The 1950s
James Husband
Lituya Bay, 1958

The rumbling shook the sleeping boy’s father from his fading half-sleep on the berth of their single-masted sailing boat.  Bolting up and looking out the window, his eyes widened as he saw the still waters of the Alaskan inlet churn and rise into a monstrous, debris-strewn wave, easily fifty feet in height and heading straight toward their tiny craft.  The father tossed a life preserver at the groggy boy and said, “Son, start praying.”

Lituya Bay, 1958
The 1930s
James Husband
The Emu War

After the 1918 armistice ended the fighting of World War I, the Australian government instituted a program to buy and provide farming land for its returning soldiers, in order to reintroduce them back into civilian life.  In Western Australia, the government established 48 farming estates totaling almost 90,000 hectares, a little over 200,000 acres, in an area northeast of Perth, in the southwestern corner of the nation. Years later, the Great Depression of 1929 hit the area particularly hard, and when the land was invaded by a relentless and destructive pest, the Minister of Defense in Perth dispatched a machine gun crew, with less than stellar results.

The Emu War
The 19th Century
James Husband
Jakob Walter’s March Home

By 1812, Jakob Walter, although only 24 years of age, had already served in two campaigns as a foot soldier for the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.  Jakob and many other conscripts in the Grande Armée were ordered to undertake the famously ill-fated march on Moscow, after which the devastated remnants of Napoleon's fighting force were left to return to their homes on their own power.  Jakob's meticulous diary tells a tale of survival and perseverance during this nightmarish march against staggering odds.

Jakob Walter’s March Home
The 19th Century
James Husband
The Secret Surveyor of Tibet

By the early 1860s, the British and Russian Empires simultaneously attempted to spread their influence into Tibet, a region which was at the time still tenuously under the control of the fading Qing Empire in China.  Tibetan leadership, in an attempt to forestall culture erosion and retain its connections with the Chinese, closed its borders to Europeans of all sorts on penalty of death.  Captain Thomas G. Montgomerie of the Royal Engineers, tasked with the exploration and mapping of Tibet, developed a plan to use trained natives to surreptitiously take the measurements for which British agents, regardless of their talent or preparation, would be much more vulnerable to discovery.  After being asked for recommendations of loyal and talented locals who could be taught techniques in infiltration and surveying, British Education Officer Edmund Smyth suggested to Montgomerie a 33-year-old local schoolteacher named Nain Singh.

The Secret Surveyor of Tibet
The 19th Century
James Husband
Run For Your Life, John Colter

 

Aware that they were essentially invading and poaching on enemy land, Corps of Discovery veterans John Colter and John Potts remained hidden during the day in order to escape detection, setting their traps at night and gathering up their proceeds as the following dawn broke.  One morning, as the two men canoes up the Jefferson River, they heard a commotion above the elevated riverbank to the east.  Colter claimed that the noise was caused by Indians, but Potts insisted it was just buffalo, so they persisted up the river, whereupon they came face-to-face with a party of approximately 800 Blackfoot.

Run For Your Life, John Colter

World War II

The Highlander on D-Day

The Highlander on D-Day

On the morning of June 6, 1944, an armada of landing ships chopped through the icy, stinging waters of the English Channel, ferrying thousands of troops toward the German-held beaches in a surprise attack that changed the course of the war and of human history. On the far eastern edge of the invasion fleet, one landing craft held a special commodity which no other could boast: deployed along with the 1st Special Services Brigade, many of whom were Scottish, 21-year-old Bill Millin, a Royal Marine Commando in direct service to the brigade commander prepared for the landing.  Millin, unlike his fellow soldiers, did not prepare a helmet, rifle, or bayonet; instead, he hoisted and readied the traditional and iconic instrument of Scottish warriors: bagpipes.

Many Men in the Water

Many Men in the Water

In a memorable scene from the 1975 movie Jaws, Captain Quint, played by Robert Shaw, tells of his World War II experience on board the USS Indianapolis as it sank in shark-infested waters in 1945.  Although the characters in the film were all obviously fictitious, the sinking that Quint described was real, and every inch terrible enough to warrant its inclusion in one of the most horrifying thriller movies ever produced.

Sulfur Island

Sulfur Island

In February of 1945, US Marines attacked the rocky Japanese island of Iwo Jima, whose name literally means 'Sulfur Island'. American military strategists planned the invasion as the first assault on one of Japan’s “Home Islands” in World War II, and its success would deny the Empire the use of the island for early warning purposes and as an emergency landing strip for its damaged aircraft, while providing the United States with the same advantages. On February 9, US Navy battleships and B-24 heavy bombers from the 7th Air Force began an intense bombardment of the Japanese troops garrisoned in the island's fortified bunkers which lasted for ten days. 

Floating Bombs

Floating Bombs

"Look what I found, dear!"  On May 5, 1945, Elsie Mitchell shouted these words back to her husband Archie, as he returned from parking the car for their church picnic outing in Bly, Oregon.  Elsie, a pregnant 26-year-old Sunday school teacher, and five teenaged students approached the oddity they had found, half buried in a late-season snowbank. Someone shouted that it was a balloon, and one or more of the children tried to drag it back to a more open area.  Archie Mitchell, a local pastor, had heard of explosive-laden balloons spotted near the west coast. He yelled back for them not to touch it, but it was too late, and the balloon contraption exploded, sending flames into the air and shaking the ground.