Battlefield Travels

This episode from battlefieldtravels.com examines the Battle of Bloody Gulch, one of the most decisive small-unit actions of the entire Normandy campaign.

The full study is at: D-Day, Battle of Bloody Gulch 1944: 101st Airborne's Desperate Defense https://battlefieldtravels.com/battle-of-bloody-gulch/

On 13 June 1944, just a day after the 101st Airborne Division fought its way into Carentan, lightly armed paratroopers of the 506th ...

This episode from battlefieldtravels.com examines the legendary Siege of Tuyên Quang, one of the most celebrated battles in French Foreign Legion history.

The full study is at:

Siege of Tuyen Quang 1884-85: The Foreign Legion's Legendary Stand

From 24 November 1884 to 3 March 1885, roughly 630 French Legionnaires, Tonkinese riflemen, and marine artillerymen, commanded by Chef de Bataillon Marc-Edmond Dominé, held a decaying Annamit...

This episode examines one of history's most famous last stands — the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, where King Leonidas of Sparta and a small Greek coalition held the narrow coastal pass of the 'Hot Gates' against Xerxes' vast Persian invasion force for three days.

The episode explores how th...

This episode examines one of the most contested questions in Jacobite War historiography — did the Duke of Cumberland's army use a modified bayonet drill at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746, and does the evidence support it?

The standard academic position holds that a November 1746 retraction in The Scots Magazine, combined with the absence of a written general order in Cumberland's papers, settles the question. There ...

This episode examines the Battle of Chancellorsville from 30 April to 6 May 1863, Robert E. Lee's most audacious victory of the American Civil War and a masterclass in aggressive manoeuvre against a superior force.

General Joseph Hooker's 130,000 strong Army of the Potomac,  crossed the Rappahan...

This episode examines the Battle of Cowpens on 17 January 1781, one of the most tactically sophisticated engagements of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rare examples in military history of a deliberate double envelopment executed by an outnumbered force against a superior enemy.

America...

This episode examines the Dalton Gang raid on Coffeyville, Kansas on 5 October 1892, the most dramatic bank robbery in the history of the American West, and the event that ended the Dalton Gang in a single fifteen-minute gunfight.

Bob, Grat, and Emmet Dalton, along with Bill Power and Dick Broadwell,...

This episode examines the First Battle of Elephant Pass from 10 July to 9 August 1991 , the largest single battle of the Sri Lankan Civil War and one of the most intense siege operations in modern Asian military history.

Elephant Pass is the narrow isthmus connecting the Jaffna Peninsula to the Sri L...

This episode examines Operation Hirondelle, the French airborne raid on Lang Son, 17-18 July 1953, one of the most audacious deep penetration operations of the Indochina War and a remarkable demonstration of French airborne capability fourteen months before the fall of Dien Bien Phu.

Approximately 2,...

This episode examines the Siege of Fort William Henry in August 1757, one of the most dramatic and controversial engagements of the French and Indian War, and the event that inspired James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

The French force under Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Marquis de Montcalm...

This episode examines the Sieges of Kerak Castle, the series of military confrontations between 1183 and 1188 that made this Crusader fortress in modern Jordan one of the most strategically contested strongholds of the twelfth-century Levant.

Kerak, in the ancient Kir Moab...

This episode examines the Siege of Alesia in 52 BC, the decisive engagement of Caesar's Gallic Wars and one of the most remarkable feats of military engineering in ancient history.

Facing the Gallic confederation under Vercingetorix at the hilltop stronghold of Alesia in m...

This episode examines Operation Kingpin: the Son Tay Raid of 21 November 1970, planned and rehearsed under the code name Operation Ivory Coast. One of the most audacious special operations missions of the Vietnam War. A joint task force of US Army Special Forces and Air Force crews penetrated deep into North Vietnam to liberate American POWs held at So...

This episode examines Operation Deadstick, the glider assault on the Caen Canal and Orne River bridges in the opening minutes of D-Day, 6 June 1944. Six Horsa gliders carrying D Company, 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry under Major John Howard landed within metres of their objectives at 00:16 hours, the first Allied ground a...

This episode examines the Ambush at Bắc Lệ on 23 June 1884, the skirmish in northern Tonkin that ended French diplomatic negotiations with China and triggered the Sino-French War of 1884-1885.

A French column of approximately 1,000 men under Lieutenant Colonel Alphonse Dug...

This episode examines the Battle of the Little Bighorn on 25-26 June 1876, the most iconic engagement of the Great Sioux War and the most analysed military disaster in American history.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment, operating as part of...

This episode examines the Battle for La Fière Causeway, 6-9 June 1944, one of the most savage small-unit actions of the entire Normandy campaign and one of the least known.

The La Fière causeway crossed the flooded Merderet River valley west of Sainte-Mère-Église, connecti...

This episode examines the Battle of Suomussalmi and the destruction of the Soviet 44th Division on the Raate Road, the defining engagement of Finland's Winter War of 1939-1940 and one of the most complete tactical defeats in modern military history.

In December 1939 and Ja...

This episode examines the capture of Aqaba on 6 July 1917, the audacious operation that transformed T.E. Lawrence from a liaison officer into a strategic architect of the Arab Revolt and established the Hejaz Arab Army as a serious military force in the Palestine campaign.