, and where wives (and other women) go, babies could follow. Even bringing one's dog was not entirely unheard of, and visitors to reenactments can often see all of the above as important parts of the units as a whole. Add in camp followers, noting that "laundress" did not always mean laundress, wink wink, and my mind started to fill in those rows of tents with people who might have inhabited each one. Some aspects of the military life are universal, no matter what era or affiliation.

The soldiers themselves, on these colonial shores, could come from any walk of life. A younger son from a noble English family might have bought his commission, to find himself shoulder to shoulder with a young recruit born to laborers in the colonies, or during the Revolution, even a German Hussar or a former slave. Male slaves who enlisted in the British army would be considered immediately freed from slavery, certainly an extremely appealing incentive. After the Revolution, when British and Hussar forces returned home, several former slaves stayed with their units, making new lives for themselves in England or Germany. Great story potential right there, methinks.

Story potential as well in the Grenadiers, those gentlemen memorialized in the music above. Dealing with explosives at such close range takes a special sort of man; calm under pressure, willing to do what it takes to get the job done, knowing, as all soldiers do, that any engagement may be their last, but hoping to come through to the end of the day.

Why would a modern American choose to devote his (or her) free time to interpreting the other side of our country's first war? Perhaps the most succinct answer is that somebody has to. The British Army is part of our history, and those who comprised it were individuals who also deserve to be remembered. While some British (civilians and military alike) did oppose colonial independence, others were actually for it, but believed that a different time or method for that independence would be better for all involved. Some interpreters do also interpret patriot units, and I spoke to one, an actor by trade, who has appeared on the History Channel, in different productions, as both Benedict Arnold and George Washington. Talk about seeing things from both sides.

Which is, really, one of the best parts about historical reenactments. We can muck about in as close as we can get to the real thing, interact with those who study hard to get the feel of the era and convey it to those who may not be as familiar with the big picture. If the reenactment includes a battle, consider traipsing over to those re-creating the other side, whatever that might be, for a different perspective. Who knows, you might meet a new character along the way.

Weapons and Armies: ANZACs

By Anne Whitfield

In 1914, when England declared war, the people in its colonies followed the call to arms, despite being miles of oceans away. England was the mother country and they'd defend it to the death. And die they did, in the thousands.

The young men and women of Australia and New Zealand proudly served their countries in numerous wars, collectively the were known as the ANZACs.

The ANZAC Acronym

ANZAC is the acronym formed from the initial letters of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the formation into which Australian and New Zealand soldiers were grouped in Egypt prior to the landing at Gallipoli in April 1915. First written as A. & N. Z. Army Corps, it soon became A. N. Z. A. C. and the new word was so obvious that the full stops were omitted. The word was initially used to refer to the cove where the Australians and New Zealanders landed and soon after, to the men themselves. An ANZAC was a man who was at the Landing and who fought at Gallipoli, but later it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier of the First World War. An ANZAC who served at Gallipoli was given an A badge which was attached to his colour patch.

In later years the term ANZAC was applied to any man or women serving in any of the wars.

The Anzacs lost 8,000 men in Gallipoli and a further 18,000 were wounded. The Anzacs went on to serve with distinction in Palestine and on the western front in France. The Anzacs were in many of the major battles and were commended for their bravery and courage. Many times the Anzacs were the first soldiers sent into a battle or an occupied area by their British superior officers. They were thought to be expendable, but they soon showed the world how the men from the harsh pioneering countries had the endurance and spirit to overcome such a fearsome enemy.

Australia had a population of five million--330,000 served in the war, and 59,000 were killed. New Zealand with a population of one million lost 18,000 men out of 110,000 and had 55,000 wounded. These New Zealand figures (62%) represent the highest percentage of all units from the Anglo-Saxon world.

The picture above right is the Casualty clearing station, Menin Road, Belgium.

Every year Australians and New Zealand celebrate the mateship, the bond of our two countries that were united against a common enemy. April 25th is ANZAC Day, (the day the men landed at Gallipoli). It's a day when a whole nation comes together to remember those who fought for our freedom and those who made the greatest sacrifice of their lives.

Lest We Forget

For more information read on the ANZACS and their contribution to the fighting forces of world wars visit the following websites.
ANZAC France
Australian War Memorial
ANZAC Day

Weapons and Armies: Greek Fire

By Carrie Lofty

Robin pulled a special arrow from his quiver. Instead of barbed metal, the head was made of tightly wound and knotted wool. More like a slender torch than an arrow, he drenched it in the gelatinous solution. The man in charge of that barrel quickly dropped the leather cover back in place, keeping it clear of the rain.

He marveled at the magic he witnessed. Each drop of water landed upon the coated shaft and sizzled. When he dipped the saturated wool into the open drum of rainwater, it burst into flames. The downpour did nothing to extinguish the fire and, in fact, strengthened its mysterious heat. All around him, he heard his men--sound men of long experience in battle--wonder and fret about the unnatural blaze.

But then the hoardings opened. Archers began their assault on Will's team.

Robin watched the trap unfold, neither surprised nor discouraged. At least Will and a few of his accomplices made it inside the gate. "Archers! On me!"

A line of men stood ready, wielding the flaming arrows no water could douse.

"On the hoardings! Ready! Fire!"

Curving over the shallow glade, blazing arrows glowed against the deep gloom of the evening storm. While a few flew wide in the wind, most of the points met their mark and embedded in the wooden galleries that shielded the opposing archers. The arrows burned and burned. No amount of water quenched their hunger, until even the rain-soaked wood fell victim to the tremendous heat and caught fire.

In WHAT A SCOUNDREL WANTS, the blind alchemist, Meg, uses an ancient formula to produce Greek Fire for her husband, Will Scarlet, and the legendary Robin Hood to use against their enemies. While the BBC's newest "Robin Hood" television series made the mistake of claiming it to be gunpowder, Greek Fire was actually a forerunner of modern napalm.

Throughout the years, it has been referred to as Roman fire, Byzantine fire, liquid fire, and sea fire. Thought to have been the creation of the Byzantines in the 6th century, drawing from the Alexandrian school of early chemists, Greek fire was an incendiary weapon that burned even in water. The formula became a treasured Byzantine secret, passed down by emperors and their scientists. While the exact formula is not known, historians believe it was either a form of quicklime that increased its heat when exposed to water, or a floating hydrocarbon such as naphtha.

No matter its composition, Byzantine armies used Greek Fire throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in sea battles where the opposition could be destroyed while trapped in narrow straights or against rocky shores. Some delivery methods included barrels flung via catapult, arrows laced with the substance, or primitive grenades--metal or glass canisters hurled at the opposition. Crusaders returned home to England and France with wild tales of fire that only grew stronger in water. Western science trailed those eastern innovations by such an extent that such a thing could not be believed, let alone recreated.

(How does Meg, my heroine, know the formula? She has a very convincing connection to a gentleman named Adelard of Bath.)

Eastern cultures including the Persians and Chinese also had a type of Greek Fire, but many historians believe the formula differed from that of the Byzantines. The modern equivalent, napalm, is actually a sticky version. Incendiary petroleum splashed too easily, so the addition of the napalm bonding agent helped to jelly the flammable fuel, making it stick while burning. The weapon was used to famously horrific results during the Vietnam Conflict. Napalm victims asphyxiate or suffer third degree burns that destroy layers of skin and shut down the immune system, and survivors suffer burns called keloids--growths of tissue around the scar site, which permanently impair motor function.

All around nasty stuff.