St. Vith is a city and municipality of East Belgium located in the Walloon province of Liège. It was named after Saint Vitus. The majority language here is German, as in the rest of the German Speaking Community of Belgium.
The 3rd Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army. Unofficially nicknamed the "Third Herd", the division was first activated in 1941 and was active in the European Theater of World War II. The division was stationed in West Germany for much of the Cold War and also participated in the Persian Gulf War. On 17 January 1992, still in Germany, the division ceased operations. In October 1992, it was formally inactivated as part of a general drawing down of U.S. military forces at the end of the Cold War.
The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall, was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line. It stretched more than 630 km (390 mi) from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland. The line featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps.
Zimmerit was a paste-like coating used on mid- and late-war German armored fighting vehicles during World War II. It was used to produce a hard layer covering the metal armor of the vehicle, providing enough separation that magnetically attached anti-tank mines would fail to stick to the vehicle, despite Germany being the only country to use magnetic anti-tank mines in numbers. Zimmerit was often left off late-war vehicles due to the unfounded concern that it could catch fire when hit. It was developed by the German company Chemische Werke Zimmer & Co (Berlin).
Jesse LeRoy Brown was a United States Navy officer. He was the first African-American aviator to complete the United States Navy's basic flight training program, the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War, and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Peter Anthony Dale Collier was an American writer and publisher. He was the founding publisher of conservative Encounter Books in California and held that position from 1998 until he resigned in 2005. The company moved from San Francisco to New York City, and Collier was replaced as publisher by Roger Kimball.
Thomas Jerome Hudner Jr. was a United States Navy officer and naval aviator. He rose to the rank of captain, and received the Medal of Honor for his actions in trying to save the life of his wingman, Ensign Jesse L. Brown, during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.
Richard L. Cevoli served as a United States Naval Aviator and carrier fighter pilot during World War II and the Korean War. Decorated for valor in both conflicts, Cevoli reached the rank of Commander before he was killed in a plane crash in 1955.
The 363rd Volksgrenadier Division was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945.
Oberleutnant Ludwig Franz Stigler was a German fighter pilot and fighter ace in World War II.
Larry Alexander is an American journalist and military historian who has written a number of books about World War II, most notably about Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. Easy Company was made famous principally by Stephen Ambrose's book and the Band of Brothers of that name.
The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident occurred on 20 December 1943, when, after a successful bomb run on Bremen, 2nd Lt. Charles "Charlie" Brown's B-17F Flying Fortress Ye Olde Pub of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was severely damaged by German fighters. Luftwaffe pilot Franz Stigler had the opportunity to shoot down the crippled bomber but did not do so, and instead escorted it over and past German-occupied territory so as to protect it. After an extensive search by Brown, the two pilots met each other 50 years later and developed a friendship that lasted until Stigler's death in March 2008. Brown died only a few months later, in November of the same year.
Pacific Rim Uprising is a 2018 American science fiction monster film directed by Steven S. DeKnight, and written by DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder and T.S. Nowlin. It is the sequel to the 2013 film Pacific Rim, the second film, and second installment overall in the Pacific Rim franchise. Guillermo del Toro, director of the first movie, serves as a producer; while production studios Legendary Pictures and Double Dare You Productions developed the movie. The sequel stars John Boyega, as well as Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona and Zhang Jin, with Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Burn Gorman returning from the original film. The film takes place in 2035, ten years after the events of the original film. The story follows Jake Pentecost, who is given one last chance to live up to his father's legacy after Kaiju, giant sea monsters, are unleashed back into the world and aim to destroy it.
The Battle of Paderborn occurred during the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Most notably the commander of the 3rd Armored Division Major General Maurice Rose was killed in an ambush outside of Paderborn on March 30. He was the highest ranking US General to be killed in action on the Western Front of World War II.
Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II is a book about Clarence Smoyer, written by military history author Adam Makos, and published by Ballantine Books in 2019.
Devotion is a 2022 American biographical war film based on the 2015 book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice by Adam Makos, which retells the comradeship between naval officers Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner during the Korean War. It is directed by J. D. Dillard and written by Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart. The film stars Jonathan Majors as Brown and Glen Powell as Hudner, along with Christina Jackson, Daren Kagasoff, Joe Jonas, Nick Hargrove, Spencer Neville, and Thomas Sadoski in supporting roles.
A Higher Call is a non-fiction book by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander, published in 2012 by Berkley Books. It recounts the story of the Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident of 1943, which took place in the skies of Germany during the Second World War. In it, Franz Stigler, a German Luftwaffe fighter ace flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109, guided a severely damaged American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress out of German airspace after failing to persuade it to surrender, an act of chivalry.
The Love Hypothesis is a romance novel by Ali Hazelwood, published September 14, 2021 by Berkley Books. Originally published online in 2018 as Head Over Feet, a Star Wars fan fiction work about the "Reylo" ship between Rey and Kylo Ren, the novel follows a Ph.D. candidate and a professor at Stanford University who pretend to be in a relationship.
The Battle of Cologne was part of Operation Lumberjack and refers to the Allied advance that took place from 5 to 7 March 1945, which led to the capture of the western German city of Cologne.
Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie is a memoir by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon.
