Military History

Dayan was born in the first kibbutz collective agricultural settlement established by Zionists in Palestine. As a teenager he joined the Haganah, an underground army working toward establishing a nation independent from British rule. The kibbutz was vulnerable to Arab attack and therefore the Haganah also served as a perimeter patrol.

Cunningham joined the Royal Navy in 1898 and saw a wide variety of service prior to World War I when he was skipper of the destroyer Scorpion during the Dardanelles campaign (February 19 to November 23 of 1915). He showed great skill and initiative in the raid on the German U-boat base at Zeebrugge on April 23, 1918.

Clark was a son of the army, born at Madison Barracks in Sackets Harbor, New York, into the family of a career army officer. As a young man, he graduated from West Point and entered the infantry as a second lieutenant in 1917 and in April of the following year was sent to France with the Fifth Infantry Division. They thrust him into the thick of...

Winston Churchill was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill, descended from the First Duke of Marlborough and Jennie Jerome (an American). Young Churchill did not take well to schooling (at Harrow) and rejected the university education that befitted his aristocratic station. Instead, he enrolled at Sandhurst (the "British West Point") graduating in...

Zhu was born into extreme poverty in Yunnan; however, his early potential was recognized by his clan, which funded a classical Confucian education for the boy. After graduation, Zhu entered the civil service system but soon turned to the military, instead of gaining admission to the Yunnan Military Academy. Upon graduation, he was commissioned i...

Chiang Kai-shek was born into a prosperous family in rural Chekiang. His father died when Chiang was young and he was raised by his mother, who sent him to excellent schools, where he got the classical Confucian education reserved for the children of the moderately wealthy.

Chaffee was the only son of the remarkable Adna Chaffee Sr. who had joined the army as a private during the Civil War and by the end of his career would become chief of staff of the army with the rank of lieutenant general. The junior Chaffee steeped in the military and graduated from West Point in the upper hall of his 1906 class.

Byng was born into a privileged life at Wrotham Park (Barnet) as the son of George Stevens Byng, Second Earl of Strafford, and was educated in Eton. He entered the militia, where he distinguished himself sufficiently to be posted into the elite Tenth Hussars in 1883.