A new beret, new badge and new family🫡
Gurkha recruits have reached one of the biggest milestones in training as they are welcomed into their future regiments
✍️@jameswharton
🔗⬇️https://t.co/rHAdIfMf9p
After months of demanding training, the future career paths for 323 trainees of Gurkha Recruit Intake 26 were formally announced during the capbadging event held with Gurkha Training Company in Catterick on 30 July 2026.
#Gurkha#Nepal#Catterock#BritishArmy#Army#Soldier #Military
I hear the death of Nirmal “Nims” Purja MBE — known to the world as Nimsdai, has now been confirmed.
A former Gurkha and Special Boat Service veteran, Nims redefined the boundaries of high-altitude mountaineering.
His record-breaking ascents of all 14 eight-thousanders, the first winter ascent of K2, and his unbreakable determination inspired millions across the globe.
His courage, resilience and relentless pursuit of the impossible will never be forgotten.
Our thoughts are with his family, friends and all who knew him.
Rest in peace, Nims.
Fair winds and following seas.
Shark Teeth in the Shadows: The L-5s That Flew Secret OSS Missions in Burma
These Stinson L-5 Sentinels weren’t just liaison planes.
Some carried fierce shark-mouth nose art and flew covert missions for OSS Detachment 101 deep behind Japanese lines in northern Burma in 1944.
OSS Detachment 101 was America’s first dedicated behind-the-lines guerrilla force. Working with Kachin tribesmen, they ran sabotage, ambushes, intelligence collection, and special operations across some of the most difficult jungle terrain of the war. They needed aircraft that could reach isolated teams where no road existed and the L-5 was ideal.
The 71st Liaison Squadron flew at least two of these shark-mouth L-5s from the Myitkyina airfield after its capture. These small planes became vital tools for OSS shadow operations.
One documented mission on 25 October 1944 saw an L-5 depart Myitkyina on a special OSS tasking carrying personnel and cargo into a remote guerrilla area. The aircraft vanished. Both men aboard were captured, a grim reminder of the risks these missions carried.
But that was only one flight. L-5s from the squadron regularly flew into tiny jungle strips cleared by Kachin guerrillas to:
• Insert and extract OSS advisors and agents operating behind enemy lines
• Deliver critical supplies, ammunition, radios, medical kits, and food, to isolated guerrilla groups
• Evacuate wounded fighters from ambushes and raids deep in Japanese held territory
• Fly intelligence couriers and urgent messages between forward OSS teams and higher command
• Conduct low level reconnaissance and bomb damage assessment to support targeting
These were high-risk, low-profile flights. Often single-ship. Frequently over or near enemy territory. Unarmed. The L-5’s short takeoff and landing ability let it operate where C-47s and fighters simply could not go.
Small planes. Shadow missions. The unsung aviation backbone of one of WWII’s most effective unconventional warfare campaigns.
Tag someone who loves hidden chapters of aviation history. Drop any additional stories or photos below — I read every comment.
#CovertAviation #OSS #Detachment101 #L5Sentinel #SharkMouth #WWIIAviation #Burma1944 #Myitkyina #SpecialOperations #GuerrillaWarfare #CBITheater #FlyingJeep #ForgottenHistory #AviationHistory #OSINT #WWII
In April 1942, the British submarine HMS Urge slipped out of Malta bound for Alexandria. She never arrived. 44 men vanished with her, and for 77 years no one knew where she lay.
Urge was a legend by then. Under Lt-Cdr Edward Tomkinson she ran 20 patrols out of a Malta being bombed almost daily, torpedoed the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, sank the cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere with two hits from 5,000 yards, and even ferried commandos on secret raids. Aboard for that final voyage was a war correspondent, Bernard Gray, chasing one more story.
Then nothing. Some claimed she went down off Libya. Families spent decades not even knowing which sea held their fathers and husbands.
The answer came from Tomkinson's own grandson. Working with a University of Malta archaeologist and a Canadian historian, he found that the Axis had laid a fresh minefield across Urge's exact route just days before she sailed. In October 2019 divers found her two miles off Malta, 130 meters down, bow torn clean off. She had hit that minefield within minutes of leaving harbor and gone down before anyone could react.
In 2021 they read the name off her conning tower and made it certain.
She rests there now as a war grave, exactly where she fell, 44 men finally accounted for.