Our aim is simple: tell the documented story accurately, separate fact from legend, and show our sources.
Our mission
The Filthy Thirteen have been retold so many times — in memoirs, magazine articles, a famous photograph, and the shadow of a Hollywood film — that legend and record have blurred together. This site exists to pull them apart. We cover who the men were, the unit they belonged to, the campaigns they fought in, and the popular myths that grew up around them, always distinguishing what is documented from what is disputed.
Who publishes this site
We are a small group of history enthusiasts, not academics or a publishing house. This site started the way most of these things do: a few people who kept reading about the 101st Airborne, kept running into the same half-true stories about the Filthy Thirteen, and decided the record deserved better. We write it in our own time, we check what we publish against the documented record, and we say plainly when something is well-attested rather than proven. If you know this history better than we do, we want to hear from you.
Our editorial and verification standards
- We do not invent details. No fabricated biographies, quotes, casualty figures, or mission specifics.
- We label our confidence. Documented facts are stated plainly; memoir-based or single-source claims are framed “according to,” and disputed points are identified as such.
- We prefer strong sources. Official Army records, archives, museums, named historians, and published books come before internet repetition.
- We keep a source trail. Key pages cite where their claims come from.
Corrections
We would rather be accurate than first. If you spot an error — or have sourced material that corrects or expands what we’ve published — please tell us through our Contact page. We review every correction, update the page where warranted, and date significant changes so readers can see what changed.