Category: Weapons and Technology
Introducing the “Jeep” – How Did America’s Famous Military 4×4 Get Its Name?
“The origin of the word ‘jeep’ is still mired in controversy, more than 80 years after the first models rolled off assembly lines.” IF HISTORIANS COULD pick a single piece of military hardware to symbolize the…
Britain’s First Air War – Seven Surprising Facts About the Early Royal Flying Corps
“By the 1918 Armistice, Great Britain had built a powerful, modern tactical air force that was the envy of the world.” By Greg Baughen THE FIRST WORLD WAR was a proving ground for aerial warfare….
The “Camera Myth” and Other Misconceptions About the Early Royal Flying Corps
“One enduring and particularly popular misconception of the period holds that the British military was so manifestly uninterested in aerial warfare that crews had to literally buy their own cameras to experiment with.” By Greg…
F-86 Sabre — Nine Fascinating Facts About America’s Iconic Cold War Jet Fighter
“The first Sabres were deployed to Korea after front-line Russian jets appeared over the 38th Parallel.” By Michael Jabbra THE F-86 SABRE was the principal U.S. Air Force fighter during the Korean War. Developed in…
Marian Rejewski – Meet the Polish Cryptographer Who Cracked Germany’s Top-Secret Enigma Code Seven Years Before WW2
“Although Rejewski cracked the code for the first time in 1932, this was only the beginning of a series of Polish intelligence coups.” By Eilidh McGinness IT WAS 1928 when Germany first began using Enigma…
The Bomb That Wasn’t Needed – Allied Intel Agencies Had News That Might Have Prevented the Atomic Age. Sadly, They Didn’t Share It
“For well over a year, Churchill’s government knew that Berlin would have no bomb, but it let the U.S. work on in the dark.” By Peter Watson IN MID-1942, just as the Battle of Midway…
