Clik here to view.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Here we see, some 80 years ago this month, four leaf clover-wearing General Motors FM-2 Wildcats and Grumman TBM-3 Avengers of Composite Squadron (VC) 93 aboard the Casablanca-class escort carrier USS...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Diorama worthy Phantom
I though this was a very well done scale model scene until I found the original photo in the NARA and zoomed in enough to see expressions on faces. It was taken 40 years ago today in the coldest...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Oldest Cutter Not Looking Too Bad at 61 Years Young
The seniormost blue-water cutter, the USCGC Reliance (WMEC-615), has been in service almost continuously since she was commissioned on 20 June 1964, with the only break being regular yard periods and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Warship Wednesday, March 19, 2025: Bucoup Malchanceuse
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Renegade Gunfighter
Some 50 years ago, a spectacular image of a Vought F-8J Crusader of VF-24, the “Fighting Renegades,” in flight, 1975. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.7337.016 Assigned to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Zippo Monitor, in Vivid Color!
Early 1969 U.S. Navy images from the National Archives, show a “Zippo” flamethrower installed on a 56-foot Armored Troop Carrier monitor– an armored LCM (6) landing craft– in testing along an unnamed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Maskinpistolen!
From the collection of the Danish Resistance Museum comes this amazing poster made just after the post-WWII Liberation. Translation: “The machine gun: Making STEN-Gun. The working drawings are exported...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crusader at 70
The F8U (after 1962, F-8) Crusader first flew on 25 March 1955. To salue the “Gunfighter,” how about this great laydown image. A Vought F-8D Crusader with all of its possible armament: In the center...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Warship Wednesday, March 26, 2025: First of 65
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Denton takes to the water
The third Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to be built at Ingalls, the future USS Jeremiah Denton (DDG 129), has hit the water for the first time. Importantly, she carries the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Double Edge of Simple Weapons
One of the most oft-retold tales of military equipment is that the spear used by the Roman Legions, the two-part composite pilum, was easy for a legionnaire to master as a thrusting weapon and, if...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All Aces, No Jokers
Check out this great shot of some F-16Cs Block 50s of the Gamblers of the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron out of Shaw AFB in South Carolina, on deployment for trilateral training during Cope25 at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Traveling light
Some 80 years ago, “backpacking around Europe,” a GI takes a breather along the Rhine in increasingly Allied-occupied Germany, April 1945. LIFE Magazine Archives – William Vandivert Photographer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Red Stars over Niagara
Just call it Operation Honeymoon. The curious, but very normal 1944-45, sight of Lend-Leased Bell P-63 Kingcobras flying over Niagara Falls, clad in the Red Stars and tactical dark green livery of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Birth of the Burkes
Official caption of this 1982 work of art: “Artist’s concept, by Vincent Piecyk, of an experimental guided missile destroyer planned for delivery to the Navy in 1989. Piecyk equips his destroyer with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tico meets Vespucci
How about this great series of images showing one of the last precious Ticonderoga-class cruisers in service, USS Gettysburg (CG 64), alongside the “most beautiful ship in the world,” Amerigo Vespucci,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Keepers of the Sparks
Original caption: “Signal Corps activities at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Field telephone and switchboard operators in action during maneuvers, 1930.” Note the badge of the 51st Signal Battalion on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Warship Wednesday, April 9, 2025: First of a Long Line
Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rolling Bones
80 years ago. Awaiting removal of a roadblock on the road to Eisfeld, Germany, a 90mm GMC M36 tank destroyer crew whiles away the time shooting craps. 28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”), U.S. Third...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rock and Roll
A U.S. Navy Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR) crewman mans his twin M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun mount as the craft patrols the Vung Tau River in Vietnam on 14 April 1966, “in anticipation of trouble...
View Article