American Artillery and the Medal of Honor PDF Download

Author: David T. Zabecki
Publisher: Merriam Press
ISBN: 1576380793
Category : Medal of Honor
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Author: David T Zabecki
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781716649134
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
"American Artillery and the Medal of Honor" is not the story of a single service or a particular branch of service. Rather, it is the story of an American fighting arm and the men who won the Medal of Honor serving that arm. It is the story of the land-based Artillery of the United States (Field, Coastal, and Air Defense) and the men involved with the delivery of fires from large caliber, crew-served weapons designed primarily for indirect fire. The story deals mostly with Soldiers and Marines, but it also includes some Sailors. It is a story that constantly reminds us of the Napoleonic dictum: God fights on the side with the best Artillery. Contents: Introduction - Artillerymen and the Medal of Honor - The Civil War 1861-1865 - The Indian Wars 1861-1898 - The Philippine Insurrection 1899-1913 - Vera Cruz 1914 - World War I 1917-1918 - World War II 1941-1945 - Korea 1950-1953 - Vietnam War 1964-1975 - Naval Gunfire - Conclusion - Appendix: Tables 1-21 - Source Notes - The Author. 44 photos and illustrations. Merriam Press Military History.

Author: The Editors of Boston Publishing Company
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 0760346240
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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A comprehensive history of America's highest award for military valor. The Medal of Honor chronicles the creation, evolution, and awarding of the Medal, from the battlefields of the Civil War to the jungles of Vietnam, through a wealth of illustrations and hundreds of authoritative, action-filled accounts of heroism in America's conflicts. This wonderfully detailed and beautifully designed history book puts the Medal and its recipients into the context of their times, with brief and accessible introductions explaining each war and conflict for which the Medal was awarded. It also includes photo essays, intriguing stories of the Medal's sometimes quirky personalities, effects on surviving recipients, and the Medal's preeminent place in the American story. Whether you're an avid reader on the history of the Medal of Honor or simply intrigued by its place in our history, you're certain to want to flip through the pages of The Medal of Honor again and again.

Author: Robert Child
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472852869
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades. But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machineguns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearhead his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself. Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously. These are their stories.

Author: United States. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Force Management Policy)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Decorations of honor
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Author: Dwight S. Mears
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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The Medal of Honor may be America’s highest military decoration, but all Medals of Honor are not created equal. The medal has in fact consisted of several distinct decorations at various times and has involved a number of competing statutes and policies that rewarded different types of heroism. In this book, the first comprehensive look at the medal’s historical, legal, and policy underpinnings, Dwight S. Mears charts the complex evolution of these developments and differences over time. The Medal of Honor has had different qualification thresholds at different times, and indeed three separate versions—one for the army and two for the navy—existed contemporaneously between World Wars I and II. Mears traces these versions back to the medal’s inception during the Civil War and continues through the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—along the way describing representative medal actions for all major conflicts and services as well as legislative and policy changes contemporary to each period. He gives particular attention to retroactive army awards for the Civil War; World War I legislation that modernized and expanded the army’s statutory award authorization; the navy’s grappling with both a combat and noncombat Medal of Honor through much of the twentieth century; the Vietnam-era act that ended noncombat awards and largely standardized the Medal of Honor among all services; and the perceived decline of Medals of Honor awarded in the ongoing Global War on Terror. Mears also explores the tradition of awards via legislative bills of relief; extralegislative awards; administrative routes to awards through Boards of Correction of Military Records; restoration of awards previously revoked by the army in 1917; judicial review of military actions in federal court; and legislative actions intended to atone for historical discrimination against ethnic minorities. Unprecedented in scope and depth, his work is sure to be the definitive resource on America’s highest military honor.

Author: Kent Masterson Brown
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813146054
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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First Lieutenant Cushing was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by the pPresident of the United States on November 6, 2014, 151 years after his death at the Angle at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, where he commanded Battery A, Fourth United States Artillery. He is likely the last Civil War soldier to who will be so honored. Although many individuals were involved in the effort to give the Medal of Honor to Cushing, this book, first published in 1993, played a critical role.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artillery, Field and mountain
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Author: David Bellavia
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471105873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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On 8 November 2004, the largest battle of the War on Terror began, with the US Army's assault on Fallujah and its network of tens of thousands of insurgents hiding in fortified bunkers, on rooftops, and inside booby-trapped houses. For Sgt. David Bellavia of 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, it quickly turned into a battle on foot, from street to street and house to house. On the second day, he and his men laid siege to a mosque, only to be driven to a rooftop and surrounded, before heavy artillery could smash through to rescue them. By the third day, Bellavia charges an insurgent-filled house and finds himself trapped with six enemy fighters. One by one, he shoots, wrestles, stabs, and kills five of them, until his men arrive to take care of the final target. It is one of the most hair-raising battle stories of any age -- yet it does not spell the end of Bellavia's service. It would take serveral more weeks before the Battle of Fallujah finally came to a close, with Bellavia, miraculously, alive. In the words of the author: "HOUSE TO HOUSE holds nothing back. It is a raw, gritty look at killing and combat and how men react to it. It is gut-wrenching, shocking and brutal. It is honest. It is not a glorification of war. Yet it will not shy from acknowledging this: sometimes it takes something as terrible as war for the full beauty of the human spirit to emerge."

Author: SOLACE WALES
Publisher: Knox Press
ISBN: 9781948496032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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BRAIDED IN FIRE is the stirring author’s search to understand the drama that unfolded between the Italian peasants and African-American infantrymen of the 366th Infantry Regiment whose lives were lost, or changed irrevocably by a village battle in Tuscany during the Battle of Garfagnana. Cultures and relationships are intertwined to become BRAIDED IN FIRE in Sommocolonia, a medieval Tuscan village in the Apennines directly on the highly fortified Third Reich’s ‘Gothic Line’ stretching across northern Italy. Only at Sommocolonia did attacking German troops break through that formidable line, with dire consequences to the inhabitants and their defenders, a handful of black GIs, who were outnumbered three to one by the Axis troops. In the desperate fight, Lt. John Fox sacrificed himself with supreme heroism. (He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor 52 years later.) Although the military action, (and tragic inaction of certain senior white officers), is described in detail, BRAIDED IN FIRE is not just military history, but tells of the human toll of war: the drama, the folly, the heartache – all present in grand measure for two peoples marginalized over the years for reasons of race and economic circumstances. BRAIDED IN FIRE is a celebration of human dignity in desperate circumstances. This book is painted in a narrative befitting the beauty and rich hues of the Tuscan hills and its people, juxtaposed by the toils of a segregated America in black versus white, even while in Army green. Together these two worlds are BRAIDED IN FIRE with all of the passion, heartbreak, and violence of war, ultimately providing the reader with a redemptive peace, and cultural harmony. Praise for BRAIDED IN FIRE Braided in Fire tells the story of Lieutenant John Fox, a forward artillery observer and posthumous Medal of Honor recipient, who directed friendly artillery fire on his own position as German troops overran Sommocolonia, Italy, on December 26, 1944. Fox’s selfless sacrifice went unrecognized by the U.S. government for half a century simply because he was black. Solace Wales has invested decades in researching this instance of forgotten valor, producing a rich tapestry that interweaves the experiences of the black GIs and Italian villagers caught in the hellish maelstrom that engulfed Sommocolonia the day John Fox died. The result is a moving meditation on the cost of war and a tribute to the African Americans who fought for a country that treated them like second-class citizens. ~ Gregory J.W. Urwin, Professor of History, Temple University, author of Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island Braided with Fire vividly recounts the intertwined histories of the small Italian town of Sommocolonia and the black 366th Infantry Regiment, which intersected during the German Winter Storm Offensive in December 1944. At the center of Solace Wales’ story are the brave Biondi family and forward artillery observer Lieutenant John Fox, who won the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Sommocolonia. Thoroughly researched and dramatically retold, Braided with Fire adds a valuable new page to our understanding of the Second World War. ~ Ian Ona Johnson, P.J. Moran Assistant Professor of Military History, the University of Notre Dame Solace Wales contributes a remarkable, unique account which is not available anywhere else. . . Because of her gracious literary style, she vividly captures the ways in which the African American soldiers and the Italians of Sommocolonia’s lives became intertwined. The book breaks new ground. ~ Carolyn Ross Johnston, author of My Father's War: Fighting with the Buffalo Soldiers in World War II