What drives men to willingly drive an aircraft into a ship and what goes through the mind of a person scheduled for death and seemingly embraces the opportunity? There are stories from pilots of many nations flying damaged aircraft and…
Himeji – Japan’s Premier Castle
If you have ever spent any time reading about Japan, or even just looked at a tourism guide about the country, you have likely seen the beautiful bright white Japanese castle that often adorns Japan’s promotional literature. That…
Hikone Castle – One of Japan’s Finest Castles
If you’ve ever traveled around Japan you know that they love their castles. Almost every old castle town has either rebuilt their castles, preserved the grounds as a park, or, in rare cases, preserved their castle through the centuries. …
A Short Military Tour of London
Sometimes I just want to see really big guns. And Winston Churchill. And castles. And enemy artillery melted down into monuments to the victor’s everlasting glory. Then I want to drink tea. Luckily, London can oblige in all these areas…
Kawasaki’s Premier Folk Museum – Nihon Minkaen
A couple months ago I wrote about the number of folk museums in Japan and old buildings that the Japanese have preserved from their history. The best of these folk museums that I have found so far is a…
Atlantikwall
Today’s video takes us to a forbidding section of the Atlantic Wall, Nazi Germany’s coastal defense scheme that saw artillery batteries, bunkers and other defensive fixtures dot the seaside from Norway to France to keep out any potential liberating forces.…
Shaking the Heavens from Below: Ozushima Kaiten Memorial Museum
The sky was clear of enemy aircraft on the morning of Nov. 20, 1944 at Ulithi, the American anchorage and resupply base that kept the fleet moving towards victory over Tokyo in the latter part of the Pacific War. Fleet…
A Recent History of Japanese Aviation: The Hamamatsu JASDF Museum
Some time ago, shortly after we started this blog, I wrote about the underwhelming castle in Hamamatsu. As I mentioned then, there is a lot more to see in Hamamatsu, and things that are more worth seeing. One of those…
Bansei: The Phantom Kamikaze Peace Museum
Today people come to Minami Satsuma’s Fukiage Sand Dune for fun and relaxation. At 50 kilometers long, it’s one of Japan’s three biggest dunes and every year hosts a competition that does for sand what Hokkaido does for snow. That’s…
One of the Last American Great War Army Combat Veterans is French
Unfortunately this tank has moved and the museum has apparently closed. When Frank Buckles passed away in 2011, with him went the last first-hand accounts an American Soldier could give of World War I. He was the last living doughboy.…