Did Allied forces really drop a fake wooden bomb as a joke on German forces in World War II? A story that is often retold by fans of military history has it that German forces built decoy fake wooden airfields to deceive enemy pilots – and that Allied forces, on …
Read More »Grizzly! A Life or Death Encounter In the Yukon
One of the rules in the Yukon Territory is that hunting guides must always be within hearing distance of their hunters. This is a good rule, as we soon shall see. It was the first day of an early September expedition when hunting guide David O’Farrell brought an archery hunter …
Read More »I Ran a Black Market Supply Operation in Vietnam, Using Whiskey as Currency
Publisher’s note: This article includes a photo of former SOF managing editor Bob Poos, who was a war correspondent in Vietnam. ~SKK by Marvin J. Wolf, The War Horse I steered the Jeep off the dusty, rutted main road and rattled down a well-worn track until I beheld a bizarre …
Read More »Chemists Recruited at Gunpoint: Inside the World of Underground Drug Labs
by Sara Garcia, Insight Crime Juan Manuel Delgado Cárdenas was months away from completing his studies in pharmaceutical chemistry and biology at the Autonomous University of Baja California when, on April 30, 2021, three men entered his family home in Tijuana and opened fire. Delgado Cárdenas was killed while two …
Read More »Mystery Drones Buzz the Kremlin: A Retrospective
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in SOF on June 2, 2023. We are republishing it here for context in light of drones being reported over New Jersey in December 2024. All references are from 2023. The illustrations for this story are AI, but the events are real. ~SKK by …
Read More »Drug Mules Shifted Their Smuggling Routes on the US-Mexico Border – Here’s Why
Over the last year, U.S. officials have seized more illicit fentanyl at Arizona’s ports of entry than anywhere else on the US-Mexico border, suggesting a possible shift in synthetic drug trafficking routes. “We’re seeing shipments of all kinds coming in fast through new routes into Arizona,” one Border Patrol agent …
Read More »‘People Are Getting Killed!’ I Watched Yeltsin’s Tanks Open Fire on Russian Parliament
by Bruce Pannier “Well guys, are we going, or are we going to sit here taking a piss?” It has been 25 years since the culmination of the so-called Russian constitutional crisis, when the country’s president, Boris Yeltsin, sought to dissolve the parliament and then ordered the military to crush …
Read More »Shooting Canada’s Version of the SVD Dragunov, the Type 81 Sporting Rifle – With Russian Scope
By Royce de Melo Our correspondent has high hopes for his new sniper rifle, but finds that the knockoff Soviet-style Dragunov has a few surprises. As soon as we finished the club’s Saturday morning orientation for new members, I went out the main building’s door and headed to the 300-yard …
Read More »Teenage ‘Perfumed Burglar’ Deserted the Navy, Embarked on a Crime Spree, and Escaped San Quentin
Perfume, purloined jewelry and a millionaire’s son form the complex story of Herbert Repsold, a Navy deserter who also was known as the Perfumed Burglar. In the early 1900s, Repsold was a troublesome youth. Growing tired of his son’s antics, the elder Repsold cut off his son’s cash and forced …
Read More »The Flying Legend, ‘Black Sheep’ Col. Pappy Boyington
by Katie Lange Editor’s note: SOF publisher Susan Katz Keating knew Col. Pappy Boyington in the 1980’s when he frequented the Nut Tree airport in Vacaville, California. Here is a story of his life in uniform. Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington was one of the service’s greatest and most legendary pilots. …
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