Deborah

In the time before Israel had a king (sometime between 1380 and 1050 BC), God brought forth a series of exceptional individuals, referred to as judges, to help steer the Israelites when they began to stray from their faith. One of these judges was Deborah. She was a prophetess and leader of a band of Israelites. She's interesting to me because she managed to bring together several tribes to fight and win against a more advanced Canaanite army.

So here's the situation: The Canaanites army consists of about 900 armoured chariot archers, basically the M1 Abrams of the day. They are led by a man named Sisera.

Meanwhile, the Israelites are a scattering of disparate tribal groups. Deborah managed to bring together enough groups for a 10,000-strong army of light infantry. This may sound like a large number, but they had little armour, and the chariot archers could easily out-maneuver and chew them up. That was probably the Canaanite plan, anyway. Deborah expected this and put together a strategy to counter it.

It went something like this. Her commander, Barak, would have one chunk of the army stationed on a mountaintop to lure out Sisera's force. Deborah's army would come from behind to pinch Sisera in a marshy riverbed, where his chariot archers would be mired.

Barak balked, and insisted that Deborah fight with his soldiers on the mountain. She agreed, but reminded him that in this situation, the victory would belong to her, a woman. No, really! The Bible quotes her saying, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman." (Judges 4:9)

The battle played out as predicted, with an added bonus. A thunderstorm, ostensibly sent by God, caused flooding in the river valley, further impeding the Canaanite chariots. Deborah's forces fell upon them and crushed them.

As an aside, Sisera actually managed to escape from this battle. He tried to hide in the tent of a woman named Jael. After feeling safe and dozing off, Jael proceeded to drive a tent stake into his head with a hammer. That was probably for the best. Imagine what his life would be like if everyone found out he was defeated by a girl!

With the opposing army and its leader dead, Deborah led the Israelites to overthrow the Canaanite king. The peace afterwards lasted for about another forty years, before the Israelites again did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Sources:
The Bible (New International Version)
"4000 Years of Uppity Women" - Vicki León
"Battles of the Bible" - Chaim Herzog, Mordechai Gichon

The Ruler of Hawaii

Hawaii is an interesting place. For the longest time, its people had been largely isolated by its location in the middle of the Pacific, surrounded by miles and miles of deadly nothingness. It was controlled by an assortment of rulers that held demesne across the islands. It wasn't until around the 1780's that the warring states began to consolidate around a single warlord: Kamehameha.

He didn't have an easy time of it. After many years of fighting and peace-making, the only lands he could control were a few districts on the Big Island and, through a diplomatic marriage, another few districts in Maui.

The breakthrough came when he turned to foreign traders. Admittedly, foreign ships had been visiting the Hawaiian islands for quite some time. Its location in the middle of the Pacific made it a useful halfway point in many journeys. Whenever possible, Kamehameha traded island goods for weapons.

After several victories, he was eventually drawn into another stalemate as other powers began amassing their own stock of Western weapons. It wasn't until a timely volcanic eruption all but wiped out the army of a rival leader that Kamehameha turned things around again. He then invited his rival to a peace meeting to discuss their differences. Upon landing, the rival was swiftly executed and offered as a sacrifice to the god of war. And with that sacrifice, Kamehameha became the undisputed ruler of the big island, Hawaii.

Maui, the next island on Kamehameha's wishlist, was exhausted after a war against neighbouring Oahu and soon fell to Kamehameha's forces.

The ruler of Oahu knew what was coming and beefed up his arsenal of American weapons. However, even that was no match for Kamehameha's tactics and he eventually fell.

Kamehameha next wanted to take Kauai, but rebellions in his holding forced him to bide his time. A few years later, Kauai was struck with an outbreak of cholera. Seeing his weak position, the ruler of Kauai agreed to become Kamehameha's vassal, a bitter arrangement that the ex-ruler resented. Nevertheless, Kamehameha finally held all of the populated Hawaiian islands.

After conquering all of the islands, Kamehameha set upon boosting the government, economy, and foreign relations. He actively encouraged trade of the islands' resources and quickly grasped the concept of currency. Trade flourished, especially with America, Britain, and eventually Russia. He maintained a group of trusted advisers and administrators, and took steps to ensure they guided his son and heir after his death.

Upon his death, Kamehameha was buried in a secret grave to ensure his bones would never be disturbed. He was succeeded by his son, crowned Kamehameha II, and his wife, now queen regent. These two ushered in a series of reforms that changed Hawaii for ages to come.

Sources:
"Captive Paradise" - James L. Haley

Military Intelligence

As someone who works in computer security, I have a passing fascination with the intelligence community. One name that interested me recently is COL Oscar Koch. He was the head intelligence officer for LTG Patton during World War II and basically predicted the Ardennes Counteroffensive, a.k.a. The Battle of the Bulge.

At the time, most intelligence officers had little motivation and collected meager information about the enemy directly in front of them. Koch handled things differently. He took in everything he could get. He knew troop positions, towns, rivers, railways, bridges, contours, and every other little thing for hundreds of miles around.

His collection methods were as varied as the data coming in. Reconnaissance planes would mark enemy positions. Draftsmen would map out an entire area to determine optimal paths around obstacles. American soldiers that could pass for Germans would disguise themselves behind enemy lines and eavesdrop in bars and restaurants. Encrypted radio transmissions would be broken.

All of this data would pour in for analysis by Koch. In Patton's war room, he would physically mark everything he could onto a large 1:250,000 scale map showing the entire Western Front.

That's great and all, but what's really impressive is how Koch was able to tie together subtle troop movements, on both sides, and realize that a large counteroffensive was imminent. 

Around October of 1944, Koch noticed a buildup of German troops to the north. At the time, most intelligence officers considered the area of the Ardennes Forest to be a rest area for the Germans, where troops rotated in and out between stints. Movement was not uncommon. However, Koch felt something was unusual. Wehrmacht troops were collecting there in much higher numbers. More of the movements occurred at night. All of the movements were under complete radio silence. The Germans clearly did not want the Allies to know about this.

Koch reported his ideas to Patton in very certain terms. Considering Koch's reluctance to speak in certainties unless, well, absolutely certain, Patton took him at his word and established a contingency plan to shoot north if anything should occur. Regrettably, most intelligence officers did not agree and assumed the German army was too weak for such a counteroffensive.

As Patton made his march eastward, Koch received signal intelligence of the Germans leaving their staging area before switching to radio silence. Koch reported that the Germans were almost certainly launching their attack. Patton immediately turned his army 90 degrees to the north and flanked the Germans during their attack.

Even though the Germans did break through the Allied line, they eventually ground to a halt and Patton's army rammed into their southern side while Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery pinched from the north. Supply lines were cut and the German troops eventually had to retreat.

The important thing to take away is this: thanks to Koch's thorough intelligence, Patton's army was ready and able to counter the German offensive before it even had a chance to start. I just thought that was very impressive.

Sources:
"Killing Patton" - Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
"Oscar Koch and the Confidence of the Commander"
"Oscar Koch: An Unsung Hero Behind Patton's Victories" - MAJ Kevin Dougherty (p.66-68)

…And Love The Bomb

Lets speak for a moment about the atomic bomb. Specifically, a bit about its history. Since this particular weapon is so pivotal in human history, I figured it'd be a good idea to see what happened.

1930s – The Science

It was 33 years since Albert Einstein asserted his famous equation, E=mc², which implies that mass can be transformed into energy. Two Berlin scientists, performing an experiment with uranium, bombarded the heavy atoms with neutrons and split it. This was nuclear fission. This was transforming mass into energy. This was what would power the first generation of nuclear weapons.

1940s – The Atomic Bomb

In August of 1939, Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt expressing concern that the Germans may be developing a weapon that was powered by a nuclear chain reaction. The President agreed that "this requires action". The Manhattan Project begins. There were many challenges involved, including: how to procure enough refined uranium and plutonium, how to begin a chain reaction, and, finally, how to detonate the fuel. These issues were largely worked out by the summer of 1945, when US scientists had created the first nuclear bomb. On 1945 July 16, "Fat Man" was detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The blast was about as powerful as 15,000-20,000 tons of TNT.

Fast forward a few weeks and refocus on the Pacific theatre of World War II. Japan has yet to surrender. President Truman, who "regarded the bomb as a military weapon", issued orders to prepare and deploy three atomic weapons on Japan.

On 1945 August 6, the B-52 "Enola Gay" made a bombing run for Hiroshima, Japan and dropped a 13-kiloton atomic bomb. About 142,000 people died.

On 1945 August 9, the B-29 "No. 77" dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. About 75,000 people died.

On 1945 August 14, Japan surrendered. Whether these bombings encouraged Japan's surrender continues to be debated, but the atomic bomb had become a centerpiece of American foreign policy. The US thought it would be another several decades before any other countries could have this power.

Around 1949 August 27, the Soviet Union detonated their own atomic bomb.

1950s – The Hydrogen Bomb

Feeling threatened by the USSR's rapid advancement, President Truman approved research into a new type of weapon on 1950 January 31, the hydrogen bomb. Instead of fission, the hydrogen bomb relied on nuclear fusion, and would be roughly one-thousand times more powerful than current fission bombs.

There were similar questions as with the first atomic bomb: what kind of fuel to use and how to get it, and how to generate enough initial energy to begin the fusion. The decision was to use lithium deuteride as fuel and traditional fission explosives to trigger the fusion. It was the first day of November 1952, on a Pacific islet known as Elugelab, that the first fusion bomb, "Mike", was detonated. The blast was about as powerful as 12,000,000 tons of TNT. It was only nine months later when the Soviet Union detonated their own hydrogen bomb.

On the plus side, nobody died as a result of nuclear explosions. Well, not directly, at any rate.

1960s – Missiles and Submarines

Now that the Soviets had the hydrogen bomb, the new question for the US was how to deliver these bombs. The traditional bombers were relatively slow and easily destroyed by enemy defences. Interest shifted to missiles.

Beginning in 1957, US engineers created newer and newer versions of nuclear ballistic missiles. The first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was the Atlas: 85 feet long, 120 tons, and accurate within 5 miles. What followed were continuous improvements with missiles named: Titan, Titan II, and Minuteman. The Minuteman had a range of 6,000 miles and was significantly more accurate. For most intents and purposes, there is no defence for a missile closing in at 9,400 miles per hour.

Alongside ballistic missile research, developments were being made to submarine warfare. In 1956, the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), Polaris, was introduced. At only about 28 feet long, this nuclear warhead could be loaded into and fired from a submarine. Further refinements to firepower and distance were made with the Poseidon and Trident missiles.

Starting in 1967, the US started to seriously look into anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence. Many ideas were developed, including The Safeguard system that would shoot down incoming missiles with its own missiles. However, none of the ideas bore effective fruit. Before any decent solutions could be created, new weapons were being developed that defeated them anyway. For example, the multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle (MIRV) overcame these proposed defences by simply putting a cluster of warheads on each missiles. An ABM system may take out the first warhead, but the others would still make the target. It wasn't until 1973 that the Soviets would test their own MIRV.

1970s – Improved Accuracy and Cheap Uranium

In October of 1973, the Yom Kippur War flared up, resulting in nuclear-armed tension akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis. This encouraged another push into further research. Specifically, improving accuracy. The better a missile's accuracy, the better the destructive power.

Building off of the MIRV, US engineers began work on the maneuverable reentry vehicle (MARV). By adding weights, flaps, sensors, and GPS to the vehicle, it can be guided as it descended on its target.

Next came the cruise missile. These missiles could be launched from just about any type of vehicle and flew relatively low to the ground to avoid radar. Cruise missiles were cheap ($1.4 million each), far-reaching (2,000 miles), and accurate (within 100 feet).

The USSR was, of course, developing the same technology. At this point, only five countries had the technical know-how to develop and deploy nuclear weapons: the US, the USSR, the UK, France, and China. That changed on 1974 May 18, when India detonated their own 12-kiloton nuclear bomb.

The fact that a sixth country detonated a nuclear explosive was not the shocking thing; what shocked the world was the fuel they used. Traditional uranium and plutonium for bombs was created in expensive enrichment facilities. Instead, India reprocessed spent nuclear reactor rods, which contained various forms of the weapons-grade material. As nuclear energy was not uncommon, the cost for other countries to create their own nuclear weapons significantly dropped. By 1977, nine more nations had the bomb: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Taiwan, and West Germany. By 1982, twenty-one more joined the club.

1980s – This Book Was Published

Sadly, the history lesson ends here. The book I was reading (see below) was published in 1982, so I don't have any more history close at hand. I'll probably do some more digging, but I think I've had enough writing for now.

Sources:

"The Bomb" - Sidney Lens