History

On the very first day of American involvement in World War 2, a tragic little conflict played out on an otherwise peaceful remote island in Hawaii.

Doris “Dorie” Miller was supposed to have been a girl. Born October 12, 1919, to sharecroppers Connery and Henrietta Miller, he got the name Doris when the midwife assisting with his delivery became somehow convinced he would be female.

The son of a Czarist-era Imperial Russian cavalry officer, Mitch WerBell III suffered from a deplorable excess of personality. WerBell’s life reflected the synergistic combination of an audacious will, an insatiable thirst for chaos, a truly gifted mechanical insight, and some fortuitous timing. The cumulative result was adventure beyond the capacity of normal folk to comprehend.

The British Commandos helped lay the foundation for modern Special Operations.

The plot device has been exercised so many times in Hollywood as to have become a trope. Dishonest local law enforcement has the muscle to impose their nefarious will on innocent local townsfolk. Then some moody combat veteran comes back home and is forced to make things right. Whether the setting is the Old West or modern urban America, the story of the ex-soldier with the skills and the will to face down corruption is reliable box office gold. 

Guiseppe “Joe” Zangara stood all of five feet tall and spoke poor English. Back in 1933 this angry little guy very nearly killed the President.

While serving with the RAF he received the heartbreaking news that his father had been tortured to death by the German security services. In response, Longchamps planned an elaborate operation to strike Gestapo headquarters in Brussels. His RAF commanders rejected the request, claiming it was too risky. On January 20, 1943, Jean de Selys Longchamps did it anyway.

Capstick abandoned a successful Wall Street career in his twenties seeking adventure. Like Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway before him, Capstick found that for which he quested.

Back in the 1860s, a Tennessee farmer with a grudge used a muzzleloading single-shot Kentucky Long Rifle to terrorize thousands of Federal troops. His exploits stand in bitter testament to the chaos that can be wrought by a single determined rifleman with a gun.