** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:43 am
June 8th ~ {continued...}

1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry arrives at Uraga, Japan to begin negotiations for a treaty with Japan.

1861 – Tennessee voted to secede from the Union and joined the Confederacy.

1861 – U.S.S. Mississippi, Flag Officer Mervine, set blockade at Key West.

1862 – Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s notches another victory during the campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Sent to the valley to relieve pressure on the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia, which had been pinned on the James Peninsula by Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, Jackson’s force staged one of the most stunning and brilliant campaigns of the war.

On May 2th5, Jackson routed a Union force commanded by Nathaniel Banks at Winchester in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The defeat sent panic through Washington, D.C., because Jackson was now poised to invade the capital from the north. President Lincoln ordered Banks to regroup and head south into the valley, while an army under Irwin McDowell headed in from the east, and one under John C. Fremont moved in from the west to pinch Jackson’s troops and destroy his army.

Jackson led the Yankees on a chase south through the valley, beating the Union forces to Port Republic, the site of a crucial bridge where the Federals could have united to defeat Jackson. He kept the bulk of his force at Port Republic and sent General Richard C. Ewell and 5,000 troops to nearby Cross Keys.

On June 8th, Freemont’s troops advanced on Ewell’s and launched a halfhearted attack that failed to disrupt the Confederate lines. Fremont engaged only 5 of his 24 regiments, followed by a mild artillery bombardment. Casualties were relatively light, with Ewell losing 288 men to Fremont’s 684. Cross Keys was only a prelude to the larger Battle of Port Republic on June 9, but it was another Union failure in Jackson’s amazing 1862 Shenandoah campaign.

1862 – U.S.S. Monitor, Dacotah, Naugatuck, Seminole, and Susquehanna by direction of the President”-shelled Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, as Flag Officer L. M. Goldsborough reported, ”mainly with the view of ascertaining the practicability of landing a body of troops thereabouts” to move on Norfolk.

Whatever rumors President Lincoln had received about Confederates abandoning Norfolk were now confirmed; a tug deserted from Norfolk and brought news that the evacuation was well underway and that C.S.S. Virginia, with her accompanying small gunboats, planned to proceed up the James or York River. It was planned that when Virginia came out, as she had on the 7th, the Union fleet would retire with U.S.S. Monitor in the rear hoping to draw the powerful but under engined warship into deep water where she might be rammed by high speed steamers. The bombardment uncovered reduced but considerable strength at Sewell’s Point. Virginia came out but not far enough to be rammed.

Two days later President Lincoln wrote Flag Officer Goldsborough: “I send you this copy of your report of yesterday for the purpose of saying to you in writing that you are quite right in supposing the movement made by you and therein reported was made in accordance with my wishes verbally expressed to you in advance. I avail myself of the occasion to thank you for your courtesy and all your conduct, so far as known to me, during my brief visit here.”

President Lincoln, acting as Commander-in-Chief in the field at Hampton Roads, also directed Flag Officer Goldsborough: “If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with the Merrimack without the help of the Galena and two accompanying gunboats, send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at once” to support General McClellan. This wise use of power afloat by the President silenced two shore batteries and forced gunboats C.S.S. Jamestown and Patrick Henry to return up the James River.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:45 am
June 8th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Landing party from U.S.S. Iroquois, Commander James S. Palmer, seized arsenal and took possession of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1863 – Residents of Vicksburg, Miss., fled into caves as Grant’s army began shelling the town.

1863 – Crew from a Confederate launch commanded by Master James Duke, CSN, boarded and captured steam tug Boston at Pass a l’Outre, Mississippi River, and put to sea, then capturing and burning Union barks Lenox and Texana. Duke carried Boston safely into Mobile on June 11th.

1864 – President Lincoln forwarded to Congress a dispatch from Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton regarding the Enrollment Act, which instituted a military draft. Stanton suggested that Congress repeal the Act’s “three hundred… dollar clause,” which allowed draftees to get out of military service by paying $300. Stanton explained, “ample experience has now shown that the pecuniary exemption from service frustrates the object of the enrolment law, by furnishing money instead of men.” Lincoln informed Congress that he concurred with Stanton’s recommendation.

1864 – Lieutenant Commander Ramsay, U.S.S. Chillicothe, led an expedition up the Atchafalaya River, Louisiana, accompanied by U.S.S. Neosho, Acting Lieutenant Howard, and U.S.S. Port Hindman, Acting Lieutenant Pearce, to silence a Confederate battery above Simmesport. The Union gun-boats, after a short engagement, forced the Southerners to abandon their position and a landing party captured the guns.

1874 – Chief Cochise, one of the great leaders of the Apache Indians in their battles with the Anglo-Americans, dies on the Chiricahua reservation in southeastern Arizona. Little is known of Cochise’s early life. By the mid-19th century, he had become a prominent leader of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians living in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Like many other Chiricahua Apache, Cochise resented the encroachment of Mexican and American settlers on their traditional lands. Cochise led numerous raids on the settlers living on both sides of the border, and Mexicans and Americans alike began to call for military protection and retribution. War between the U.S. and Cochise, however, resulted from a misunderstanding.

In October 1860, a band of Apache attacked the ranch of an Irish-American named John Ward and kidnapped his adopted son, Felix Tellez. Although Ward had been away at the time of the raid, he believed that Cochise had been the leader of the raiding Apache. Ward demanded that the U.S. Army rescue the kidnapped boy and bring Cochise to justice. The military obliged by dispatching a force under the command of Lieutenant George Bascom.

Unaware that they were in any danger, Cochise and many of his top men responded to Bascom’s invitation to join him for a night of entertainment at a nearby stage station. When the Apache arrived, Bascom’s soldiers arrested them. Cochise told Bascom that he had not been responsible for the kidnapping of Felix Tellez, but the lieutenant refused to believe him. He ordered Cochise be kept as a hostage until the boy was returned.

Cochise would not tolerate being imprisoned unjustly. He used his knife to cut a hole in the tent he was held in and escaped. During the next decade, Cochise and his warriors increased their raids on American settlements and fought occasional skirmishes with soldiers. Panicked settlers abandoned their homes, and the Apache raids took hundreds of lives and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damages. By 1872, the U.S. was anxious for peace, and the government offered Cochise and his people a huge reservation in the southeastern corner of Arizona Territory if they would cease hostilities.

Cochise agreed, saying, “The white man and the Indian are to drink of the same water, eat of the same bread, and be at peace.” The great chief did not have the privilege of enjoying his hard-won peace for long. In 1874, he became seriously ill, possibly with stomach cancer. He died on this day in 1874. That night his warriors painted his body yellow, black, and vermilion, and took him deep into the Dragoon Mountains. They lowered his body and weapons into a rocky crevice, the exact location of which remains unknown. Today, however, that section of the Dragoon Mountains is known as Cochise’s Stronghold.

About a decade after Cochise died, Felix Tellez–the boy whose kidnapping had started the war–resurfaced as an Apache-speaking scout for the U.S. Army. He reported that a group of Western Apache, not Cochise, had kidnapped him.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:47 am
June 8th ~ {continued...}

1880 – Captain W. B. Remey was the first Marine appointed Judge Advocate of the Navy.

1904 – U.S. Marines landed in Tangiers, Morocco, to protect U.S. citizens.

1918 – Prisoners of War Conference at the Hague opens.

1937 – Observation of total eclipse of the sun by U.S. Navy detachment commanded by CAPT J. F. Hellweg, USN, participating in the National Geographic Society – United States Navy Eclipse Expedition at Canton Island in the Phoenix Islands, Pacific Ocean. USS Avocet was assigned to this expedition.

1943 – Senior military officials bring the Zoot Suit Riot under control by declaring Los Angeles off-limits to all sailors, soldiers, and marines. The Shore Patrol is under orders to arrest any disorderly personnel. The Los Angeles City Council passes a resolution banning the wearing of zoot suits in public, punishable by a 50-day jail term.

1944 – A second wave of Allied troops has landed. Elements of the US 7th Corps, from Utah beach, advance toward Cherbourg. The 4th Division engages in heavy fighting near Azeville. Elements of the US 5th Corps, on Omaha beach, capture Isigny but cannot establish a link with the American forces on Utah. A link is established between Omaha and Gold beach once British Marines, part of the 30th Corps, take Port-en-Bessin.

1944 – Russian Premier Joseph Stalin telegraphs British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to announce that the Allied success at Normandy “is a source of joy to us all.” He renews promises to launch his own offensive on the Eastern Front, as had been agreed upon at the Tehran Conference in late ’43, and thereby prevent Hitler from transferring German troops from the east to support troops at Normandy.

1944 – German rearguards slow the advance of the US 5th Army and British 8th Army.

1944 – Fighting continues on Biak Island. A Japanese attempt to ship reinforcements to Biak is intercepted by the cruiser squadron commanded by Admiral Crutchley. It is forced to retreat. On the mainland, at the American beachhead around Aitape, US forces begin counterattacking.

1945 – There are reports that every able bodied Japanese man, woman and child is being given instructions in the fighting of tanks, paratroops and other invading forces.

1945 – On Okinawa, in the north heavy fighting continues on the Oroku peninsula. In the south, the US 24th Corps prepares to attack Mount Yaeju.

1945 – On Luzon, patrols of the US 37th Division reach the Magat river. The US 145th Infantry Regiment (US 37th Division) takes Solano and advances as far as Bagabag, towards the Cagayan valley.

1945 – The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, says at a press conference that British forces would carry the full weight of military responsibilities in Burma and noted the these forces had been reinforced since the end of the war in Europe.

1951 – Paul Bobel, Werner Braune, Erich Naumann, Otto Ohlendorf, Oswald Pohl, W. Schallenmair & Otto Schmidt, last Nazi war criminals, were hanged by Americans at Landsberg Fortress.

1953 – U.N. and communist delegates at the peace talks signed an agreement on the exchange of prisoners. South Korea refused to accept the truce terms.

1958 – Navy and Post Office deliver first official missile mail when USS Barbero (SS-317) fired Regulus II missile with 3000 letters 100 miles east of Jacksonville, FL to Mayport, FL.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:49 am
June 8th ~ {continued...}

1965 – A State Department press officer notes that, “American forces would be available for combat support together with Vietnamese forces when and if necessary,” alerting the press to an apparently major change in the U.S. commitment to the war. Prior to this time, U.S. forces had been restricted to protecting American airbases and other installations. The next day, the White House tried to calm the protests by some in Congress and the media who were alarmed at this potential escalation of the war by issuing a statement claiming, “There has been no change in the missions of United States ground combat units in Vietnam.”

The statement went on to explain that General Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in Saigon, did have the authority to employ troops “in support of Vietnamese forces faced with aggressive attack.” Later in the month, Westmoreland was given formal authority to commit U.S. forces to battle when he decided they were necessary “to strengthen the relative position of the GVN [Government of Vietnam] forces.” This authority and the influx of American combat troops that followed forever changed the role of the United States in the war.

1966 – Gemini astronaut Gene Cernan attempted to become the first man to orbit the Earth untethered to a space capsule, but was unable to when he exhausts himself fitting into his rocket pack.

1967 – During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attack the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt’s Gaza Strip. The intelligence ship, well-marked as an American vessel and only lightly armed, was attacked first by Israeli aircraft that fired napalm and rockets at the ship. The Liberty attempted to radio for assistance, but the Israeli aircraft blocked the transmissions. Eventually, the ship was able to make contact with the U.S. carrier Saratoga, and 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes were dispatched to defend the Liberty.

When word of their deployment reached Washington, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered them recalled to the carrier, and they never reached the Liberty. The reason for the recall remains unclear. Back in the Mediterranean, the initial air raid against the Liberty was over. Nine of the 294 crewmembers were dead and 60 were wounded. Suddenly, the ship was attacked by Israeli torpedo boats, which launched torpedoes and fired artillery at the ship.

Under the command of its wounded captain, William L. McGonagle, the Liberty managed to avert four torpedoes, but one struck the ship at the waterline. Heavily damaged, the ship launched three lifeboats, but these were also attacked–a violation of international law. Failing to sink the Liberty, which displaced 10,000 tons, the Israelis finally desisted. In all, 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded in the two-hour attack. In the attack’s aftermath, the Liberty managed to limp to a safe port.

Israel later apologized for the attack and offered $6.9 million in compensation, claiming that it had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. However, Liberty survivors, and some former U.S. officials, believe that the attack was deliberate, staged to conceal Israel’s pending seizure of Syria’s Golan Heights, which occurred the next day. The ship’s listening devices would likely have overheard Israeli military communications planning this controversial operation. Captain McGonagle was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic command of the Liberty during and after the attack.

1969 – President Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu meet at Midway Island in the Pacific. At the meeting, Nixon announced that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of August. Nixon and Thieu emphasized that South Vietnamese forces would replace U.S. forces.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:51 am
June 8th ~ {continued...}

1970 – In a speech delivered in Hanoi, Norodom Sihanouk pledges Cambodians will fight with the Vietnamese Communists to defeat US ‘imperialism.’

1982 – President Reagan became the first American chief executive to address a joint session of the British Parliament.

1987 – Fawn Hall began testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings, describing how, as secretary to National Security aide Oliver L. North, she helped to shred some documents and spirit away others.

1988 – The judge in the Iran-Contra conspiracy case ruled that Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord and Albert Hakim had to be tried separately.

1990 – CDR Rosemary Mariner becomes first Navy women to command fleet jet aircraft squadron.

1991 – General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Allied forces in Operation “Desert Storm” leads the National Victory Parade up Pennsylvania Avenue past the reviewing stand holding President George H.W. Bush and other dignitaries in the first such military parade held in the nation’s capital since the end of World War I. Among the contingents of military units are composite battalions of Air and Army Guard personnel who served in theater.

1995 – A Marine tactical recovery team from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit stationed on board the USS Kearsarge rescued a downed U.S. pilot, Captain Scott O’Grady, USAF, from Bosnian-Serb territory in Bosnia.

1998 – In New Mexico the $77 million Sloan Digital Sky Survey was reported to be about to start probing the universe.

1998 – The shuttle Discovery pulled away from Mir, ending America’s three-year space partnership with Russia.

1999 – The United States, Russia and six leading democracies authorized a text calling for a peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The G8 agreed to the context of a UN Security Council resolution to end the conflict in Kosovo.

2000 – In Greece Brigadier Stephen Saunders (53), a British diplomat, was assassinated in Athens. The November 17 terrorist group claimed responsibility, saying it killed Saunders because of his role in NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia. In 2002 Iraklis Kostaris was charged with participating in the murder and Vassilis Xiros confessed to the assassination.

2001 – Five Cuban men were convicted in the US for operating as unregistered foreign agents. Gerardo Hernandez (36) was sentenced to life in prison on December 12th.

2003 – A coalition of US mayors meeting in Denver asked federal officials to bypass state governments and give them the money they needed to beef up homeland security.

2003 – Thai police, on a tip from U.S. authorities, arrest Narong Penanam, who tried to sell cesium-137 to make a “dirty bomb.”

2004 – John Ashcroft, US Attorney General, told Congress he would not release a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations.

2004 – U.S.-led troops backed by jet fighters and helicopters killed 21 Taliban militants, after rebels attacked a convoy in the mountains of southern Afghanistan.

2004 – Iraqi officials declared that the interim government has assumed full control of the country’s oil industry.

2004 – In Saudi Arabia an American citizen was shot and killed.

2004 – The UN voted 15-0 to accept a US and British resolution to end the formal co-occupation of Iraq on June 30th.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:04 am
June 9th ~

1628 – Thomas Morton of Mass. became the 1st person deported from what is now the United States.

1732 – Royal charter for Georgia was granted to James Oglethorpe. Before settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures. The British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12, 1733. The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by (and named for) King George II. The Trustees implemented an elaborate plan for the colony’s settlement, known as the Oglethorpe Plan, which envisioned an agrarian society of yeoman farmers and prohibited slavery.

1772 – In an incident that some regard as the first naval engagement of the American Revolution, colonists board the Gaspee, a British vessel that ran aground off the coast of Rhode Island, and set it aflame. The Gaspee was pursuing the Hanna, an American smuggling ship, when it ran aground off Namquit Point in Providence’s Narragansett Bay on June 9. That evening, John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, rowed out to the Gaspee with a number of other colonists and seized control of the ship. After leading away its crew, the Americans set the Gaspee afire. When British officials attempted to prosecute the colonists involved in the so-called “Gaspee Affair,” they found no Americans willing to testify against their countrymen. This renewed the tension in British-American relations and inspired the Boston Patriots to found the “Committee of Correspondence,” a propaganda group that rallied Americans to their cause by publicizing all anti-British activity that occurred throughout the 13 colonies.

1862 – Battle of Port Republic, last of 5 battles in Jackson’s Valley campaign. The Battle of Port Republic was fought in Rockingham County, Virginia, as part of Confederate Army Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s campaign through the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. Port Republic was a fierce contest between two equally determined foes and was the most costly battle fought by Jackson’s Army of the Valley during its campaign. Together, the battles of Cross Keys (fought the previous day) and Port Republic were the decisive victories in Jackson’s Valley Campaign, forcing the Union armies to retreat and leaving Jackson free to reinforce Gen. Robert E. Lee for the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond, Virginia.

1862 – President Lincoln himself, after talking to pilots and studying charts, reconnoitered the eastward side of Sewell’s Point and found a suitably unfortified landing site near Willoughby Point. The troops embarked in transports that night. The next morning they landed near the site selected by the President. The latter, still afloat, from his “command ship” Miami ordered U.S.S. Monitor to reconnoiter Sewell’s Point to learn if the batteries were still manned. When he found the works abandoned, President Lincoln ordered Major General Wool’s troops to march on Norfolk, where they arrived late on the afternoon of the 10th.

1863 – Union mortar boats continued to bombard Vicksburg. From dawn until nearly noon, they poured 175 shells into the city as the Confederate position, cut off from supplies and relief, grew steadily more desperate. Heavy rains curtailed the mortar activity the next day, only some 75 shells being fired, but on the 11th the attack was stepped up once again and Ordnance Gunner Eugene Mack reported that 193 mortar shells fell on the river stronghold. Rear Admiral Porter wrote Secretary Welles: “The mortars keep constantly playing on the city and works, and the gunboats throw in their shell whenever they see any work going on at the batteries, or new batteries being put up. Not a soul is to be seen moving in the city, the soldiers lying in their trenches or pits, and the inhabitants being stowed in caves or holes dug out in the cliffs. If the city is not relieved by a much superior force from the outside, Vicksburg must fall without anything more being done to it. I only wonder it has held out so long. . .”
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:06 am
June 9th ~ {continued...}

1863 – As the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of General Robert E. Lee, started moving northward to take the war to the Union (a move that would eventually end at Gettysburg, PA), General J.E.B. Stuart was tasked to use the Confederate cavalry to screen this movement from Union scouts. But the Federals soon learned of a large rebel presence in area around Culpeper Court House, near a train depot named “Brandy Station.” Two Union cavalry corps, numbering some 11,000 men were dispatched as a “reconnaissance in force” when it clashed with Stuart’s 9,000 man mounted force.

This set the stage for the largest cavalry engagement ever fought on the North American continent. Perhaps the toughest fighting of the day occurred when the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry collided with 10th Virginia Cavalry. In a scene reminiscent of a movie there was a swirling, melee as sabers flashed and dust was kicked up by injured and frightened horses. The 10th Virginia was about to give way when the 9th Virginia Cavalry galloped into the fray and caused so much damage to the 6th PA that it pulled back to regroup. The type of combat experienced by these three units was repeated in numerous encounters over an area of several square miles as nearly 20,000 men and horses charged into each other much as waves clash onto a beach, only to recede to regroup and charge again.

At the end of the day the Confederates held the ground but the Union cavalry, which up to this point in the war had proved ineffective against the rebels, held its own in most of the engagement. The number of Union dead was 852 while the Confederates lost 515 men. Thousands of horses were killed or injured and had to be destroyed.

The 6th PA Cavalry was organized by Colonel Richard Rush in Philadelphia in July 1861, by raising new recruits and combining them with an existing mounted volunteer militia unit from Berks County. The men were issued ten foot lances then popular with European light cavalry. Known as “Rush’s Lancers” they were high-trained, which was enhanced by their assignment to a brigade of five Regular Army cavalry squadrons under the command of Brigadier General John Buford.

By the time of the Battle of Brandy Station the Lancers had traded their lances for Sharps carbine rifles. However several veterans later regretted not having retained the lances as they would have been more effective in the melee than letting their opponent get close enough to use his saber.

1864 – Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, GA (Pine Mt, Pine Knob, Golgotha).

1870 – President Grant met with Sioux chief Red Cloud.

1883 – The 1st commercial electric railway line began operation Chicago.

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States’ handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1916 – Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, 8th United States Secretary of Defense was born.

1918 – Under orders form General Erich Ludendorff, the deputy chief of the German General Staff, General Oskar von Hutier’s Eighteenth Army launches the fourth in a series of offensives. Ludendorff is aiming to unite two salient, carved out in previous attacks, in the Amiens and Aisne-Marne sectors. Hutier is to attack westward along the Matz River, a tributary of the Oise River, in the direction of Noyon and Montdidier. The commander of the Third French Army, however, General Georges Humbert, has been forewarned by deserters of the German attack and organizes his defenses accordingly. He initiates an artillery bombardment on the enemy assault troops shortly before their onslaught.

This is still unable to prevent the Germans from gaining some 5 miles on the first day of their attack which is codenamed Gneisenau. French resistance intensifies over the following days and the attempted link-up between Hutier’s troops and the German Seventh Army under General Max von Boehn, which began an attack from Soissons on the 10th, fails. Meanwhile, French general Charles Mangin has organized a counterattacking force of three French and two US divisions. These strike the Eighteenth Army on the 12th, forcing Ludendorff to call off the operation the following day.

1931 – Robert H. Goddard patented a rocket-fueled aircraft design.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:08 am
June 9th ~ {continued...}

1942 – The Japanese high command announced that “The Midway Occupation operations have been temporarily postponed.”

1942 – First Navy photograhic interpretation unit set up in the Atlantic.

1942 – The British and Americans appoint Oliver Lyttleton and Donald Nelson as heads of the Combined Boards for Production and Food.

1943 – World War II prompted sweeping fiscal changes in the United States, as President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress geared the nation for the rigors of wartime production. Along with reallocating vast chunks of America’s work force to the task of manufacturing military items, Roosevelt helped establish tight controls on wages, prices, and consumption.

While most of these initiatives were brought to a halt shortly after the declaration of peace in 1945, at least one wartime fiscal policy–the Current Tax Payment Act — has had some enduring impact. Indeed, the tax legislation, which hit the law books on this day in 1943, paved the path for withholding on income taxes. In particular, the bill, popularly known as the “Pay As You Go Tax,” allowed Americans to taxpayers to withhold federal income taxes before getting paid their wages or salaries.

1944 – On the right flank of the invasion beaches, elements of the US 7th Corps capture Azeville in its northward drive toward Cherbourg. Other elements are moving west toward Carentan. The US 5th Corps, from Omaha beach, capture Trevieres. The British and Canadian forces of the British 2nd Army are heavily engaged by growing German reserves around Caen. Allied aircraft are now operating from forward landing strips in France.

1944 – Forces of the US 5th Army capture Tarquinia, Viterbo and Vetrella. Elements of British 8th Army advance toward Terni and Orvieto. A small amphibious force lands at Santo Stefano. Meanwhile, there is a substantial reorganization of Allied forces. Elements of British 10th and 13th Corps are regrouped while elements of the US 6th Corps, mostly, are withdrawn from the line for the invasion of southern France.

1944 – Marshal Badoglio resigns and Ivanoe Bonomi forms a new government. The cabinet includes Count Sforza, Professor Croce and Togliatti, the Communist Party leader.

1945 – On Okinawa, the Japanese forces defending the Oroku peninsula are cut off and surrounded by forces of the US 6th Marine Division. The US 1st Marine Division advance southward to Kunishi Ridge, one of the last Japanese strong points.

1945 – On Luzon, the US 37th Division captures Bagabag. The American forces attempt to block the routes into the Cagayan valley in order to isolate the Japanese forces concentrated in the Sierra Madre, in the northeast. On Mindanao, elements of the US 24th Division take Mandog, the last major strong point in the Japanese defenses.

1945 – Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.

1948 – Israel became a state and was immediately attacked by her Arab neighbors. About 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel after the founding. Most others fled or were forced out.

1951 – Eighth Army commander Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet insisted that his forces occupy suitable ground in the event of a cease-fire.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:10 am
June 9th ~ {continued...}

1954 – In a dramatic confrontation, Joseph Welch, special counsel for the U.S. Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether communism has infiltrated the U.S. armed forces. Welch’s verbal assault marked the end of McCarthy’s power during the anticommunist hysteria of the Red Scare in America.

Senator McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) experienced a meteoric rise to fame and power in the U.S. Senate when he charged in February 1950 that “hundreds” of “known communists” were in the Department of State. In the years that followed, McCarthy became the acknowledged leader of the so-called Red Scare, a time when millions of Americans became convinced that communists had infiltrated every aspect of American life. Behind closed-door hearings, McCarthy bullied, lied, and smeared his way to power, destroying many careers and lives in the process.

1959 – Launching of USS George Washington (SSBN-598), first nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarine, at Groton, CT.

1961 – Diem requests US assistance in increasing the South Vietnamese Army by 100,000 men. In August, Washington agrees to finance a 30,000 man increase, but continues to postpone the buildup of US advisors, Diem also requested.

1963 – JFK named Winston Churchill a US honorary citizen.

1964 – In reply to a formal question submitted by President Lyndon B. Johnson–“Would the rest of Southeast Asia necessarily fall if Laos and South Vietnam came under North Vietnamese control?”–the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) submits a memo that effectively challenges the “domino theory” backbone of the Johnson administration policies. This theory contended that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of Southeast Asia would also fall “like dominoes,” and the theory had been used to justify much of the Vietnam War effort. The CIA concluded that Cambodia was probably the only nation in the area that would immediately fall.

1969 – President Thieu, in a televised news conference in Saigon, attempts to counter the gloom following his meeting with President Nixon by saying ‘this is a replacement, not a withdrawal. Withdrawal is a defeatist and misleading term.’

1972 – In Military Region II, senior US advisor John Paul Vann is killed in a helicopter crash.

1972 – Under President Nixon, the number of USAF fighter bombers in Southeast Asia has tripled, the number of aircraft carriers has tripled and will quadruple (2 to 8), and B-52s are being quadrupled.

1972 – Part of a relief column composed mainly of South Vietnamese 21st Division troops finally arrives in the outskirts of An Loc. The division had been trying to reach the besieged city since April 9, when it had been moved from its normal station in the Mekong Delta and ordered to attack up Highway 13 from Lai Khe to open the route to An Loc. The South Vietnamese forces had been locked in a desperate battle with a North Vietnamese division that had been blocking the highway since the very beginning of the siege.

As the 21st Division tried to open the road, the defenders inside An Loc fought off repeated attacks by two North Vietnamese divisions that had surrounded the city early in April. This was the southernmost thrust of the North Vietnamese invasion that had begun on March 30th; the other main objectives were Quang Tri in the north and Kontum in the Central Highlands. Although the lead elements of the 21st Division reached the outskirts of the city on this day, they did not represent significant reinforcements for An Loc, having suffered tremendous casualties in their fight up the highway and the two-month siege was not lifted.

It would not be lifted until large numbers of fresh reinforcements were flown in to a position south of the city from which they then successfully attacked the North Vietnamese forces that surrounded the city. By the end of the month, most of the communist troops within the city had been eliminated, but the North Vietnamese forces still blocked Route 13 and continued to shell An Loc.

1985 – Thomas Sutherland, former Dean of Agriculture at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad members near his Beirut home. He was released on November 18, 1991 at the same time as Terry Waite, having been held hostage for 2353 days.

1986 – The Rogers Commission released its report on the “Challenger” disaster, criticizing NASA and rocket-builder Morton Thiokol for management problems leading to the explosion that claimed the lives of seven astronauts. The Space Shuttle Challenger blew up as a result of a failure in a solid rocket booster joint.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:13 am
June 9th ~ {continued...}

1994 – In a bipartisan slap at President Clinton, the House of Representatives voted 244-178 for the United States to defy the international arms embargo on Bosnia.

1995 – One week after being shot down over Bosnia by a Bosnian Serb missile, and a day after being rescued, US Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady was warmly welcomed by his comrades at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

1997 – Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston gave up his fight to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his candidacy doomed by the clamor over his admission that he’d had an adulterous affair years ago.

1999 – Germany sent $18 million to the US Treasury for distribution to the survivors of the WW II concentration camps.

1999 – Yugoslav and Western generals signed a military agreement to end the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia based on a demonstrable withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and a complete pullout in 11 days.

2002 – U.S. military officials reported that traces of nerve agents and mustard gas were found in three locations at a U.S. base in Uzbekistan. Later tests reported no contamination.

2002 – Iraq and Qatar signed a free-trade agreement to drop customs duties and ease the flow of goods between the two Arab countries, further mending relations damaged by the 1990-91 Gulf War.

2003 – As rebels bore down on the capital of Liberia, French helicopters rescued more than 500 Americans, Europeans and other foreigners.

2004 – G-8 Summit leaders at Sea Island Resort near Savannah, Georgia, called for Middle East reform and a broader role for NATO in Iraq.

2004 – An Afghan commander said that Afghan and U.S. forces killed more than 70 Taliban rebels in a seven-day operation in a mountainous southern district, including at least 20 militants who died in a single clash.

2004 – At least 20 militants were killed in a gunbattle with the Pakistani army in a tense border region where hundreds of al-Qaida militants are suspected to be hiding.

2014 – Following its large-scale offensives in Iraq, ISIS had seized control of most of Mosul, the second most populous city in Iraq, a large part of the surrounding Nineveh province, and the city of Fallujah. ISIS also took control of Tikrit, the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate, with the ultimate goal of capturing Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The militants seized control of government offices, the airport and police stations.

Militants also looted the Central Bank in Mosul, reportedly absconding with $429 million US dollars. More than 500,000 people fled Mosul to escape ISIS. Mosul is a strategic city as it is at a crossroad between Syria and Iraq, and poses the threat of ISIS seizing control of oil production.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:33 am
June 10th ~

1610 – The 1st Dutch settlers arrived from NJ to colonize Manhattan Island.

1639 – The 1st American log cabin at Fort Christina (Wilmington, Delaware).

1776 – The Continental Congress appointed a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.

1805 – Wearied of the blockade and raids, and now under threat of a continued advance on Tripoli proper and a scheme to restore his deposed older brother Hamet Karamanli as ruler, Yusuf Karamanli signed a treaty ending hostilities with the United States.

Article 2 of the Treaty reads: The Bashaw of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the Subjects of the Bashaw of Tripoli now in the power of the United States of America shall be delivered up to him; and as the number of Americans in possession of the Bashaw of Tripoli amounts to Three Hundred Persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino Subjects in the power of the Americans to about, One Hundred more or less; The Bashaw of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of Sixty Thousand Dollars, as a payment for the difference between the Prisoners herein mentioned.

1848 – The 1st telegraph link between NYC & Chicago was established.

1854 – U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD, holds first formal graduation exercises. Previous classes graduated without ceremony.

1861 – The Virginia village of Big Bethel became the site of the 1st major land battle of the Civil War. Private Henry L. Wyatt was the 1st Confederate soldier killed in a Civil War battle. 18 Union soldiers were killed.

1861 – Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, CSN. ordered to design ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (ex-U.S.S. Merrimack).

1862 – Norfolk Navy Yard set afire before being evacuated by Confederate forces in a general withdrawal up the peninsula to defend Richmond. Union troops under Major General Wool crossed Hampton Roads from Fort Monroe, landed at Ocean View, and captured Norfolk.

1862 – Pensacola reoccupied by Union Army and Navy forces. Military installations in the area, including the Navy Yard, Forts Barrancas and McRee, C.S.S. Fulton, and an ironclad building on the Escambia River, were destroyed by the Confederates the preceding day before withdrawing. Commander D. D. Porter reported to Secretary of the Navy Welles: “The rebels had done their work completely. The yard is a ruin.

Abandonment of the important Pensacola coastal area had been in preparation by the Confederates for months after Flag Officer Foote’s stunning successes on the upper Mississippi made redeployment of guns and troops necessary. Flag Officer Farragut’s momentous victory at New Orleans precipitated the final evacuation. Colonel Thomas M. Jones, CSA, commanding at Pensacola, reported: “On receiving information that the enemy’s gunboats had succeeded in passing the forts below New Orleans with their powerful batteries and splendid equipments, I came to the conclusion that, with my limited means of defense, reduced, as I have been by the withdrawal of nearly all my heavy guns and ammunition, I could not hold them in check or make even a respectable show of resistance.”

1862 – Confederate River Defense Fleet C.S.S. General Bragg, General Sumter, General Sterling Price, General Earl Van Dorn, General M. Jeff Thompson, General Lovell, General Beauregard, and Little Rebel–made a spirited attack on Union gunboats and mortar flotilla at Plum Point Bend, Tennessee. The Confederate fleet, Captain James E. Montgomery, attacked Mortar Boat No. 16, stationed just above Fort Pillow and engaged in bombarding the works. U.S.S. Cincinnati, Commander Stembel, coming to the mortar boat’s defense, was rammed by Bragg and sank on a bar in eleven feet of water.

Van Dorn rammed U.S.S. Mound City, Commander Kilty, forcing her to run aground to avoid sinking. The draft of the Confederate vessels would not permit them to press the attack into the shoal water in which the Union squadron steamed, and, having sustained various but minor injuries, Montgomery withdrew under the guns of Fort Pillow. Cincinnati and Mound City were quickly repaired and returned to service.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:35 am
June 10th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Ironclad steamer U.S.S. New Ironsides launched at Philadelphia.

1863 – Rear Admiral Du Pont ordered U.S.S. Weehawken, Captain J. Rodgers, and U.S.S. Nahant, Commander Downes, to Wassaw Sound, Georgia, where it was reported that the powerful ram C.S.S. Atlanta, Commander Webb, was preparing to attack the wooden blockader U.S.S. Cimarron. A week later Du Pont’s wise foresight would save the day for the Union blockade there.

1863 – Confederate officer prisoners of war being transported to Fort Delaware on board steamer Maple Leaf overpowered the guard, took possession of the steamer, and landed below Cape Henry, Virginia.

1864 – Nathan Bedford Forrest’s legend grows substantially when his Confederate cavalry routs a much larger Union force in Mississippi. When Union General William T. Sherman inched toward Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 1864, he left behind a vulnerable supply line through Tennessee. Of utmost concern to Sherman was the Rebel cavalry under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a daring leader who gave Union commanders in the west difficulty throughout the war. Sherman insisted that Forrest be neutralized and ordered a force from Memphis to hunt down Forrest’s command, which at that time was in northern Alabama.

On June 1st, some 5,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry troopers under the command of General Samuel D. Sturgis trudged out of Memphis in search of the elusive Forrest. But rain and poor roads slowed them, and a week’s travel found the Yankees only 50 miles from Memphis. Forrest had been preparing for an assault on central Tennessee, but Sturgis’s expedition forced him back to northern Mississippi. The Confederates spread out along a railroad between Tupelo and Corinth and awaited the Union advance.

On June 8th, Forrest learned that Sturgis was moving on Tupelo. He carefully selected Brice’s Crossroads for its muddy roads and dense woods to mitigate the Union’s numerical advantage and called for his men to attack the leading Yankee cavalry, which would force the trailing infantry to hurry to the battle and fight before recovering from the march. The plan worked to perfection.

Around 10 a.m. on June 10th, the cavalry forces began fighting, and the Union infantry made a five-mile dash in intense heat and humidity to aid their fellow soldiers. In the afternoon, Forrest orchestrated a series of attacks all along the Union front, which broke the Yankee lines and sent the Federals from the field in disarray with the Confederates in hot pursuit. The chase continued into the next day.

Sturgis’s command suffered over 600 killed and wounded and over 1,600 captured—more than a quarter of the entire force. Forrest’s force suffered less than 600 killed and wounded, and the Confederates captured 16 cannons and 176 supply wagons. Forrest was never able to disrupt Sherman’s supply lines. However, the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads stands as his greatest military victory.

1871 – A landing force of 110 U.S. Marines came ashore on Korea’s Kangwha Island, a fortress island guarding the approaches to Seoul. The Korean Punitive Expedition was launched from an American fleet, which anchored in the Han River after the isolationist Korean government rejected U.S. diplomatic demands for an explanation of the fate of an American ship and her crew believed killed by the Koreans. In two days of fighting, the Marines and sailors captured the defensive forts on the Island, leaving 243 Koreans dead. Nevertheless, the expedition failed to open Korea to foreign trade.

1898 – The First Marine Battalion, commanded by LtCol Robert W. Huntington, landed on the eastern side of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The next day, Lt Herbert L. Draper hoisted the American flag on a flag pole at Camp McCalla where it flew during the next eleven days. LtCol Huntington later sent the flag with an accompanying letter to Colonel Commandant Charles Heywood noting that “when bullets were flying, …the sight of the flag upon the midnight sky has thrilled our hearts.”
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:37 am
June 10th ~ {continued...}

1905 – Japan and Russia agreed to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1915 – Girl Scouts were founded.

1940 – As President Franklin D. Roosevelt prepares to deliver the commencement address at the University of Virginia where his son is graduating with a law degree, Italy declares war on France and Great Britain. Rather than deliver his prepared speech, Roosevelt instead expresses his opposition to Mussolini’s move and calls on America to end its isolationism. This becomes known as the “Stab in the back” speech.

1942 – The carrier USS Wasp and battleship USS North Carolina accompanied by cruisers and destroyers pass through the canal to join the US Pacific Fleet after service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. There are now four American fleet aircraft carriers in the Pacific theater.

1943 – Operation Husky, Allied landing on Sicily. The landings took place in extremely strong wind conditions, which made the landings difficult but also ensured the element of surprise. Landings were made on the southern and eastern coasts of the island, with the British forces in the East and the Americans towards the West. Four airborne operations were carried out, landing during the night as part of the invasion; two were British and two American.

The American troops were the 82nd Airborne division, making their first combat parachute jump. The strong winds blew the dropping aircraft off course and scattered them widely; the result was that around half the US paratroops failed to make it to their rallying points. British glider-landed troops fared little better; only 12 out of 144 gliders landing on target, many landing in the sea. Nevertheless the scattered airborne troops maximized their opportunities, attacking patrols and creating confusion wherever possible. The sea landings, despite the weather, were carried out against little opposition, the Italian units stationed on the shoreline lacking equipment and transport. The British walked into the port of Syracuse virtually unopposed. Only in the American center was a substantial counterattack made, in exactly the point where the US Airborne were supposed to have been.

1943 – The Combined Chiefs of Staff issue the Pointblank Directive to British and American heavy bomber forces in Europe. The document sets out formal instructions for the priorities and aims of the bomber offensive up to D-Day. The instructions reflect American thought more so than British but the guidelines are vague enough that both the US Air Force and British Bomber Command can continue their independent operations.

1944 – The U.S. VII and V corps, advancing from Normandy’s Utah and Omaha beaches, respectively, linked-up and began moving inland. The Utah and Omaha beaches are linked up by an advance of the US 2nd Armored Division (part of 5th Corps). The US 101st Airborne Division continues to be engaged around Carentan.

1944 – In a diversionary action, British aircraft from Illustrious and Atheling raid Japanese positions on Sabang. The intent is to distract Japanese attention from American forces approaching the Mariana Islands.

1945 – On Okinawa, fighting continues on the Oroku Peninsula, where the forces of the US 6th Marine Division have reduced the Japanese pocket to about 2000 square yards. Heavy Japanese losses are recorded in nighttime counterattacks. Meanwhile, on the south of the island, the US 1st Marine Division suffers heavy losses in the successful capture of a hill west of the town of Yuza. The US 24th Corps forces, to the left, launches a major offensive against the last Japanese defensive line, the Yaeju-Dake Line. Japanese resistance is evidently weakening.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:39 am
June 10th ~ {continued...}

1945 – On Luzon, Japanese forces halt the advance of the US 37th Division near Orioung Pass.

1945 – In Frankfurt, Marshal Zhukov confers the Soviet Order of Victory on Field Marshal Montgomery and General Eisenhower. During the evening, in a message broadcast by Hamburg radio, Field Marshal Montgomery says that the German people must be taught that not only have they been defeated, but that they are guilty of beginning the war as they were guilty in 1914. He suggests parents read the message to their children and ensure that they understand it.

1948 – The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager, piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947

1953 – During the siege of Outpost Harry, the 15th Infantry Regiment and the 5th Regimental Combat Team, both of the 3rd Infantry Division, repelled an assault by the Chinese 74th Division. The Chinese suffered an estimated 4,200 casualties.

1953 – The Chinese opened an assault on ROK II Corps near Kumsong. By June 16, ROK II Corps had been pushed to a new main line of resistance.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing bagged his third double MiG kill and qualified as the seventh “double ace” of the war, with a total of 10 kills.

1953 – In a forceful speech, President Dwight D. Eisenhower strikes back at critics of his Cold War foreign policy. He insisted that the United States was committed to the worldwide battle against communism and that he would maintain a strong U.S. defense. Just a few months into his presidency, and with the Korean War still raging, Eisenhower staked out his basic approach to foreign policy with this speech.

With this speech, Eisenhower thus enunciated two major points of what came to be known at the time as his “New Look” foreign policy. First was his advocacy of multi-nation responses to communist aggression in preference to unilateral action by the United States. Second was the idea that came to be known as the “bigger bang for the buck” defense strategy. This postulated that a cheaper and more efficient defense could be built around the nation’s nuclear arsenal rather than a massive increase in conventional land, air, and sea forces.

1963 – MACV Commander General Paul Harkins is reported to warn US military personnel to avoid duty with Vietnamese military units involved in the suppression of the Buddhists.

1964 – Embarrassed by the disclosure of US participation in air action sin Laos, Souvanna Phouma threatens to resign if the flights don’t stop. The US Ambassador to Los, Leonard Unger, persuades Souvanna to change his mind, and after a temporary suspension, the US State Department announces on the 11th that the reconnaissance flights will continue ‘as necessary’ but that ‘operational aspects would not be discussed.’ This results in describing all US air operations in Laos during the coming years as ‘reconnaissance flights.’

1965 – Amid rising criticism of the new combat role of US forces in Vietnam, Johnson’s Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, writes to assure the president that he has the authority to commit large-scale forces without going back to Congress.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:41 am
June 10th ~ {continued...}

1965 – Some 1,500 Viet Cong start a mortar attack on the district capital of Dong Xoai, about 60 miles northeast of Saigon, and then quickly overrun the town’s military headquarters and an adjoining militia compound. Other Viet Cong forces conducted a raid on a U.S. Special Forces camp about a mile away. U.S. helicopters flew in South Vietnamese reinforcements, but the Viet Cong isolated and cut down the troops. Heavy U.S. air strikes eventually helped to drive off the Viet Cong, but not before the South Vietnamese had suffered between 800 and 900 casualties and the United States had 7 killed, 12 missing and presumed dead, and 15 wounded. The Viet Cong were estimated to have lost 350 in the ground combat and perhaps several hundred more in air attacks.

1968 – At a Saigon news conference on the day he is to turn over command of U.S. forces in Vietnam to Gen. Creighton Abrams, Gen. William Westmoreland offers his assessment of past and current trends in the war. In defense of his attrition policy, Westmoreland declared that it would ultimately make continued fighting “intolerable to the enemy.” He also explained that, because it was impossible to “cut a surface line of communication with other than ground operations,” Washington’s ban on ground attacks to interdict communist infiltration through Laos precluded the achievement of military victory.

Westmoreland denied, however, that the military situation was stalemated. Westmoreland’s approach to the war had all but been discredited by the communist Tet Offensive, which was launched in January 30, 1968. In the wake of the widespread Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacks, there was a review of U.S. policy by the Johnson administration. When it was decided to de-escalate the war, halt the bombing of North Vietnam, and go to the negotiating table, Westmoreland was reassigned to become the Army Chief of Staff, a post he held until his retirement from the service in 1972.

1969 – President Nixon says the Midway meeting ahs ‘opened wide the door to peace’ and invites North Vietnam to ‘walk with us through that door.’ Nixon challenges North Vietnam to begin withdrawing forces or to begin serious negotiations, or both.

1970 – A fifteen-man group of special forces troops began training for Operation Kingpin, a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam. The daring rescue raid at the Son Tay prison camp deep within North Vietnam lacked only one essential ingredient–POWs.

1972 – US Phantom jets destroy Langchi hydroelectric power plant, using 2,000-pound, laser-guided bombs. Langchi supplied power to the Hanoi-Haiphong area.

1977 – The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:43 am
June 10th ~ {continued...}

1991 – For the second time in three days, the nation witnesses a “Victory Parade” to celebrate the quick defeat and expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Among the marching units is the New York Guard’s 719th Transportation Company, adescendent of the all-black 369th Infantry which gained fame as the “Harlem Hellfighters” in World War I.

This parade is the first military “victory” parade held in Manhattan’s “Canyon of Heroes” since the end of World War II. While General Douglas MacArthur was given a ticker-tape parade by the city in 1951 (after being relieved of his command in Korea by President Truman), no victory parade was offered by the city after the end of the Korean or Vietnam wars. So when the plans for the Desert Storm parade were made, special invitations were made to Korean and Vietnam veterans’ organizations to join in the march.

1994 – President Clinton intensified sanctions against Haiti’s military leaders, suspending U.S. commercial air travel and most financial transactions between the two countries.

1995 – US Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady, rescued after being shot down over Bosnia, described his six day ordeal at a news conference at Aviano Air Base in Italy, saying he was no Rambo and no hero.

1996 – Intel released its 200 Mhz Pentium chip.

1997 – Former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt was released on bail after 27 years behind bars on what he says were trumped-up murder charges. Authorities decided against retrying him.

1999 – The UN Security Council authorized deployment of 50,000 NATO-led peacekeepers for Kosovo.

1999 – NATO suspended its bombing of Kosovo after Yugoslav troops began withdrawing following a 78-day air war. Serb forces begin their withdrawal from Kosovo after signing an agreement with the NATO powers. Rebuilding Kosovo was estimated at $5 billion. Rebuilding all of Yugoslavia was estimated at $20-100 billion.

2002 – US officials announced the breakup of a terrorist plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Abdullah Al Mujahir, also known as Jose Padilla, was arrested on May 8 as he flew from Pakistan into Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Padilla was said to be a US-born al-Qaeda associate scouting targets for the bomb.

2003 – NASA launched a Mars Exploration Rover named Spirit, the 1st of 2.

2003 – In Iraq US forces launched Operation Peninsula Strike aimed at rounding up Hussein loyalists around Thuluya, 45 miles north of Baghdad.

2004 – A G-8 summit at Sea Island Resort near Savannah, Georgia, ended without an agreement on Iraq. The group agreed to extend through 2006 the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.

2007 – After success in pilot program in Anbar Province, US forces in Iraq begin supplying arms to Sunni groups who have turned against al Qaeda and agree to help fight insurgents. Part of this program is the development of leadership councils, Awakening Councils, to whom these fighters are responsible.
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:36 am
June 11th ~

1517 – Sir Thomas Pert reached Hudson Bay.

1775 – The Battle of Machias (also known as the Battle of the Margaretta) was the first naval engagement of the American Revolutionary War. It took place in and around the port of Machias in what is now eastern Maine, and resulted in the capture by Patriot militia of a British schooner. Following the outbreak of the war and the start of the Siege of Boston, British authorities enlisted the assistance of Loyalist merchant Ichabod Jones to assist in the acquisition of needed supplies.

Two of Jones’ merchant ships arrived in Machias on June 2nd, accompanied by the British armed sloop Margaretta, commanded by midshipman James Moore. The townspeople, unhappy with Jones’ business practices, decided to arrest him, and in the attempt, decided to go after Moore and his ship. Moore was able to escape out of the harbor, but the townspeople seized one of Jones’ ships, armed it and a second local ship, and sailed out to meet him. In a short confrontation, they captured Moore’s vessel and crew, fatally wounding him in the process.

1776 – A committee to draft the document of Independence met. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman and Thomas Jefferson were the members. They immediately delegated the writing to Adams and Jefferson, and Adams gave it over to Jefferson.

1788 – Searching for sea otter pelts and other furs, the Russian explorer Gerrasim Grigoriev Izmailov reaches the Alaskan coast, setting his ship in at Yakutat Bay. Although most Americans think of the exploration of the Far West as an affair that began in the East and proceeded westward, the opposite was true for Russians. In the far northern Pacific, Russia was separated from the North American continent only by the relatively manageable expanse of the Bering Sea. Czar Peter the Great and his successors commissioned journeys east to the coast of Alaska, including the 1741 voyage of Vitus Bering, whose name was given to the narrow strait that separates northern Alaska and Russia.

Bering also brought back to Russia reports that sea otter pelts were abundant in the land they called Alaska, a Russian corruption of an Aleut word meaning “peninsula” or “mainland.” Russian fur trading companies were formed, and they soon became the semi-official exploratory representatives of the czars. By the late 19th century, British, Spanish, and American vessels were also sailing the waters off the coast of Alaska, and Russia became increasingly concerned about protecting its claims to the region. Gerrasim Grigoriev Izmailov joined the Russian effort to explore and claim Alaska in 1776, making a highly successful fur trading and trapping journey that netted a cargo worth some $86,000.

Thereafter, he made numerous fur-gathering voyages to Alaska, sailing out of the port of Okhotsk on the Russian East Coast. By the late 1780s, Izmailov had become one of a small number of Russian captains with extensive experience sailing the Alaskan Coast. Eager to advance the Russian claim to Prince William Sound and the Alaskan coast, Izmailov’s backers sent him on an exploratory and diplomatic voyage into the region. Izmailov initially reached several islands off the coast where he erected large wooden crosses proclaiming the territory to be the property of Russia.

He then proceeded eastward down the Alaskan coastline, finally putting into shore at Yakutat Bay on this day in 1788. At Yakutat Bay, Izmailov immediately began a peaceful and successful program of fur trading with the Tlingit Indians. He presented the Tlingit Chief Ilkhak with a portrait of Czar Paul, presumably suggesting that the far-off monarch should be viewed as the Tlingit’s new ruler. In a rather ineffective attempt to further solidify the Russian claim, Izmailov had two large copper plates marking “the extent of Russia’s domain” buried nearby.

More a symbolic gesture than an actual assertion of ownership, they were designed to prove Russia had been the first western nation to arrive in the area. True Russian control over the region was not established until fur trading posts and settlements were constructed over the next few decades. After further exploring the Alaskan coast, Izmailov eventually returned to his homeport of Okhotsk, where he is thought to have died in around 1796. Although the Russians continued to consolidate their hold on Alaska during the first half of the 19th century, the claim had become tenuous and expensive to maintain by the 1860s. In 1867, Russia sold the region of Alaska to the United States for $7 million.
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:38 am
June 11th ~ {continued...}

1823 – Major General James L. Kemper (d.1895), Confederate hero, was born. He fought at the battles of Williamsburg and Gettysburg.

1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurred in Boston, Massachusetts. The riot began when a company of Yankee firefighters met with an Irish funeral procession on Broad Street. Fire Engine Company 20 was returning from a fire in Roxbury. Many of the firefighters went to a saloon nearby. Afterwards, while traveling back to the fire station, George Fay either insulted or shoved members of a passing Irish funeral procession. The Irish and firemen began to fight, but under the orders of W.W. Miller, the firemen ran to the station. Miller sounded the emergency alarm, calling all of the fire engines in Boston.

Although many of the Irish had left the scene, the fire companies continued to come as called. As the fight continued, local Yankees and Irishmen joined the row. Eventually 1000 people were included in the melee, though no one was killed. Several houses were broken into and vandalized, and the rioters launched rocks and other missiles at each other. The fight was broken up when Mayor Samuel A. Eliot commanded 10 companies from the military to patrol the neighborhoods surrounding Broad Street.

1853 – Five Navy ships leave Norfolk, VA on 3 year exploring expedition to survey the far Pacific.

1859 – Comstock silver load was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor, Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstack mines and became rich. They were John Mackay, James Fair, James Flood, and William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn wagon over Donner Pass to San Francisco.

1861 – Union forces under General George B. McClellen repulsed a Confederate force at Rich Mountain in Western Virginia.

1862 – C.S.S. Virginia blown up by her crew off Craney Island to avoid capture. The fall of Norfolk to Union forces denied Virginia her base, and when it was discovered that she drew too much water to be brought up the James River, Flag Officer Tattnall ordered the celebrated ironclad’s destruction. “Thus perished the Virginia,” Tattnall wrote, “and with her many high flown hopes of naval supremacy and success.” For the Union, the end of Virginia not only removed the formidable threat to the large base at Fort Monroe, but gave Flag Officer Goldsborough’s fleet free passage up the James River as far as Drewry’s Bluff, a factor which was to save the Peninsular Campaign from probable disaster.

1864 – Confederate cavalry intercepts General Phillip Sheridan’s Union cavalry as it seeks to destroy a rail line. A two-day battle ensued in which the Confederates drove off the Yankees with minimal damage to a precious supply line. Shortly after the Battle of Cold Harbor earlier in the month, Union General Ulysses S. Grant dispatched Sheridan, his cavalry commander, to ride towards Charlottesville and cut the Virginia Central Railroad. The line was supplying Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, which was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Grant’s Army of the Potomac around Richmond and Petersburg. Sheridan swung north around Richmond and headed toward Charlottesville, 60 miles northwest of Richmond. General Wade Hampton, commander of the Confederate cavalry since General J.E.B. Stuart had died the previous month, heard of Sheridan’s move and set out to intercept the Yankees.

On the morning of June 11th, Union General George Custer’s men attacked Hampton’s supply train near Trevilian Station. Although they scored an initial success, Custer soon found himself almost completely surrounded by Rebel cavalry. Custer formed his men into a triangle and made several counterattacks before Sheridan came to his rescue in the late afternoon, taking 500 Southern prisoners in the process. The struggle continued the next day. With his ammunition running low and his cavalry dangerously far from its supply line, Sheridan eventually withdrew his force and returned to the Army of the Potomac. The Yankees tore up about five miles of rail line, but the damage was relatively light for the high number of casualties. Sheridan lost 735 men compared to nearly 1,000 for Hampton. But the Confederates had driven off the Yankees and minimized damage to the railroad.
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:40 am
June 11th ~ {continued...}

1865 – Major General Henry W. Halleck found documents and archives of the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia. This discovery led to the publication of the official war records.

1918 – A Marine assault following artillery bombardment succeeds in capturing two-thirds of Belleau Wood, but with heavy casualties. A battalion commander, Lt. Col. Frederick Wise erroneously reports his men were in control of the woods, but has misread his maps and position. Brigade Commander James Harbord requests relief for his men reporting their near physical exhaustion.

1927 – USS Memphis arrives at Washington, DC, with Charles Lindbergh and his plane, Spirit of St. Louis, after his non-stop flight across the Atlantic.

1934 – The Disarmament Conference in Geneva ended in failure.

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1941 – Amendment to act creating Coast Guard (January 28, 1915) provided “The Coast Guard shall be a military service and constitute a branch of the land and naval forces of the United States at all times.”

1942 – Soviet Ambassador Litvinov and US Secretary of State Hull sign an additional Lend-Lease agreement between the US and the USSR.

1943 – The bombardment of the Italian island of Pantelleria continues. More than 5000 tons of bombs have been dropped on the island in the last month. Pantelleria’s 11,000-strong Italian garrison surrenders without a fight on the approach of an Allied assault force. The damage done by the lengthy, intensive bombardment is less than has been expected.

1944 – USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.

1944 – Five days after the D-Day landing, the five Allied landing groups, made up of some 330,000 troops, link up in Normandy to form a single solid front across northwestern France. On June 6, 1944, after a year of meticulous planning conducted in secrecy by a joint Anglo-American staff, the largest combined sea, air, and land military operation in history began on the French coast at Normandy. The Allied invasion force included 3 million men, 13,000 aircraft, 1,200 warships, 2,700 merchant ships, and 2,500 landing craft.

Fifteen minutes after midnight on June 6, the first of 23,000 U.S., British, and Canadian paratroopers and glider troops plunged into the darkness over Normandy. Just before dawn, Allied aircraft and ships bombed the French coast along the Baie de la Seine, and at daybreak the bombardment ended as 135,000 Allied troops stormed ashore at five landing sites. Despite the formidable German coastal defenses, beachheads were achieved at all five landing locations. At one site–Omaha Beach–German resistance was especially strong, and the Allied position was only secured after hours of bloody fighting by the Americans assigned to it.

By the evening, some 150,000 American, British, and Canadian troops were ashore, and the Allies held about 80 square miles. During the next five days, Allied forces in Normandy moved steadily forward in all sectors against fierce German resistance. On June 11th, the five landing groups met up, and Operation Overlord–the code name for the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe–proceeded as planned.

1944 – U.S. battleships off Normandy continue to provide gunfire support for the landings.
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:42 am
June 11th ~ {continued...}

1944 – Elements of the French Expeditionary Corps (part of US 5th Army) capture Montefiascone, west of Viterbo. Force of the British 8th Army, inland, are engaged near Cantalupo and Bagnoregio.

1944 – The US 15th Air Force, operating from bases in Italy, raids the airfield at Focsani, Romania. The aircraft fly on to Soviet held territory in the first “shuttle” run of this sort.

1944 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) begins raids against Japanese bases on Saipan, Tinian and other islands. TF58 has 9 fleet carriers and 6 light carriers. Task Group 58.7 (Admiral Lee) provides escort. An estimated 36 Japanese planes are shot down. Task Group 58.4 attacks shipping in the area. The Japanese lose 3 minor warships and about 30,000 tons of merchant transport by the aircraft. The operations are overseen by Admiral Spruance, commanding the Central Pacific Area, on board the cruiser Indianapolis.

1945 – On Okinawa, the Japanese pocket in the Oroku Peninsula has been reduce to perimeter measurable in yards but their resistance remains fanatical. An assault by the US 1st Marine Division (US 3rd Amphibious Corps) fails to capture Kunishi Ridge. A regiment of the US 96th Division reaches the town of Yuza but is forced to withdraw by intensive Japanese fire. An important height east of Mount Yaeju is capture by American forces.

1945 – On Luzon, fighting at Orioung Pass continues as Japanese forces continue to hold the US 37th Division.

1951 – Elements of the 3rd Infantry Division captured Chorwon.

1963 – Facing federalized Alabama National Guard troops, Alabama Governor George Wallace ends his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allows two African American students to enroll. George Wallace, one of the most controversial politicians in U.S. history, was elected governor of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In his 1963 inaugural address, he promised his white followers: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”

When African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in June 1963, Alabama’s new governor, flanked by state troopers, literally blocked the door of the enrollment office. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, had declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, and the executive branch undertook aggressive tactics to enforce the ruling.

On June 10th, 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students–Vivian Malone and James A. Hood–successfully enrolled. In September of the same year, Wallace again attempted to block the desegregation of an Alabama public school–this time Tuskegee High School in Huntsville–but President Kennedy once again employed his executive authority and federalized National Guard troops. Wallace had little choice but to yield.

1963 – Buddhist monk Quang Duc publically burns himself in a plea for Diem to show ‘charity and compassion’ to all religions. Diem remains stubborn, despite repeated US requests, and his special committee of inquiry confirms his contention that the Vietcong are responsible for the Hue incident. More Buddhist monks immolate themselves during the ensuing weeks. Madame Nhu refers to the burnings as ‘barbecues’ and offers to supply matches.

1964 – World War II veteran Walter Seifert runs amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home made flamethrower and a lance.

1966 – Defense Secretary McNamara discloses that another 18,000 troops will be sent to Vietnam, raising the US commitment there to 285,000 men.

1967 – There was a race riot in Tampa Florida and the National Guard was mobilized.
PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:45 am
June 11th ~ {continued...}

1967 – Israel and Syria accepted a UN cease-fire. The UN brokered a cease-fire between Israel and the defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, ending the Six-Day War with Israel occupying the Sinai, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

1969 – Communist forces stage heavy ground attacks on two US bases south of Danang. Vietcong troops at a base at Tamky, 35 miles south of Danang, cut through the base defense perimeter and fight the defenders hand-to-hand.

1970 – The United States presence in Libya came to an end as the last detachment left Wheelus Air Base.

1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1970 – A force of 4,000 South Vietnamese and 2,000 Cambodian soldiers battle 1,400 communist troops for control of the provincial capital of Kompong Speu, 30 miles southwest of Phnom Penh. At 50 miles inside the border, it was the deepest penetration that South Vietnamese forces had made into Cambodia since the incursion began on April 29th. The town was captured by the communists on June 13, but retaken by Allied forces on June 16th. South Vietnamese officials reported that 183 enemy soldiers were killed, while 4 of their own died and 22 were wounded during the fighting. Civilian casualties in Kompong Speu were estimated at 40 to 50 killed.

1989 – The government of China issued a warrant for the arrest of dissident Fang Lizhi, who had taken refuge inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

1990 – A federal judge sentenced former national security adviser John M. Poindexter to six months in prison for making false statements to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. However, Poindexter’s convictions were later overturned.

1991 – Microsoft released MS DOS 5.0.

1993 – North Korea pulled Asia back from the brink of a possible nuclear arms race by reversing its decision to withdraw from a treaty preventing spread of nuclear weapons.

1993 – US troops participate in a retalitory strike against Aidid’s forces for the June 5 ambush. The UN strikes a second heavy follow-up blow against Aidid. US Special Operations AC-130 Spectre gunships attack six targets in capital city of Mogadishu.

1994 – The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to seek punitive steps against North Korea over its nuclear program.

1997 – President Clinton announced that the US would only support Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for NATO membership for now.

1999 – The US and Libya engaged in their first official meeting in 18 years. The US stipulated conditions to be met prior to the lifting of sanctions.

1999 – Cheering residents of Prokuplje, Kosovo, throw flowers onto several dozen Yugoslav army vehicles heading out of the province as NATO troops massed across the border in Macedonia.

2001 – Timothy McVeigh (33) was executed by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terra Haute, Ind., for the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. For his final statement he issue a hand-written copy of “Invictus,” a poem written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley, whose last 2 lines read “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

2001 – Saudi Arabia announces that it has seized ownership of the 1.6-million barrel-per-day IPSA pipeline that had carried Iraqi crude oil to the Saudi Red Sea port of Mu’jiz prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The seizure includes pumping stations, storage tanks, and the maritime terminal. Saudi Arabia claims that the asset was confiscated as a result of aggressive Iraqi actions. Iraq insists that it still owns the pipeline.

2002 – Afghanistan’s former king attended a long-awaited Loya Jirga, accompanied by leaders of Hamid Karzai’s interim government in a show of unity for a tribal assembly. The assembly was delayed by 1 day as Zahir Shah renounced any potential post.

2002 – Moroccan police arrested three Saudi nationals who were allegedly planning attacks against U.S. and British war ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, key government officials said Monday. They were identified as: Hilal Jaber al-Assiri, Abdellah Ali al-Ghamdi and Zuher al-Tbaiti.

2003 – The US military launched a massive operation to crush opposition north of Baghdad and captured nearly 400 suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists in a bid to end daily attacks against American soldiers.

2004 – Terry Nichols escaped execution as the District court jury in McAlester, Oklahoma, deadlocked in the penalty phase of his trial. He was convicted May 26 on 161 counts of 1st degree murder in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing.

2004 – The Cassini spacecraft flew within 1,285 miles of Phoebe, one of the outer moons of Saturn.

2004 – A new audiotape, was broadcast on the Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya alleges that a U.S. plan for reform in the Middle East is really a bid to replace Arab leaders. It was believed to be from al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:15 am
June 12th ~

1665 – England installed a municipal government in New York, formerly the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam.

1775 – British general Thomas Gage declares martial law in Massachusetts. The British offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms. There would be only two exceptions to the amnesty: Samuel Adams and John Hancock, if captured, were to be hanged.

1776 – Virginia’s colonial legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights. The Virginia Declaration of Rights granted every individual the right to the enjoyment of life and liberty and to acquire and possess property. The Virginia document was written by George Mason and was a precursor to the Declaration of Independence. Mason refused to endorse the Declaration of Independence because it did not include a Bill of Rights.

1813 – The Revenue cutter Surveyor, at anchor in the York River, Virginia, was surprised by a three-barge attack force launched from the British frigate HMS Narcissus. Outnumbered 50 to 15, the cutter men wounded seven and killed three of the enemy before the cutter was captured. The British commanding officer of Narcissus was so impressed by “the determined way in which her deck was disputed, inch by inch,” in hand-to-hand combat, he returned to Revenue Captain William Travis, the commanding officer of Surveyor, “the sword you had so nobly used.”

1838 – The Iowa Territory was organized.

1849 – The gas mask was patented by L. P. Haslett.

1862 – Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart begins his ride around the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsular campaign, after being sent on a reconnaissance of Union positions by Robert E. Lee. Four days later, Stuart had circled the entire Yankee force, 105,000 strong, and provided Lee with crucial information. General George McClellan spent the spring of 1862 preparing the Union army for a campaign against Richmond up the James Peninsula. By late May, McClellan had inched up the James with relatively light fighting. But after Joseph Johnston was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31st, Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

In the next month, Lee began to show the gambling spirit that eventually earned him a reputation as one of history’s greatest generals. Lee dispatched Stuart, his dashing cavalry leader, and 1,200 troopers to investigate the position of McClellan’s right flank. Stuart soon discovered that McClellan’s right flank did not have any natural topographic features to protect it, so he continued to ride around the rest of the army in a bold display that exceeded Lee’s orders.

His troopers took prisoners and harassed Federal supply lines. They rode 100 miles, pursued by Union cavalry that was commanded, coincidentally, by Stuart’s father-in-law, Philip St. George Cooke. The Confederate cavalry was far superior to their Yankee counterparts, and the expedition became legendary when Stuart arrived back to Richmond on June 15th. The information provided to Lee helped the Confederates begin an attack that eventually drove McClellan from Richmond’s doorstep.

1863 – C.S.S. Clarence, Lieutenant Read, captured bark Tacony of Cape Hatteras and shortly thereafter took schooner M. A. Shindler from Port Royal to Philadelphia in ballast. Read determined to transfer his command to Tacony, she ”being a better sailor than the Clarence,” and was in the process of transferring the howitzer when another schooner, Kate Stewart, from Key West to Philadelphia, was sighted. “Passing near the Clarence,” Read reported, “a wooden gun was pointed at her and she was commanded to heave to, which she did immediately. . . . As we were now rather short of provisions and had over fifty prisoners, I determined to bond the schooner Kate Stewart and make a cartel of her.”

Read then destroyed both Clarence and M. A. Shindler and stood in chase of another brig, Arabella, which he soon overhauled. She had a neutral cargo, and Read “bonded her for $30,000, payable thirty days after peace.” Thus the career of C.S.S. Clarence -was at an end. In a week’s time she had made six prizes, three of which had been destroyed, two bonded, and her successor, C.S.S. Tacony, sailed against Union shipping under the same daring skipper and his crew.
PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:17 am
June 12th ~ {continued...}

1864 – Lee sent Early into the Shenandoah Valley.

1864 – After suffering a devastating defeat on June 3, Union General Ulysses S. Grant pulls his troops from their positions at Cold Harbor, Virginia, and moves south.

1876 – Marcus Kellogg, a journalist traveling with Custer’s 7th Cavalry, files one of his last dispatches before being killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. A native of Ontario, Canada, Kellogg migrated with his family to New York in 1835. As a young man he mastered the art of the telegraph and went to work for the Pacific Telegraphy Company in Wisconsin. Sometime during the Civil War, Kellogg abandoned his career in telegraphy in favor of becoming a newspaperman.

In 1873, he moved west to the frontier town of Bismarck in Dakota Territory and became the assistant editor of the Bismarck Tribune. A chance event in the winter of 1876 began Kellogg’s unexpected path toward the Little Big Horn. While returning from a trip to the East, Kellogg was on the same train as George Custer and his wife, Elizabeth. Custer was on his way to Fort Abraham Lincoln, near Bismarck, where he was going to lead the 7th Cavalry in a planned assault on several bands of Indians who had refused to be confined to reservations. After an unusually heavy winter storm, the train became snowbound. Kellogg improvised a crude telegraph key, connected it to the wires running alongside the track, and sent a message ahead to the fort asking for help. Custer’s brother, Tom, arrived soon after with a sleigh to rescue them.

Ever since his days as a Civil War hero, Custer had enjoyed being lionized in the nation’s newspapers. Now, as he prepared for what he hoped would be his greatest victory ever, Custer wanted to make sure his glorious deeds would be adequately covered in the press. Initially, Custer had planned to take his old friend Clement Lounsberry, who was Kellogg’s employer at the Tribune, with him into the field with the 7th Cavalry. At the last minute, Kellogg was picked to go instead-perhaps because Custer had been impressed by his resourcefulness with a telegraph key. When Custer led his soldiers out of Fort Abraham Lincoln and headed west for Montana on May 31st, Kellogg rode with him.

During the next few weeks, Kellogg filed three dispatches from the field to the Bismarck Tribune, which in turn passed the stories on to the New York Herald. (Leaving nothing to chance, Custer himself also sent three anonymous reports on his progress to the Herald.) Kellogg’s first dispatches, dated May 31st and June 12th, recorded the progress of the expedition westward. His final report, dated June 21st, came from the army’s camp along the Rosebud River in southern Montana, not far from the Little Big Horn River. “We leave the Rosebud tomorrow,” Kellogg wrote, “and by the time this reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen.”

The results, of course, were disastrous. Four days later, Sioux and Cheyenne warriors wiped out Custer and his men along the Little Big Horn River. Kellogg was the only journalist to witness the final moments of Custer’s 7th Cavalry. Had he been able to file a story he surely would have become a national celebrity. Unfortunately, Kellogg did not live to tell the tale and died alongside Custer’s soldiers. On July 6th, the Bismarck Tribune printed a special extra edition with a top headline reading: “Massacred: Gen. Custer and 261 Men the Victims.” Further down in the column, in substantially smaller type, a sub-headline reported: “The Bismarck Tribune’s Special Correspondent Slain.” The article went on to report, “The body of Kellogg alone remained un-stripped of its clothing, and was not mutilated.” The reporter speculated that this might have been a result of the Indian’s “respect [for] this humble shover of the lead pencil.”

That the Sioux and Cheyenne respected Kellogg for his journalistic skills is highly doubtful. However, his spectacular death in one of the most notorious events in the nation’s history did make him something of an honored martyr among newspapermen. The New York Herald later erected a monument to the fallen journalist over the supposed site of his grave on the Little Big Horn battlefield.
PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:19 am
June 12th ~ {continued...}

1898 – During the Spanish-American War, Filipino rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo proclaim the independence of the Philippines after 300 years of Spanish rule. By mid-August, Filipino rebels and U.S. troops had ousted the Spanish, but Aguinaldo’s hopes for independence were dashed when the United States formally annexed the Philippines as part of its peace treaty with Spain.

1901 – Cuba agreed to become an American protectorate by accepting the Platt Amendment.

1918 – First airplane bombing raid by an American unit occurred on World War I’s Western Front in France.

1918 – Brigade command holds a council of war and concludes the German hold on the northern third of Belleau Wood is tenuous. An attack at 6 pm achieves a breakthrough, but the Marines are now exposed.

1921 – President Harding urged every young man to attend military training camp.

1924 – George Bush, forty-first President of the United States, was born. He sent the U.S. Armed Forces to defeat Iraq in the Persian Gulf War.

1942 – American bombers struck the oil refineries of Ploesti, Romania for the first time.

1944 – The 1st V-1 rocket assault on London took place.

1944 – US naval forces continue attacks on Japanese positions in the island group. They concentrate on Tinian, Saipan and Guam. The Japanese fleets located at Tawitawi and Batjan set sail to counterattack. Admiral Kurita commands a vanguard force while Admiral Ozawa leads the main force. The main force from Tawitawi is sighted and reported by an American submarine.

The Japanese have 5 fleet carriers, 2 light carriers, 2 seaplane carriers, 5 battleships as well as several cruisers and destroyers in support. The commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Toyoda, realizes that the American forces are numerically superior but he also expects support from the land-based aircraft on the islands. These air assets, however, are being depleted by American attacks.

1944 – A third wave of Allied forces has landed. There are now 326,000 troops, 104,000 tons of supplies and 54,000 vehicles deployed in Normandy, France. Elements of US 7th Corps advance across the Cotentin Peninsula and southwest. Also, the 4th Division is engaged at Montebourg, Crisbecq and near Azeville to the northward drive on Cherbourg. The 5th Corps assists 7th Corps and advances toward St Lo. Caumont is captured and Foret de Cerisy and the Bayeux road are reached.

1945 – In London, General Eisenhower is awarded the Order of Merit and given the Freedom of the City of London.

1945 – On Okinawa, many of the Japanese naval infantry cut off in the Oruku peninsula, reduced to a pocket of about 1000 square yards, begin to commit mass suicide to avoid surrender. The US 1st Marine Division captures the west end of Kunishi Ridge during a night attack. The US 96th Division attacks Japanese positions around Mount Yuza and Mount Yaeju.

1945 – On Luzon, the US 145th Infantry Regiment breaks Japanese resistance at Orioung Pass, occupies the town of Orioung and advances as far as positions overlooking the town of Balite. The Visayan Islands (including Samar, Negros, Panay, Leyte, Cebu, and Bohol), between Luzon and Mindanao, are secured by American forces. American casualties in the campaign have amounted to 835 dead and 2300 wounded. Japanese casualties are estimated to be 10,000 dead.
PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:21 am
June 12th ~ {continued...}

1948 – The Women’s Armed Forces Integration Act provides for enlistment and appointment of women in the Naval Reserve and the regular Marine Corps.

1951 – Eighth Army controlled the “Iron Triangle” as Operation PILEDRIVER wrapped up.

1951 – Twenty-five sailors were killed when the destroyer USS Walke struck a mine east of Wonsan.

1953 – Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert V. McHale and Captain Samuel Hoster, both of the 319th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, were on a night mission in their F-94 Starfire and apparently collided with the enemy light aircraft they were attacking. The men thereby made the fourth and last F-94 kill of the Korean War posthumously.

1961 – President John F. Kennedy signed a Presidential Proclamation calling for the American flag to be flown at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, “at all times during the day and night.” Discussions between the Attorney General’s office and Marine Corps officials earlier in 1961 on improving the visibility and appearance of the monument led to the proposal to fly the Flag continuously, which by law could only be done by Congressional legislation or by Presidential proclamation.

1965 – Mounting Roman Catholic opposition to South Vietnamese Premier Phan Huy Quat’s government leads him to resign. The next day a military triumvirate headed by Army General Nguyen Van Thieu took over and expanded to a 10-man National Leadership Committee on June 14. The Committee decreed the death penalty for Viet Cong terrorists, corrupt officials, speculators, and black marketeers. The Catholics approved of Quat’s resignation and warned the military against favoring the Buddhists, who asked for an appointment of civilians to the new cabinet.

1967 – The Chinese claim that a pilotless US reconnaissance plane has been shot down over the southern part of the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region.

1967 – The US First infantry Division begins a 6 day drive into War Zone D, 50 miles north of Saigon, in an effort to trap three Vietcong battalions.

1970 – After earthquake in Peru, USS Guam begins 11 days of relief flights to transport medical teams and supplies, as well as rescue victims

1972 – General John D. Lavelle, former four-star general and U.S. Air Force commander in Southeast Asia, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee. He had been relieved of his post in March and later demoted after it was determined that he had repeatedly ordered unauthorized bombings of military targets in North Vietnam. Court-martial charges were brought against him by his subordinates but were dropped by the Air Force because the “interests of discipline” had already been served. Lavelle became the first four-star general in modern U.S. history to be demoted on retirement, although he continued to receive full general’s retirement pay of $27,000 per year.

1972 – The Joint US Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) in Saigon is closed after four years of directing psychological warfare in Vietnam. its duties are taken over by the USIA and other agencies.

1972 – In its strongest statement against the United States since President Nixon’s February visit, China for the first time denounces the intensified bombing of North Vietnam, calling the raids, which approach her borders for the first time since 1968, acts of aggression against the Vietnamese people and ‘grave provocations against the Chinese people.’
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