This Date in Military History:

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20 June

1675 – Abenaki, Massachusetts, Mohegan & Wampanoag Indians formed an anti English front. Wampanoag warriors attacked livestock and looted farms.

1782 – Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States and the eagle as its symbol.

1813 – Fifteen U.S. gunboats engage 3 British ships in Hampton Roads, VA

1815 – Trials of Fulton I, built by Robert Fulton, are completed in New York. This ship would become the Navy’s first steam-driven warship.

1819 – The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic.

1820 – The Revenue cutter Diligence captured the Buenos Aires privateer-turned-pirate General Rondeau near Wilmington, North Carolina, after a seven-day chase.

1840 – Samuel F.B. Morse, a popular artist, patented his telegraph.

1862 – Union gunboats occupied the Stono River above Cole’s Island, South Carolina, and shelled Confederate positions there. Flag Officer Du Pont reported to Secretary of the Navy Welles: “The Unadilla, Pembina, and Ottawa, under Commander Marchand . . . succeeded in entering Stono and proceeded up the river above the old Fort opposite Legareville. On their approach the barracks were fired and deserted by the enemy . . . This important base of operations, the Stono, has thus been secured for further operations by the army against Charleston.

1863 – President Lincoln admitted West Virginia as the 35th state.

1863 – A heavy combined Army-Navy bombardment of Vicksburg, lasting 6 hours, hammered Confederate positions. Supporting the Army, Porter pressed mortars, gunboats, and scows into action from 4 a.m. until 10. The naval force met with no opposition, and the Admiral noted: “The only demonstration made by the rebels from the water front was a brisk fire of heavy guns from the upper batteries on two 12-pounder rifled howitzers that were planted n the Louisiana side by General Ellet’s Marine Brigade, which has [sic] much annoyed the enemy for two or three days, and prevented them from getting water.”

After this extensive bombardment, reports reached Porter that the Southerners were readying boats with which to make a riverborne evacuation of the city. Emphasizing the need for continued vigilance, the Admiral informed his gunboat commanders: “If the rebels start down in their skiffs, the current will drift them to about abreast of the houses where the mortars are laid up, and they will land there. In that case the vessels must push up amidst them, run over them, fire grape and canister and destroy all they can, looking out that they are not boarded.”

1864 – General John Bell Hood’s Confederate force attack William T. Sherman’s troops outside of Atlanta, Georgia, but are repulsed with heavy losses. This was Hood’s first battle as head of the Army of Tennessee. Hood had assumed the command from Joseph Johnston just two days before when Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced Johnston after Sherman backed Johnston into this key Southern city. For nearly three months, Sherman had pushed Johnston southward from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Johnston had blocked each of Sherman’s flanking maneuvers, but in doing so he lost territory. Davis finally lost patience with Johnston, and selected the more offensive-minded Hood to defeat Sherman.Hood wasted little time. He planned to strike the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by General George Thomas, as it crossed Peachtree Creek. The waterway was deep, and the Confederates destroyed all bridges on their retreat into the outskirts of Atlanta.

Hood suspected that the Yankees were most vulnerable when only part of their force was across the creek so he planned a two-pronged assault to hold part of Thomas’ army at bay while the rest could be pinned against Peachtree Creek. It was a sound plan, but poor execution doomed the operation. Scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on July 20, the attack was delayed for three hours while Hood’s troops shifted into position. The overall assault lacked a general coordination, so units charged the Union positions piecemeal. Twenty thousand Rebels assaulted the same number of Yankees, but the delay proved costly. The Confederates achieved some success, but could not drive the Union troops back into Peachtree Creek. After three hours, Hood ordered a halt to the advance. Hood was not deterred. Two days later, he attacked Sherman’s forces again at the Battle of Atlanta.

1864 – Side-wheelers U.S.S. Morse, Lieutenant Commander Babcock, and U.S.S. Cactus, Acting Master Newell Graham, dislodged Confederate batteries which had opened fire on Army supply wagon trains near White House, Virginia. Rear Admiral Lee reported: “Deserters afterwards reported that a force estimated at 10,000 of Wade Hampton’s and Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry intended at-tacking our trains, but were deterred from the attempt by the fire of the gunboats.” For three weeks Babcock had supported the Army at White Mouse.

The Admiral noted: “I should not fail to call attention to the hearty, efficient, and successful service which Lieutenant Commander Babcock has rendered to the Army in opening and protecting its communications and in repelling the assaults of the enemy.” Next day, U.S.S. Shokokon, Acting Master William B. Sheldon, similarly dispersed an attack on Union transport Eliza Hancox at Cumberland Point, Virginia.

1867 – Pres. Andrew Johnson announced the purchase of Alaska.

1881 – Five years after General George A. Custer’s infamous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Hunkpapa Teton Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrenders to the U.S. Army, which promises amnesty for him and his followers.

Sitting Bull had been a major leader in the 1876 Sioux uprising that resulted in the death of Custer and 264 of his men at Little Bighorn. Pursued by the U.S. Army after the Indian victory, he escaped to Canada with his followers. Born in the Grand River Valley in what is now South Dakota, Sitting Bull gained early recognition in his Sioux tribe as a capable warrior and a man of vision. In 1864, he fought against the U.S. Army under General Alfred Sully at Killdeer Mountain and thereafter dedicated himself to leading Sioux resistance against white encroachment. He soon gained a following in not only his own tribe but in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Native American groups as well. In 1867, he was made principal chief of the entire Sioux nation.

In 1873, in what would serve as a preview of the Battle of Little Bighorn three years later, an Indian military coalition featuring the leadership of Sitting Bull skirmished briefly with Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. In 1876, Sitting Bull was not a strategic leader in the U.S. defeat at Little Bighorn, but his spiritual influence inspired Crazy Horse and the other victorious Indian military leaders. He subsequently fled to Canada, but in 1881, with his people starving, he returned to the United States and surrendered.

He was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall in South Dakota territory for two years and then was permitted to live on Standing Rock Reservation straddling North and South Dakota territory. In 1885, he traveled for a season with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show and then returned to Standing Rock. In 1889, the spiritual proclamations of Sitting Bull influenced the rise of the “Ghost Dance,” an Indian religious movement that proclaimed that the whites would disappear and the dead Indians and buffalo would return. His support of the Ghost Dance movement had brought him into disfavor with government officials, and on December 15, 1890, Indian police burst into Sitting Bull’s house in the Grand River area of South Dakota and attempted to arrest him.

There is confusion as to what happened next. By some accounts, Sitting Bull’s warriors shot the leader of the police, who immediately turned and gunned down Sitting Bull. In another account, the police were instructed by Major James McLaughlin, director of the Standing Rock Sioux Agency, to kill the chief at any sign of resistance. Whatever the case, Sitting Bull was fatally shot and died within hours. The Indian police hastily buried his body at Fort Yates within the Standing Rock Reservation. In 1953, his remains were moved into Mobridge, South Dakota, where a granite shaft marks his resting place.

1866 – 50 Marines and Sailors landed at new Chwang, China, to assure punishment for those who attacked an American official.

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1894 – During the summer of 1894, the Pullman Palace Car Company was embroiled in what proved to be one of the most bitter strikes in American history. The strike was a direct response to company chief George Pullman and his hardball tactics, most notably his decision in the midst of the Depression of 1893 to preserve profits by slashing wages and hiking up workers’ rents. A band of frustrated employees implored Pullman to ease rents and restore wages; Pullman responded by firing three of the workers.

In May, the workers fired back at their avaricious boss by calling a strike. Backed by the organizational muscle of Eugene Debs and the mighty American Railway Union (ARU), the workers touched off a round of sympathy strikes and boycotts that effectively crippled the Chicago-based company. However, Pullman had has own network of powerful allies, including other rail honchos and a number government officials. In hopes of enlisting the aid of the federal military, Pullman and his cronies convinced the government that the strikes and boycotts were inhibiting the delivery of America’s mail.

Though Pullman’s cars didn’t carry any mail, the scheme proved effective: in early July, the government banned the boycotts and swiftly shipped troops to Chicago. Fighting broke out shortly after the government forces hit the scene; by the time the militia left Chicago on July 20, the “war” between the troops and the strikers had left thirty-four men dead. But, the damage had already been done to the Pullman strikers: their ranks and clout had been depleted, and, when American Federation of Labor chief Samuel Gompers’ refusal to lend them any substantial support, the rail workers were forced to capitulate to management. In the wake of the settlement, many of the strikers were barred from working in the rail industry.

1898 – During the Spanish-American War on the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the U.S. Navy cruiser Charleston seized the island of Guam.

1900 – German minister murdered; Chinese begin siege of foreigners in Beijing. Military delegations in the “Foreign Quarter” including the US Marine delegation band together to defend their charges.

1913 – First fatal accident in Naval Aviation, ENS W. D. Billingsley killed at Annapolis, MD.

1919 – Treaty of Versailles: Germany ended the incorporation of Austria.

1923 – Pres. Harding set out on a 7,500-mile “Voyage of Understanding” through the northwest. The 57-year-old Harding, who suffered from heart disease, was so shaken by breaking reports of corruption in his administration that he went on a cross-country speaking tour to strengthen his position.

1924 – Audie Murphy was born in Kingston, Tx. He became the most decorated American soldier of World War II who went on to make movies and write a book about his war experiences called “To Hell and Back.”

1934 – Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet Admiral Frank Upham reports to CNO that based on analyses of Japanese radio traffic, “any attack by (Japan) would be made without previous declaration of war or intentional warning.”

1940 – President Roosevelt strengthens his Cabinet by bringing in two prominent Republicans. Henry Stimson becomes Secretary for War and Frank Knox becomes Secretary for the Navy. Stimson is strongly against America’s isolationist tradition and will be a champion of Lend-Lease.

1941 – A German U-boat sights the American battleship Texas within the area that Germany has declared is the operational area for U-boats. However, after checking with the U-boat command, the Texas is not attacked.

1941 – U.S. Army Air Forces was established, replacing the Army Air Corps.

1943 – US General Krueger establishes 6th Army headquarters at Milne Bay. There is an unsuccessful Japanese attack on the 17th Australian Brigade in the Mubo area.

1943 – Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in two days later to quell the violence that resulted in 34 deaths and 600 wounded.

1944 – Elements of the US 1st Army advance to about 5 miles of Cherbourg and begin to encounter heavier resistance.

1944 – Nazis began mass extermination of Jews at Auschwitz.

1944 – Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him. High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d’etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan. This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden (but was later moved to Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg). Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing.

At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds. As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering-Hitler was alive. Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day.

Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied French), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies. More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead-either executed or as suicides. Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine. Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him-“I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence”-and that “nothing is going to happen to me…. [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and…everything can be brought to a good end.”

1944 – The Japanese fleet withdraws to refuel, believing that their aircraft have landed safely on Guam. US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) launches an air strike on the Japanese fleet in the late afternoon. The 216 American aircraft encounter 35 defending fighters and sink the carrier Hiyo. Two other Japanese aircraft carriers are damaged as are a battleship and a cruiser. US loses amount to 20 planes shot down and 72 crashing while attempting to land on their carriers in the dark. During the night, the Japanese fleet withdraws and are not pursued.

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1944 – Vice Admiral Marc Mitchner, commander of the U.S. Task Force 58, ordered all lights on his ships turned on to help guide his carrier-based pilots back from the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1944 – On Biak, there is fighting among the Japanese-held caves in the west of the island. The airfields and villages at Borokoe and Sorido are overrun by American forces.

1944 – The US 5th Amphibious Corps continues operations on Saipan. The US 27th Division clears the south of the island while the US 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions advance northward.

1945 – On Okinawa, Japanese resistance along the center of the line, held by the US 24th Corps, continues to be strong. The US 32nd Infantry Regiment (US 7th Division) reaches Height 89, near Mabuni, where the Japanese headquarters have been identified. On the flanks, the American Marines on the right and the infantry on the left advance virtually unopposed, capturing over 1000 Japanese and reaching the southern coast of the island at several points. The scale of surrenders is unprecedented for the forces of the Imperial Army.

1945 – On Luzon, Filipino guerrillas advance up the Cagayan valley from Aparri and liberate the town of Tuguegarao. The American regimental task force enters Aparri while elements of the US 37th Division advances 2.5 miles north of Ilagan. Meanwhile, the US 8th Army headquarters announces that operations to recapture the islands of Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol and Palawan, as well as the western part of Mindanao, are completed.

1945 – US Task Group 12.4 (Admiral Jennings) with the carriers Lexington, Hancock and Cowpens conduct air raids on Japanese positions. The carriers are en route to join US Task Force 38.

1948 – President Harry S. Truman institutes a military draft with a proclamation calling for nearly 10 million men to register for military service within the next two months. Truman’s action came during increasing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. Following World War II, the United States moved quickly to demobilize the vast military it had constructed during the conflict. During the war, more than 16 million men and women served in the U.S. military; when the war ended in August 1945, the American people demanded rapid demobilization. By 1948, less than 550,000 men remained in the U.S. Army.

This rapid decline in the size of America’s military concerned U.S. government officials, who believed that a confrontation with the Soviet Union was imminent. During the years following World War II, relations between the Russians and Americans deteriorated rapidly. In 1947, the president issued the Truman Doctrine, which provided aid to Greece and Turkey to oppose communist subversion. In that same year, Secretary of State George C. Marshall warned that Western Europe was on the brink of political and economic chaos that would leave it defenseless against communist aggression; the following year, Congress approved billions of dollars in financial assistance to the beleaguered nations.

In June 1948, the Soviets cut all land traffic into the U.S.-British-French zones of occupation in West Berlin. The United States responded with the Berlin Airlift, in which tons of food and supplies were flown in to sustain the population of the besieged city. In light of these events, many Americans believed that actual combat with the Soviet Union was not far away. In response to this threat, President Truman announced on July 20, 1948, that the United States was re-instituting the draft and issued a proclamation requiring nearly 10 million men to register for military service in the next two months.

Truman’s action in July 1948 marked the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States, thereby underlining the urgency of his administration’s concern about a possible military confrontation with the Soviet Union. It also brought home to the American people in concrete terms the possibility that the Cold War could, at any moment, become an actual war. In 1950, possibility turned to reality when the United States entered the Korean War, and the size of America’s armed forces once again increased dramatically.

1953 – U.S. infantrymen held onto outposts in the central sector despite an artillery and mortar barrage of some 5,000 rounds followed by a battalion-size assault.

1953 – The U.N. forces established a new main line of resistance on the south bank of the Kumsong River.

1954 – A cease-fire ‘Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Viet Nam’ is signed by General Ta Quang Buu for the Vietminh and General Henri Delteil for France. The agreement ceases hostilities in Cambodia and Laos as well. A second document, the ‘Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference,’ receives the general support of Britain, France, Laos, China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam but is never signed. It states: 1) Vietnam is provisionally partitioned along the 17th parallel into North and South Vietnam, pending reunification or other permanent settlement to be achieved through nationwide elections, 2) for a period of 300 days all persons may pass freely from one zone to the other, 3) limits are imposed on foreign military bases North and South, on personnel movements, and re-armaments, 4) nationwide elections are scheduled for 20 July 1956, 5) an International Control Commission made up of representatives from India, Canada, and Poland is established to supervise the implementation of these agreements.

The Vietminh accept elections because their popular support is such that they would win, so South Vietnam pushes the elections as far into the future as possible, and Molotov pressures the Vietminh to agree. The United States does not agree with the Final Declaration but does support it, and Bao Dai’s government denounces all agreements.

1963 – The United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement to set up a hot line communications link between the two superpowers and a treaty was signed limiting nuclear testing.

1964 – General William Westmoreland succeeded General Paul Harkins as head of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.

1964 – CGC Reliance, the first of the Coast Guard’s 210-foot medium endurance cutter class, was commissioned.

1964 – Viet Cong forces overrun Cai Be, the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, killing 11 South Vietnamese militiamen, 10 women, and 30 children. On July 31, South Vietnam charged that the enemy troops involved in the attack were North Vietnamese Army regulars and that Chinese communist advisors led the attack. This claim was never verified, but it is likely that North Vietnamese regulars participated in the action. This incident and numerous intelligence reports indicated that North Vietnamese regular troops were moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in great numbers to join the fighting in South Vietnam.

This marked a major change in the tempo and scope of the war in South Vietnam and resulted in President Lyndon B. Johnson committing U.S. combat troops. North Vietnamese forces and U.S. troops clashed for the first time in November 1965, when units from the newly arrived 1st Cavalry Division engaged several North Vietnamese regiments in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands.

1966 – CGC Point League attacked and crippled a North Vietnamese junk attempting to run the Navy’s Market Time blockade. The action continued into the next day as the junk stranded itself on the shore and its crew fired a demolition charge, destroying their ship.

1967 – Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. Ali’s conviction was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.

1967 – The United States apologizes to the Soviet Union for what it calls an inadvertent US air attack on the Soviet ship Turkestan on 2 June.

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1969 – A top-secret study, commissioned by presidential assistant Henry Kissinger, is completed by the office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Code-named Duck Hook, the study proposed measures for military escalation against North Vietnam. The military options included a massive bombing of Hanoi, Haiphong, and other key areas of North Vietnam; a ground invasion of North Vietnam; the mining of harbors and rivers; and a bombing campaign designed to sever the main railroad links to China.

A total of 29 major targets in North Vietnam were pinpointed for destruction in a series of air attacks planned to last four days and to be renewed until Hanoi capitulated. This plan represented a drastic escalation of the war and was never ordered by President Richard Nixon. However, Nixon did order certain elements of the proposal, such as the intensified bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong and the mining of North Vietnamese harbors, in response to the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive.

1972 – Pres. Nixon recorded on tape information relating to the Jun 16 Watergate break-in. Sections of the tape were later erased, allegedly accidentally by sec. Rose Mary Woods. A panel of experts examined the tape to see if the 18-minute gap was intentional. Richard H. Bolt (d.2002 at 90), acoustic expert at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, later said that if it was an accident than it was committed at least 5 time in the 18 minutes.

1972 – President Nixon appoints General Crighton W. Abrams, commander of US forces in Vietnam, to be the US Army Chief of Staff.

1972 – US Marine unit HMA-369 begins flying armed helicopter strikes with the new AH-1J Sea Cobra from the decks of USS Constellation, off the coast of South Vietnam, Flying from the USS Coral Sea, A-6 Intruders of Marine unit VMA (AW)-224 make most of their missions into Laos and North Vietnam.

1977 – The 1st oil of the Alaska pipeline began to flow south 799 miles from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez.

1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua, by a member of President Anastasio Somoza’s national guard.

1991 – German lawmakers voted to move the seat of the national government from Bonn back to Berlin.

1994 – Former airman Dean Allen Mellberg went on a shooting rampage at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Wash., killing four people and wounding 22 others before being killed by a military police sharpshooter.

1998 – Iran reversed its opposition to a UN plan, passed the previous day, permitting Iraq to spend $300 million of revenues from the oil-for-food program to buy spare parts to rebuild its oil industry.

1999 – The last Serbian officer left Kosovo. Pres. Milosevic urged the Serbs of Kosovo to stay in Kosovo under NATO protection. As the last of 40-thousand Yugoslav troops rolled out of Kosovo, NATO declared a formal end to its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

2002 – Turkey took over control of the 19-nation peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, ISAF.

2003 – A 31-nation conference in Germany agreed to expand efforts to combat terrorist financing and money laundering. The Financial Action Task Force issued a 40-point program to keep international law enforcement abreast of criminals’ increasingly sophisticated efforts to conceal illegal money flows.

2003 – In Iran student protests against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spread to at least 8 other cities.

2004 – Iraq resumed oil exports of about 1 million barrels a day through its southern Basra terminal after completing repairs to pipelines sabotaged by insurgents.

2004 – The Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape purportedly from al-Qaida-linked militants showing Kim Sun Il (33), a South Korean hostage, begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.

2010 – Iraq’s Central Bank was bombed in an attack that left 15 people dead and brought much of downtown Baghdad to a standstill. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq. This attack was followed by another attack on Iraq’s Bank of Trade building that killed 26 and wounded 52 people.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BENSON, JAMES
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1845, Denmark. Enlisted at: Yokohama, Japan. G.O. No.: 180, 10 October 1872. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ossipee, 20 June 1872. Risking his life, Benson leaped into the sea while the ship was going at a speed of 4 knots and endeavored to save John K. Smith, landsman, of the same vessel, from drowning.

APPLETON, EDWIN NELSON
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 29 August 1876, Brooklyn, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 84, 22 March 1902. Citation: In action against the enemy at Tientsin, China, 20 June 1900. Crossing the river in a small boat while under heavy enemy fire, Appleton assisted in destroying buildings occupied by the enemy.

BURNES, JAMES
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 14 January 1870, Worcester, Mass. Accredited to: California. G.O. No.: 84, 22 March 1902. Citation: In action against the enemy at Tientsin, China, 20 June 1900. Crossing the river in a small boat with 3 other men while under a heavy fire from the enemy, Burnes assisted in destroying buildings occupied by hostile forces.

DAHLGREN, JOHN OLOF
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 14 September 1872, Kahliwar, Sweden. Accredited to: California. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In the presence of the enemy during the battle of Peking, China, 20 June to 16 July 1900, Dahlgren distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.

*FISHER, HARRY
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 20 October 1874, McKeesport, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: Served in the presence of the enemy at the battle of Peking, China, 20 June to 16 July 1900. Assisting in the erection of barricades during the action, Fisher was killed by the heavy fire of the enemy.

HEISCH, HENRY WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 10 June 1872, Latendorf, Germany. Accredited to: California. G.O. No.: 84, 22 March 1902. Citation: In action against the enemy at Tientsin, China, 20 June 1900. Crossing the river in a small boat while under heavy fire, Heisch assisted in destroying buildings occupied by the enemy.

HUNT, MARTIN
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 9 July 1873, County of Mayo, Ireland. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In the presence of the enemy during the battle of Peking, China, 20 June to 16 July 1900, Hunt distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.

McALLISTER, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 23 January 1869, Belfast, Ireland. Accredited to: California. G.O. No.: 84, 22 March 1902. Citation: In action against the enemy at Tientsin, China, 20 June 1900. Crossing the river in a small boat while under heavy enemy fire, McAllister assisted in destroying buildings occupied by the enemy.

WALKER, EDWARD ALEXANDER
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 2 October 1864, Huntley, Scotland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In the presence of the enemy during the battle of Peking, China, 20 June to 16 July 1900. Throughout this period, Walker distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.

*O’BRIEN, WILLIAM J.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division. Place and date: At Saipan, Marianas Islands, 20 June through 7 July 1944. Entered service at: Troy, N.Y. Birth: Troy, N.Y. G.O. No.: 35, 9 May 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Marianas Islands, from 20 June through 7 July 1944. When assault elements of his platoon were held up by intense enemy fire, Lt. Col. O’Brien ordered 3 tanks to precede the assault companies in an attempt to knock out the strongpoint. Due to direct enemy fire the tanks’ turrets were closed, causing the tanks to lose direction and to fire into our own troops. Lt. Col. O’Brien, with complete disregard for his own safety, dashed into full view of the enemy and ran to the leader’s tank, and pounded on the tank with his pistol butt to attract 2 of the tank’s crew and, mounting the tank fully exposed to enemy fire, Lt. Col. O’Brien personally directed the assault until the enemy strongpoint had been liquidated.

On 28 June 1944, while his platoon was attempting to take a bitterly defended high ridge in the vicinity of Donnay, Lt. Col. O’Brien arranged to capture the ridge by a double envelopment movement of 2 large combat battalions. He personally took control of the maneuver. Lt. Col. O’Brien crossed 1,200 yards of sniper-infested underbrush alone to arrive at a point where 1 of his platoons was being held up by the enemy. Leaving some men to contain the enemy he personally led 4 men into a narrow ravine behind, and killed or drove off all the Japanese manning that strongpoint. In this action he captured S machineguns and one 77-mm. fieldpiece. Lt. Col. O’Brien then organized the 2 platoons for night defense and against repeated counterattacks directed them. Meanwhile he managed to hold ground.

On 7 July 1944 his battalion and another battalion were attacked by an overwhelming enemy force estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 Japanese. With bloody hand-to-hand fighting in progress everywhere, their forward positions were finally overrun by the sheer weight of the enemy numbers. With many casualties and ammunition running low, Lt. Col. O’Brien refused to leave the front lines. Striding up and down the lines, he fired at the enemy with a pistol in each hand and his presence there bolstered the spirits of the men, encouraged them in their fight and sustained them in their heroic stand. Even after he was seriously wounded, Lt. Col. O’Brien refused to be evacuated and after his pistol ammunition was exhausted, he manned a .50 caliber machinegun, mounted on a jeep, and continued firing. When last seen alive he was standing upright firing into the Jap hordes that were then enveloping him. Some time later his body was found surrounded by enemy he had killed His valor was consistent with the highest traditions of the service.


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[Dutchboy]

1966 – CGC Point League attacked and crippled a North Vietnamese junk attempting to run the Navy’s Market Time blockade. The action continued into the next day as the junk stranded itself on the shore and its crew fired a demolition charge, destroying their ship.

A lotta folks don't know that the USCG has been part of our war efforts and not just guarding the Homeland!

 

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Very true Dutch...

The Coast Guard not only protected the homeland...but actively went into battle.

 

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21 June

1788 – New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land. By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new constitution, and on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of debate moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution, which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.

Beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina.

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July. On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791.

In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

1860 – The Signal Corps was authorized as a separate branch of the Army by act of Congress on March 3, 1863. However, the Signal Corps dates its existence from June 21, 1860, when Congress authorized the appointment of one signal officer in the Army, and a War Department order carried the following assignment: “Signal Department–Assistant Surgeon Albert J. Myer to be Signal Officer, with the rank of Major, June 27, 1860, to fill an original vacancy.”

1862 – Union and Confederate forces skirmished at the Chickahominy Creek during the Peninsular Campaign.

1863 – In the second day of fighting, Confederate cavalry failed to dislodge a Union force at the Battle of LaFourche Crossing in Louisiana.

1864 – A joint Confederate Army-Navy long-range bombardment opened on the Union squadron in the James River at Trent’s and Varina Reaches. The Confederate ships, commanded by Flag Officer Mitchell in the ironclad flagship Virginia II, included: ironclad ram C.S.S. Fredericksburg, Com-mander Rootes; 166-ton gunboats Hampton, Lieutenant John S. Maury, Nansemond, Lieutenant Charles W. Hayes, and Drewry, Lieutenant William H. Hall; small steamer Roanoke, Lieutenant Mortimer M. Beton, and 85-ton tug Beaufort, Lieutenant Joseph Gardner. Ironclad ram C.S.S. Richmond, Lieutenant W. H. Parker, initially intended to join in the bombardment, suffered a casualty getting underway and had to be towed upriver to a position near the obstructions below Richmond.

An engine failure in Virginia II could not be repaired until afternoon, when it was too late to move farther downstream to engage at more effective range. The Union gunboats and monitors concentrated their fire on the Army shore batteries during the exchange; neither fleet suffered serious damage.

1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant stretches his lines further around Petersburg, Virginia, accompanied by his commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln. After six weeks of heavy fighting between his Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a series of battles around Richmond, Grant chose a different strategy. Now south of Richmond, outside of Petersburg, he was no longer willing to wage the destructive open-field battles that had lost so many lives. Grant was content to starve out Lee and his men. After the disastrous attack at Cold Harbor, he pulled further south in an attempt to sever Confederate supply lines at the rail center at Petersburg.

On June 21st, Grant moved closer to a siege when he sent his Second and Sixth Corps to extend the left flank of his position. The goal was to take control of the Weldon Railroad, which ran into Petersburg from the south, and run the Union line to the Appomattox River. This would complete a semicircle around the city and effectively bottle Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederates, however, halted this attempt the next day and saved a vital lifeline into Petersburg.

1898 – Guam became a US territory.


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1900 – General Arthur MacArthur offered amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.

1900 – After the Empress declared war on all foreign powers, the Boxers began a two-month assault on the legations in Beijing. An international force of Japanese, Russian, German, American, British, Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops put down the uprising by August 14. The Boxer Rebellion was a violent, anti-foreign uprising that broke out in reaction to years of foreign interference with Chinese affairs. Led by a Chinese secret society called Yi He Tuan–“the Righteous, Harmonious Fists”–the Boxers were aided by the Empress Dowager Ci Xi and pillaged the countryside, murdering foreigners and Chinese Christians.

1916 – The controversial U.S. military expedition against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa brings the United States and Mexico closer to war when Mexican government troops attack U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing’s force at Carrizal, Mexico. The Americans suffered 22 casualties, and more than 30 Mexicans were killed. Against the protests of Venustiano Carranza’s government, Pershing had been penetrating deep into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. After routing the small Mexican force at Carrizal, the U.S. expedition continued on its southern course.

In 1914, following the resignation of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa and his former revolutionary ally Venustiano Carranza battled each other in a struggle for succession. By the end of 1915, Villa had been driven north into the mountains, and the U.S. government recognized General Carranza as the president of Mexico. In January 1916, to protest President Woodrow Wilson’s support for Carranza, Villa executed 16 U.S. citizens at Santa Isabel in northern Mexico. Then, on March 9, he ordered a raid on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, in which 17 Americans were killed and the center of town was burned. Cavalry from the nearby Camp Furlong U.S. Army outpost pursued the Mexicans, killing several dozen rebels on U.S. soil and in Mexico before turning back.

On March 15, under orders from President Wilson, U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture or kill Villa and disperse his rebels. The expedition eventually involved some 10,000 U.S. troops and personnel. It was the first U.S. military operation to employ mechanized vehicles, including automobiles and airplanes.

For 11 months, Pershing failed to capture the elusive revolutionary, who was aided by his intimate knowledge of the terrain of northern Mexico and his popular support from the people there. Meanwhile, resentment over the U.S. intrusion into Mexican territory led to a diplomatic crisis with the government in Mexico City.

On June 21, the crisis escalated into violence when Mexican government troops attacked a detachment of the 10th Cavalry at Carrizal. If not for the critical situation in Europe, war might have been declared. In January 1917, having failed in their mission to capture Villa, and under continued pressure from the Mexican government, the Americans were ordered home. Pancho Villa continued his guerrilla activities in northern Mexico until Adolfo de la Huerta took over the government and drafted a reformist constitution. Villa entered into an amicable agreement with Huerta and agreed to retire from politics. In 1920, the government pardoned Villa, but three years later he was assassinated at his ranch in Parral.

1921 – U.S. Army Air Service pilots bombed the captured German battleship Ostfriesland to demonstrate the effectiveness of aerial bombing on warships. At the time, the ship was one of the world’s largest war vessels. Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, assistant chief of the Army Air Service, arranged the demonstration to prove that air power should become the country’s first line of defense. Most military leaders doubted that airplanes could inflict serious damage on warships. Mitchell’s tests proved them wrong.

1925 – In Canton, China, Nguyen Ai Quoc founds the Revolutionary Youth league of Vietnam, the first truly Marxist organization in Indochina. The Vietnam Nationalsit party (VNQDD) is founded at the same time in opposition to the Youth League.

1942 – Churchill receives the news of the fall of Tobruk while meeting with US President Roosevelt. FDR immediately offers aid and 300 Sherman tanks and 100 self-propelled guns are immediately dispatched to North Africa. The better equipment will make a difference in the British performance at El Amien.

1943 – On New Georgia, the 4th Marine Raider Battalion lands at Segi Point in the south. There is no Japanese garrison there.

1943 – Federal troops put down a race riot in Detroit that left 30 dead.

1944 – CGC’s 83415 and 83477 wrecked off coast of Normandy, France during a storm – no lives were lost. This is the storm that wrecked the artificial harbor constructed by the Allies off the coast of Normandy.

1945 – The Battle of Okinawa ended. Japanese forces on Okinawa surrendered to the Americans. The embattled destroyer USS Laffey survived horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa. American soldiers on Okinawa found the body of the Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, who had committed suicide.

1945 – On Luzon, the last Japanese-held port, Aparri, falls to American forces. The American regimental task force make contact with Filipino guerrillas.

1953 – The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team arrived in Korea for its third and last tour of duty.

1954 – American observer Walter Bedell Smith issues a unilateral declaration stating that the United States ‘will refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb’ the Geneva agreements.

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1963 – The French government shocks its allies by announcing that it is withdrawing its navy from the North Atlantic fleet of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The French action was viewed in the West as evidence that France would be pursuing an independent policy regarding its nuclear arsenal. In the months prior to the French action, the United States had been pushing its NATO allies to accept a plan whereby the NATO North Atlantic fleet would be armed with Polaris nuclear missiles. The ships would have crews made up of personnel from various NATO nations.

This plan, however, conflicted with a French plan to base much of their nation’s nuclear arsenal in their navy. Obviously, France wished to maintain absolute control over its ships to carry out this program. Thus, French President Charles de Gaulle’s government issued a brief statement indicating that the French ships in the NATO North Atlantic fleet were being withdrawn. Many NATO members expressed surprise over the French action. In the United States, surprise was also mixed with dismay and no small degree of anger. The French announcement came just as President John F. Kennedy was preparing to go to Europe for a series of talks with America’s allies.

Privately, some Kennedy advisors were quite vocal in condemning de Gaulle’s highly nationalistic independence in moving away from his nation’s NATO commitments, thereby threatening the security of France’s European allies. And, although the French withdrawal from the NATO North Atlantic fleet did not drastically affect the fleet’s military effectiveness, the United States worried that France’s action might set a disturbing precedent. NATO was still considered by U.S. officials as the first line of defense against communist aggression in Europe, and France’s “defection” was distressing.

Kennedy, during his European sojourn, attempted to persuade the French to rethink their position, but de Gaulle stood firm in his decision. America’s fears were unrealized, however, as no other nations followed France’s example. French naval forces never rejoined the NATO fleet.

1966 – U.S. planes strike North Vietnamese petroleum-storage facilities in a series of devastating raids. These missions were part of Operation Rolling Thunder, which had been launched in March 1965 after President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam. The operation was designed to interdict North Vietnamese transportation routes in the southern part of North Vietnam and to slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam. During the early months of this campaign, there were restrictions against striking targets in or near Hanoi and Haiphong.

In 1966, however, Rolling Thunder was expanded to include the bombing of North Vietnamese ammunition dumps and oil storage facilities. In the spring of 1967, it was further expanded to include power plants, factories, and airfields in the Hanoi and Haiphong area. The White House closely controlled operation Rolling Thunder and at times President Johnson personally selected targets. From 1965 to 1968, about 643,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Vietnam. The operation continued, with occasional suspensions, until President Johnson halted in on October 31, 1968, under increasing domestic political pressure.

1969 – Approximately 600 communist soldiers storm a U.S. base near Tay Ninh, 50 miles northwest of Saigon and 12 miles from the Cambodian border. The North Vietnamese had been shelling the base for two days, followed by six attacks on the city itself and the surrounding villages. About 1,000 civilians fled their homes as Allied and communist troops fought in the city streets. The Americans eventually prevailed and it was reported that 146 communist soldiers were killed in the bitter street fighting. Ten Americans were killed and 32 were wounded. Total communist losses around Tay Ninh during the two-day battle were put at 194 killed.

1979 – On 21 June 1979, SN Ina J. Toavs was awarded the Coast Guard Medal, the first woman to receive the award.

1982 – John W. Hinckley, Jr., who on March 30, 1981, shot President Ronald Reagan and three others outside a Washington, D.C., hotel, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. In the trial, Hinckley’s defense attorneys argued that their client was ill with narcissistic personality disorder, citing medical evidence, and had a pathological obsession with the 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which the main character attempts to assassinate a fictional senator.

His lawyers claimed that Hinckley had watched the movie more than a dozen times, was obsessed with the lead actress, Jodie Foster, and had attempted to reenact the events of the film in his own life. The movie, not Hinckley, they successfully argued, was the actual planning force behind the events that occurred on March 30, 1981.

On that day, in front of the Washington Hilton, Hinckley had fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants, including Press Secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head and suffered permanent brain damage. The president was shot in the left lung and the .22-caliber bullet just missed his heart. In the aftermath, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned against a wall, and President Reagan, apparently unaware that he’d been shot, was shoved into his limousine by a Secret Service agent and rushed to the hospital. The president fared well, and after 12 days in the hospital he returned to the White House. John Hinckley was booked on federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He had previously been arrested in Tennessee on weapons charges. The June 1982 verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity” aroused widespread public criticism, and many were shocked that a would-be presidential assassin could avoid being held accountable for his crime. However, because of his obvious threat to society, he was placed in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a mental institution.

In the late 1990s, Hinckley’s attorney began arguing that Hinkley’s mental illness was in remission and thus he had a right to return to a normal life. Beginning in August 1999, he was allowed supervised day trips off the hospital grounds and later was allowed to visit his parents once a week unsupervised. The Secret Service voluntarily monitors him during these outings. If his mental illness remains in remission, he may one day be released.


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1985 – American, Brazilian and West German scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. Strong doubts persisted.

1996 – Pentagon officials said American troops destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot in March 1991 that may have contained chemical weapons.

1997 – The U.N. demands Iraq allow inspection teams access to disputed sites.

1999 – US warplanes bombed Iraqi air defense sites in the northern and southern no-fly zones.

1999 – NATO finalized an agreement with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to demilitarize.

2000 – Some 55 years after World War Two ended, 22 Asian-American veterans received the Medal of Honor for bravery on the battlefield during a White House ceremony.

2001 – A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., indicted 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.

2002 – Abu Sabaya (Aldam Tilao), one of the Philippines’ most wanted Muslim rebels and the key man in last year’s kidnapping of a U.S. missionary couple, was reportedly shot and likely killed in a clash with government troops.

2003 – Ten weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, President Bush offered a broadly positive status report on the U.S. mission in Iraq in his weekly radio address.

2003 – In Afghanistan Abdul Wali, a detainee held at a US base, died following 2 days of interrogation. In 2004 David A. Passaro, former Army Ranger, was charged with assault in connection to Wali’s death.

2004 – SpaceShipOne lifted off from the Mojave Desert in the initial stage of the world’s first attempted commercial space flight. SpaceShipOne reached 62.21 miles. It was designed by legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan and was built with more than $20 million in funding by billionaire Paul Allen. It was piloted by Michael Melvill.

2007 – Operation Commando Eagle began in the Mahmudiyah region southwest of Baghdad, conducted by Multinational Division Central. This region contains the notorious Triangle of Death and was the location where three US soldiers were kidnapped in mid-May 2007. The operation resulted in 31 detainees and the seizure of multiple large weapons caches. The operation was described as “a mix of helicopter borne air assaults and Humvee-mounted movements.”


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CAMPBELL, ALBERT RALPH
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 8 April 1875, Williamsport, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In action at Tientsin, China, 21 June 1900. During the advance on Tientsin, Campbell distinguished himself by his conduct.

FRANCIS, CHARLES ROBERT
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 19 May 1875, Doylestown, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In the presence of the enemy during the battle near Tientsin, China, 21 June 1900, Francis distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.

KATES, THOMAS WILBUR
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 7 May 1865, Shelby Center, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 55, 19 July 1901. Citation: In the presence of the enemy during the advance on Tientsin, China, 21 June 1900, Kates distinguished himself by meritorious conduct.

WOOD, LEONARD
Rank and organization: Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army. Place and date: In Apache campaign, summer of 1886. Entered service at: Massachusetts. Birth: Winchester, N.H. Date of issue: 8 April 1898. Citation: Voluntarily carried dispatches through a region infested with hostile Indians, making a journey of 70 miles in one night and walking 30 miles the next day. Also for several weeks, while in close pursuit of Geronimo’s band and constantly expecting an encounter, commanded a detachment of Infantry, which was then without an officer, and to the command of which he was assigned upon his own request.

*HARVEY, CARMEL BERNON, JR.
Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Place and date: Binh Dinh Province, Republic of Vietnam, 21 June 1967. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 6 October 1946, Montgomery, W. Va. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Harvey distinguished himself as a fire team leader with Company B, during combat operations. Ordered to secure a downed helicopter, his platoon established a defensive perimeter around the aircraft, but shortly thereafter a large enemy force attacked the position from 3 sides. Sp4c. Harvey and 2 members of his squad were in a position directly in the path of the enemy onslaught, and their location received the brunt of the fire from an enemy machine gun. In short order, both of his companions were wounded, but Sp4c. Harvey covered this loss by increasing his deliberate rifle fire at the foe. The enemy machine gun seemed to concentrate on him and the bullets struck the ground all around his position. One round hit and armed a grenade attached to his belt. Quickly, he tried to remove the grenade but was unsuccessful. Realizing the danger to his comrades if he remained and despite the hail of enemy fire, he jumped to his feet, shouted a challenge at the enemy, and raced toward the deadly machine gun. He nearly reached the enemy position when the grenade on his belt exploded, mortally wounding Sp4c. Harvey, and stunning the enemy machine gun crew. His final act caused a pause in the enemy fire, and the wounded men were moved from the danger area. Sp4c. Harvey’s dedication to duty, high sense of responsibility, and heroic actions inspired the others in his platoon to decisively beat back the enemy attack. His acts are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

*MCWETHY, EDGAR LEE, JR.
Rank and organization: Specialist Fifth Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Rank and organization: Binh Dinh province, Republic of Vietnam, 21 June 1967. Entered service at: Denver, Colo. Born: 22 November 1944, Leadville, Colo. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Serving as a medical aidman with Company B, Sp5c. McWethy accompanied his platoon to the site of a downed helicopter. Shortly after the platoon established a defensive perimeter around the aircraft, a large enemy force attacked the position from 3 sides with a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire and grenades. The platoon leader and his radio operator were wounded almost immediately, and Sp5c. McWethy rushed across the fire-swept area to their assistance. Although he could not help the mortally wounded radio operator, Sp5c. McWethy’s timely first aid enabled the platoon leader to retain command during this critical period. Hearing a call for aid, Sp5c. McWethy started across the open toward the injured men, but was wounded in the head and knocked to the ground. He regained his feet and continued on but was hit again, this time in the leg. Struggling onward despite his wounds, he gained the side of his comrades and treated their injuries. Observing another fallen rifleman Lying in an exposed position raked by enemy fire, Sp5c. McWethy moved toward him without hesitation. Although the enemy fire wounded him a third time, Sp5c. McWethy reached his fallen companion. Though weakened and in extreme pain, Sp5c. McWethy gave the wounded man artificial respiration but suffered a fourth and fatal wound. Through his indomitable courage, complete disregard for his safety, and demonstrated concern for his fellow soldiers, Sp5c. McWethy inspired the members of his platoon and contributed in great measure to their successful defense of the position and the ultimate rout of the enemy force. Sp5c. McWethy’s profound sense of duty, bravery, and his willingness to accept extraordinary risks in order to help the men of his unit are characteristic of the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

MONTI, JARED C.*
United States Army
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3d Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. Place and date: Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, on June 21, 2006. Citation: Staff Sergeant Jared C. Monti distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a team leader with , in connection with combat operations against an armed enemy in While Staff Sergeant Monti was leading a mission aimed at gathering intelligence and directing fire against the enemy, his 16-man patrol was attacked by as many as 50 enemy fighters. On the verge of being overrun, Staff Sergeant Monti quickly directed his men to set up a defensive position behind a rock formation. He then called for indirect fire support, accurately targeting the rounds upon the enemy who had closed to within 50 meters of his position. While still directing fire, Staff Sergeant Monti personally engaged the enemy with his rifle and a grenade, successfully disrupting an attempt to flank his patrol. Staff Sergeant Monti then realized that one of his Soldiers was lying wounded in the open ground between the advancing enemy and the patrol’s position. With complete disregard for his own safety, Staff Sergeant Monti twice attempted to move from behind the cover of the rocks into the face of relentless enemy fire to rescue his fallen comrade. Determined not to leave his Soldier, Staff Sergeant Monti made a third attempt to cross open terrain through intense enemy fire. On this final attempt, he was mortally wounded, sacrificing his own life in an effort to save his fellow Soldier. Staff Sergeant Monti’s selfless acts of heroism inspired his patrol to fight off the larger enemy force. Staff Sergeant Monti’s immeasurable courage and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and the United States Army.

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22 June

1611 – After spending a winter trapped by ice in present-day Hudson Bay, the starving crew of the Discovery mutinies against its captain, English navigator Henry Hudson, and sets him, his teenage son, and seven supporters adrift in a small, open boat. Hudson and the eight others were never seen again. Two years earlier, in 1609, Hudson sailed to the Americas to find a northwest passage to Asia after repeatedly failing in his efforts to find a northeast ocean passage. Exploring the North American coast, he entered the present-day Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York bays, and then became the first European to ascend what is now called the Hudson River. His voyage, which was financed by the Dutch, was the basis of Holland’s later claims to the region. His fourth expedition, financed by adventurers from England, set out from London on April 17, 1610. Sailing back across the Atlantic, Hudson resumed his efforts to find the northwest passage. Between Greenland and Labrador he entered the present-day Hudson Strait and by it reached Hudson Bay. After three months of exploration, the Discovery was caught too far from open sea when winter set in, and in November Hudson’s men were forced to haul it ashore and set up a winter camp. Lacking food or supplies, the expedition greatly suffered in the extreme cold. Many of the crew held Hudson responsible for their misfortune, and on June 22, 1611, with the coming of summer, they mutinied against him. The Discovery later returned to England, and its crew was arrested for the mutiny. Although Henry Hudson was never seen again, his discoveries gave England its claim to the rich Hudson Bay region.

1775 – In the spring of 1775 colonial leaders, long since tired of the constraining yoke of British rule, led their forces into the battle against the crown. But, the American revolutionaries encountered a small problem on their way to the front: they lacked the funds necessary to wage a prolonged war. And so, on this day in 1775, Congress lent a fiscal hand to the Revolution and authorized the issue of some $2 million in bills of credit. Though hardly the colonies’ first dalliance with paper notes–the Massachusetts Bay colony issued its own bills in 1690–the large scale distribution of the Revolutionary currency was fairly new ground for America. Moreover, the bills, known at the time as “Continentals,” notably lacked the then de rigeur rendering of the British king; instead, some of the notes featured likenesses of Revolutionary soldiers and the inscription “The United Colonies.” But, whatever their novelty, the Continentals proved to be a poor economic instrument: backed by nothing more than the promise of “future tax revenues” and prey to rampant inflation, the notes ultimately had little fiscal value. As George Washington noted at the time, “A wagonload of currency will hardly purchase a wagonload of provisions.” Thus, the Continental failed and left the young nation saddled with a hefty war debt. Duly frustrated by the experience with Continental Currency, America resisted the urge to issues new paper notes until the dawn of the Civil War.

1807 – British officers of the H.M.S. Leopard boarded the U.S.S. Chesapeake after she had set sail for the Mediterranean, and demanded the right to search the ship for deserters. Commodore James Barron refused and the British opened fire with broadsides on the unprepared Chesapeake and forced her to surrender. The British provocation led to the War of 1812.

1813 – A British force attempted to take Craney Island, the fort there was one of the key defenses to Norfolk’s inner harbor and was home to the frigate “Constellation”. The attack was disastrous for the British, who lost over two hundred men and were forced to retreat, only to attack Hampton four days later.
1818 – Boarding parties from the Revenue cutter Dallas seized the privateer Young Spartan, her crew, and the privateer’s prize, the Pastora, off Savannah, Georgia. The crew of the Pastora had been set adrift and their fate remained unknown. The New York Evening Post noted that the crew of the privateer had committed offenses “that can only be expiated by making their exits on the gallows.”

1847 – The 1st doughnut with a hole in it was created.

1864 – Union forces attempt to capture a railroad that had been supplying Petersburg from the south and extend their lines to the Appomattox River. The Confederates thwarted the attempt, and the two sides settled into trenches for a nine-month siege. The struggle for Petersburg began on June 15. Union General Ulysses S. Grant spent six weeks fighting his way around Richmond. His adversary, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, had inflicted tremendous casualties on the Army of the Potomac. Most recently, at Cold Harbor, Grant ordered a disastrous attack on Rebel entrenchments and lost 7,000 men. Afterward, Grant swung south to capture the rail center of Petersburg, 23 miles from Richmond. When the troops arrived, they found the Confederates already digging trenches. For four days, Grant tried to break through the lines.

On June 18, Union losses were particularly heavy. After pausing to reconsider his tactics, Grant refrained from further frontal assaults. Instead, Grant resumed the flanking movements he had followed throughout the campaign. He extended his left flank on June 21 to cut off the Weldon Railroad, which supplied Petersburg from the south. Part of the Union Second and Sixth Corps moved past the Jerusalem Plank Road, where they ran into Ambrose Powell Hill’s Confederates. Hill’s troops rolled up on the Union flank, inflicting nearly 3,000 casualties and capturing 1,700 prisoners. Hill provided breathing room for Lee’s army, and the armies settled in for a long siege.

1864 – U.S.S. Lexington, Acting Ensign Henry Booby, withstood a surprise Confederate strike on White River Station, Arkansas, and forced the attacking Confederate troops to withdraw.

1865 – Confederate raider Shenandoah fires last shot of Civil War in Bering Strait.

1868 – Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.

1876 – General Alfred Terry sent Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and Little Bighorn rivers to search of Indian villages.

1884 – Navy relief expedition under CDR Winfield S. Schley rescues LT A.W. Greely, USA, and 6 others from Ellesmere Island, where they were marooned for 3 years on Arctic island.

1898 – ADM Sampson begins amphibious landing near Santiago, Cuba. Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood led the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment, onto the beach at Daiquiri in the Spanish American War.

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1933 – Germany became a one political party country as Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.

1936 – Congress passed an act to define jurisdiction of Coast Guard. In one of of the most sweeping grants of police authority ever written into U.S. law, Congress designated the Coast Guard as the federal agency for “enforcement of laws generally on the high seas and navigable waters of the United States.”

1940 – Port Security responsibilities are undertaken again for the first time since World War I when President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Espionage Act of 1917. The Coast Guard was to govern anchorage and movement of all vessels in U.S. waters and to protect vessels, harbors, and inland or coastal waterways of the U.S. The Dangerous Cargo Act gave the Coast Guard jurisdiction over ships with high explosives and dangerous cargoes.

1941 – Operation Barbarossa, the German attack on the Soviet Union, begins. Despite the massive preparations spread over many months and the numerous indications Stalin receives from many sources, the Soviet forces are taken almost completely by surprise and lose very heavily in the first encounters. The Germans have assembled almost 140 of their own divisions, including 17 Panzer and 13 motorized divisions. These forces are organized in three army groups: Army Group North (Field Marshal Leeb), Army Group Center (Field Marshal Bock) and Army Group South (Field Marshal Rundstedt). Altogether, the Germans deploy over 3,000,000 men, 7100 guns, 3300 tanks, 625,000 horses and 2770 aircraft. The Red Army has 230 divisions (170 of which are in the west, 134 facing the Germans). The Soviet forces are organized into Northwest Front (Kuznetsov), West Front (Pavlov), Southwest Front (Kirpono) and South Front (Tyulenev). They include 24,000 tanks and 8000 aircraft.

On the first day of the attack almost everything goes the German way. The attack begins at 0300 hours with advances on the ground and simultaneous air strikes. The Luftwaffe begins its operations very early in order to be over the Soviet bases exactly at zero hour. By noon the Soviet Air Force has lost around 1200 planes. The land battle is equally successful. The panzer spearhead Army Group North advances 40 miles during the day and Army Group Center captures most of the Bug River bridges intact. Army Group South forces based in Hungary and Romania do not attack during the day.

1942 – The first delivery of V-Mail was in 1942.

1942 – A Japanese submarine shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1943 – Federal troops put down race-related rioting in Detroit that claimed more than 30 lives.

1944 – President Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights, authorizing a broad package of benefits for World War II veterans.

1944 – After a preparatory air raid on Cherbourg, in which over 1000 tons of bombs are dropped, the divisions of the US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) begin assaulting the city of Cherbourg. There is heavy German resistance.

1944 – On Biak, American forces conduct a series of attacks which are believed to clear Japanese resistance in the west but experience renewed Japanese activity during the night. On the mainland, fighting continues near Aitape and Sarmi.

1944 – On Saipan, forces of the US 5th Amphibious Corps advance. The US 2nd Marine Division captures Mount Tipo Pole and fight for Mount Tapotchau. The US 4th Marine Division progresses east on the Kagman Peninsula.

1945 – On Okinawa, the battle ends. American forces have lost 12,500 dead and 35,500 wounded. The US navy has had 36 ships sunk and 368 damaged. In the air, the American forces have lost 763 planes. The Japanese losses include 120,000 military and 42,000 civilian dead. For the first time in the war, there are a relatively large number of Japanese prisoners: 10,755. American reports claim the Japanese have lost 7,830 planes.

1945 – American B-29 Superfortress bombers drop about 3000 tons of bombs on Japanese munitions plants in Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya and Okayama.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Colonel Robert P. Baldwin, commander of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Group, became the 35th ace of the Korean War.

1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the first use of the first official Marine Corps Seal.

1962 – The Hovercraft was 1st tested.

1965 – US planes bomb targets only 80 miles from the Chinese border, the deepest raids into North Vietnam so far.

1970 – President Nixon signed the 26th amendment, a measure lowering the voting age to 18.

1971 – In a major engagement near the Demilitarized Zone, some 1,500 North Vietnamese attack the 500-man South Vietnamese garrison at Fire Base Fuller. Despite U.S. B-52 raids dropping 60 tons of bombs on June 21 and a 1,000-man reinforcement on June 24, the South Vietnamese had to abandon the base since a North Vietnamese bombardment had destroyed 80 percent of their bunkers. In an attempt to clear the surrounding area of enemy mortar and rocket sites, South Vietnamese forces swept the region on June 25. On June 28, a Saigon spokesman announced that 120 South Vietnamese had reoccupied Fire Base Fuller, but would not rebuild the fortifications. Casualty figures were reported at nearly 500 North Vietnamese dead, with 135 wounded. On July 1, fighting again flared up around the base, as 300 communists were pushed back with the help of U.S. and South Vietnamese air power and with 150 additional South Vietnamese troops.

1972 – South Vietnam’s 21st Division, decimated by repeated attempts to relieve An Loc, is replaced by the 25th Division. At the same time, U.S. helicopters flew 18th Division troops to positions south of An Loc to replace badly battered 9th Division troops that had also been trying to get to the city. The 21st Division and attached units had been trying to reach the besieged city since April 9, when the group 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 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 30; the other main objectives were Quang Tri in the north and Kontum in the Central Highlands. The arrival of the fresh South Vietnamese soldiers would eventually result in the lifting of the siege at An Loc. The 18th Division troops successfully attacked the North Vietnamese forces surrounding the city and most of the communist troops within An Loc had been eliminated by the end of the month. The 25th Division was less successful and the North Vietnamese forces continued to block Route 13 south of the city.

1973 – Skylab astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space.

1977 – Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams introduced Ensign Beverly G. Kelley and Boatswain’s Mate 3/c Debra Lee Wilson during a press conference as two of 14 women who had been assigned to sea duty. “This is the first time in Coast Guard history that women have been sent to sea.” Both women had orders to report to the Morgenthau later that year.

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1982 – The first successful hostage rescue at sea occurred when a combined Coast Guard / FBI boarding party deployed from CGC Alert took control of the 890-foot Liberian-flagged motor tanker Ypapanti. The incident began on 16 May 1982 when the Ypapanti anchored off the entrance to Delaware Bay after it was denied entrance to U.S. waters by COTP Philadelphia, due to the lack of required safety equipment aboard. Initially the CGCs Hornbeam, Active and Point Franklin responded. After the situation stabilized, Active and Point Franklin departed while Hornbeam stood by the tanker to monitor the situation and to act as on scene commander; she was relieved on 29 May by Alert.

During the next few days the tanker’s crew mutinied and seized control of the tanker from the master in a wage dispute. After a prolonged period of unsuccessful negotiations and threats by the crew to kill various officers and to set fire to the vessel, the Alert went alongside the tanker on 22 June 1982. A senior Coast Guard negotiating team went aboard to present one last wage / repatriation offer to the crew. When this offer was rejected a combined Coast Guard / FBI boarding team went aboard from the Alert and took control of the Ypapanti without injury. The vessel was then returned to the control of the master and 12 loyal crewmen. Twenty-four mutineers were detained on board the Alert and were transferred to the custody of the INS in Cape May.

1989 – After nearly 15 years of civil war, opposing factions in Angola agree to a cease-fire to end a conflict that had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The cease-fire also helped to defuse U.S.-Soviet tensions concerning Angola. Angola was a former Portuguese colony that had attained independence in 1975. Even before that date, however, various factions had been jockeying for power. The two most important were the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was favored by the United States, and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which was supported by the Soviets. Once independence became a reality in November 1975, the two groups began a brutal contest for control, with the Soviet-supported MPLA eventually seizing control of the nation’s capital. UNITA found support from Zaire and South Africa in the form of funds, weapons, and, in the case of South Africa, troops. The United States provided covert financial and arms support to both Zaire and South Africa to assist those nations’ efforts in Angola. The Soviets responded with increasingly heavy support to the MPLA, and Cuba began to airlift troops in to help fight against UNITA. The African nation quickly became a Cold War hotspot.

President Ronald Reagan began direct U.S. support of UNITA during his term in office in the 1980s. Angola suffered through a debilitating civil war, with thousands of people killed. Hundreds of thousands more became refugees from the increasingly savage conflict. In 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev set into motion a series of events that would lead to a cease-fire the following year. Gorbachev was desperately seeking to better Soviet relations with the United States and he was facing a Soviet economy that could no longer sustain the expenses of supporting far-flung “wars of national liberation” like in Angola. He therefore announced that the Soviet Union was cutting its aid to both the MPLA and Cuba. Cuba, which depended on the Soviet subsidy to maintain its troops in Angola, made the decision to withdraw, and its forces began to depart in early 1989. South Africa thereupon suspended its aid to UNITA. The United States continued its aid to UNITA, but at a much smaller level. UNITA and the MPLA, exhausted from nearly 15 years of conflict, agreed to talks in 1989. These resulted in a cease-fire in June of that year. It was a short-lived respite. In 1992, national elections resulted in an overwhelming victory for the MPLA, and UNITA went back on the warpath.

1993 – A bomb mailed from Sacramento attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski maimed Univ. of Calif. San Francisco geneticist Charles Epstein at his home in Tiburon.

1994 – President Clinton announced North Korea had confirmed its willingness to freeze its nuclear program.

1997 – Iran and Iraq opened their border after 17 years and asked the UN for an inspection post there, giving Iraq a 4th exit point for its goods.

2001 – The US and Mexico unveiled a new border safety pact with measures to prevent migrants from crossing at deadly transit points and planned to equip US agents with nonlethal weapons.

2001 – US forces in the Middle East were put on high alert following intelligence reports on possible terrorist attacks.

2001 – The Philippine government signed a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

2002 – A bin Laden spokesman said in audiotaped remarks from Qatar that Osama bin Laden and his No. 2 man are both alive and well and their al-Qaida network is ready to attack new U.S. targets.

2003 – The Belgian government agreed on changes to narrow a war crimes law and prevent complaints against foreign leaders that have provoked vehement criticism from the US.

2003 – In Djibouti an explosion caused by a bomb dropped from a B-52 killed a U.S. Marine and wounded eight U.S. service members during a training exercise.

2003 – Iraq returned to world oil markets with its first crude oil exports since the U.S.-led invasion. A fuel pipeline exploded and caught fire west of Baghdad, a possible act of sabotage that sent flames high into the sky.

2004 – Islamic militants beheaded a South Korean who pleaded in a heart-wrenching videotape that “I don’t want to die” after his government refused to pull its troops from Iraq. Hours later, the United States launched an airstrike in Fallujah.

2004 – North Korea, the US, and four other nations agreed to discuss a freezing of the North’s nuclear program and inspections that would lead to its eventual dismantlement.

2014 – ISIS militants captured two key crossings in Anbar, a day after seizing the border crossing at Al-Qaim, a town in a province which borders Syria. According to analysts, capturing these crossings could aid ISIS in transporting weapons and equipment to different battlefields.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

None this Date

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23 June

1683 – William Penn signed a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania. It became the only treaty “not sworn to, nor broken.”

1776 – The final draft of Declaration of Independence was submitted to US Congress.

1784 – The 1st US balloon flight was made by Edward Warren.

1812 – Marine Lt. John Heath became the first casualty of the War of 1812.

1817 – The RC Active forced a South American privateer posing as an armed merchantman to leave the Chesapeake Bay and American waters.

1845 – The congress of the Republic of Texas voted to accept annexation by the US after 10 years as an independent republic.

1861 – Confederate Navy- began reconstruction of ex- U.S.S. Merrimack as ironclad C.S.S. Virginia at Norfolk.

1862 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee meets with his corps commanders to plot an attack on General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Launched on June 26, the attack would break the stalemate of the Peninsular campaign and trigger the Seven Days’ Battles. McClellan had spent two months shipping his army down the Chesapeake to the James Peninsula for a run at the Confederate capital. Despite having a larger number of troops, McClellan moved slowly and timidly, and his advance stalled on June 1, less than 10 miles from Richmond. For the next three weeks, McClellan’s and Lee’s armies faced off, but little fighting occurred. Now Lee sought to seize the initiative. He summoned his generals for a council on June 23. Included in the meeting was General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, fresh off his highly successful Shenandoah Valley campaign. Jackson was traveling ahead of his army, which was still marching back from western Virginia. Lee announced to his commanders that the time had come to attack the Yankee invaders. Lee planned an assault on the Union right flank, which was separated from the rest of the Yankee army by the Chickahominy River. Plans were made for the Battle of Mechanicsville on June 26, and Jackson rode back to his troops. The stage was set for the Seven Days’ Battles.

1863 – Confederate forces overwhelmed a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in Louisiana.

1865 – Confederate General Stand Watie, who was also a Cherokee chief, surrendered the last sizable Confederate army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.

1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called a “Type-Writer.”

1918 – A joint Anglo-French force occupies the north Russian port of Murmansk to aid those forces, “White Russians”, opposed to the Bolshevik government. Similar operations follow at Archangel and Vladivostok are both occupied, Vladivostok by US troops, in August. The two US regiments committed at Vladivostok are commanded by General William Graves. Unlike his allies in the north he is under strict orders not to interfere in internal Russian affairs. his roles are to prevent the Japanese, who have a garrison there, from taking over the port permanently and to aid in the repatriation of a 100,000 strong group of Austro-Hungarian prisoners, later known as the Czech Legion. US troops also guard part of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to facilitate the possible evacuation of the Czech legion, but they become involved in clashes with both Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik forces. American forces will remain in the region until April 1920.

1933 – Commissioning of USS Macon, Navy’s last dirigible.

1939 – Congress created the Coast Guard Reserve which later became what is today the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

1943 – American landings on Woodlark Island begin.

1944 – The Soviet attack begins. There are four front-level commands engaged in the operation, under the STAVKA direction of Marshal Zhukov (the southern wing) and Marshal Vasilevsky (the northern wing). From left to right: 1st Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky); 2nd Belorussian Front (Zakharov); 3rd Belorussian Front (Cherniakhovsky); and, 1st Baltic Front (Bagramian). The Soviet combat forces directly engaged in the offensive amount to over 1,250,000 men (in 124 divisions), over 4000 tanks and self-propelled guns, over 24,000 artillery pieces and over 6300 aircraft. Soviet objectives include tactical encirclements at Vitebsk and Bobruisk while a deep encirclement would aim for Minsk. Soviet forces are then to drive west toward the Vistula River.

The target of Operation Bagration is German Army Group Center (Busch) holding a salient centered on Minsk, and including most of Belorussia. Its forces, from right to left, include: 9th Army (Jordan), 4th Army (Tippelskirch); and, 3rd Panzer Army (Reinhardt). On the right flank of the army group is the German 2nd Army (Weiss) which is not targeted by the Soviet offensive. The German defenders amount to 800,000 men in 63 divisions with about 900 tanks and assault guns, 10,000 artillery pieces and 1300 planes. Advances of up 11 miles are recorded by Red Army troops of 2nd, 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic Fronts. The 1st Belorussian Front does not join in the assault during the day. Meanwhile in the far north, forces of the Soviet 7th Separate Army cross the Svir River.

1944 – American forces of the US 7th Corps (part of 1st Army) penetrate the outer defenses of Cherbourg. Elements of British 2nd Army also make gains. The British 5th Division captures St. Honorina, northwest of Caen.

1944 – In one of the largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sent 761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.

1944 – On Saipan, US 5th Amphibious Corps remains engaged in fighting. The 2nd Marine Division contineus to battle for Mount Tapotchau.

1945 – On Okinawa, the systematic mopping up of the island begins. General Stilwell takes command of the US 10th Army in place of General Geiger. Lt Gen Ushijima, Japanese commander, committed suicide.

1945 – American paratroopers land near Aparri on the north coast of Luzon, at the mouth of the Cagayan River, without incident. They link up with a large force of Filipino guerrillas. The combined force advances southward to make contact with the US 37th Division.

1945 – The rival parties claiming the right to rule Poland reach an agreement on power sharing. American and British objections to the Lublin Committee Poles, supported by the Soviet Union, are met with the inclusion of three of the Poles from the London based government in exile. Among the three is Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, the former premier, who is to be the deputy premier. In addition, two non-Communist Poles from within Poland are included in the new provisional government. The Communists and their opponents are therefore to share power more equitably than originally thought possible.

1945 – The representatives of the Big Four powers (China, UK, USA and USSR) agree to admit Poland to the United Nations.

1951 – Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposed cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.

1951 – U.S. Air Force Captain and former fighter pilot Richard Heyman, 8th Bomber Squadron, was officially credited with the only B-26 Invader light bomber aerial victory of the war when he shot down a communist PO-2.

1952 – More than 200 aircraft attacked four power complexes located along the Yalu River in the largest joint air operation since World War II. The combined Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps force flew over 1,200 sorties during the two-day operation.

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1959 – After only nine years in prison, Klaus Fuchs, the German-born Los Alamos scientist whose espionage helped the USSR build their first atomic and hydrogen bombs, is released from a British prison. Fuchs immediately left Britain for communist East Germany, where he resumed his scientific career. As a student in prewar Germany, Fuchs joined the German Communist Party in 1930 but in 1934 was forced to flee after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler came to power. Settling in Britain, he became a brilliant young scientist and was recruited by the British military after the outbreak of World War II. Despite his communist past, he was granted security clearance. In 1943, Fuchs was sent with other British scientists to the United States to join the top secret U.S. atomic program. Eventually stationed at atomic development headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Fuchs became an important figure in the program. Unbeknownst to anyone at Los Alamos, he made contact with a Soviet spy soon after his arrival and offered precise information about the program, including a blueprint of the “Fat Man” atomic bomb later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and everything that the Los Alamos scientists knew about the hypothesized hydrogen bomb. After the war, Fuchs returned to England, where he continued his atomic work and Soviet espionage until December 21, 1949, when a British intelligence officer informed the physicist that he was suspected of having given classified nuclear weapons information to the USSR.

The discovery of Fuch’s espionage came four months after the Soviet Union successfully detonated its first atomic bomb. Fuchs pleaded guilty and on March 1, 1950, after a two-hour trial, was convicted. By British law he could be sentenced to only 14 years in prison because the USSR was not an official British enemy at the time of his arrest. After nine years, he was released from prison for good behavior and immediately left Britain for communist East Germany. He died in 1988. The revelation of Fuchs’ espionage was a major factor leading to President Harry Truman’s approval of massive funding for the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The first U.S. hydrogen bomb was successfully detonated in 1952. Three years later, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion.

1964 – At a news conference, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that Henry Cabot Lodge has resigned as ambassador to South Vietnam and that Gen. Maxwell Taylor will be his replacement. It was reliably reported that virtually every top official in the administration volunteered to serve as ambassador. Johnson made a point of insisting that this change would in no way affect the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam. It was also announced that General Westmoreland was to become the “executive agent” to supervise the civilian advisory and assistance programs in three provinces around Saigon, the first stage of a plan to coordinate the entire U.S. military and civilian program in South Vietnam under the military command. Lodge had left his ambassadorial post to pursue the Republican presidential nomination. Ultimately, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona secured the nomination and was defeated by Johnson in the general election. Lodge returned to Saigon in 1965 for another two-year stint as ambassador.

1967 – President Johnson and Soviet Premier Alekesi Kosygin meet in Glassboro, New Jersey for a three day meeting on world issues.

1969 – Ben Het, a U.S. Special Forces camp located 288 miles northeast of Saigon and six miles from the junction of the Cambodian, Laotian and South Vietnamese borders, is besieged and cut off by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops using artillery and mortars. The base was defended by 250 U.S. soldiers and 750 South Vietnamese Montagnard tribesmen. The siege lasted until July 2 when the defenders were reinforced by an allied relief column.

1972 – US helicopters are required to fly almost all the dangerous missions around Anloc because South Vietnamese crews have panicked under fire. Several US helicopters and their crews have been lost in the last two weeks of heavy fighting causing bitterness among US airmen.

1972 – President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation in 1974. In the “smoking gun” tape Pres. Nixon told his chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell top CIA officials that “the president believes this (in reference to Watergate) is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.” Nixon counseled Haldeman on how to use deception to thwart an FBI investigation on how Watergate was financed.

1987 – The Iran-Contra hearings resumed with testimony from former CIA employee Glenn A. Robinette, who said he’d installed a $14,000 security system at the home of Lt. Col. Oliver North, then helped make it appear that North had paid for the work.

1991 – Iraq violates cease-fire agreements and U.N. Security Council Resolution 687. For the first time, Iraqi troops fire shots to prevent UNSCOM/IAEA inspectors from intercepting Iraqi vehicles carrying nuclear-related equipment. Equipment is later found and destroyed under cease-fire rules.

1998 – Iraq admits to experimenting with deadly VX chemical agent, but says it was unable to turn it into a weapon.

1998 – President Clinton said the reported discovery of traces of deadly nerve gas on an Iraqi missile warhead gave the United States new ammunition to maintain tough U.N. sanctions against the Baghdad government.

1999 – In Kosovo US Marines at a checkpoint in Zegra killed one Serb and wounded 2 others after being fired upon.

2000 – Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during a visit to South Korea, said American troops would remain in the country indefinitely to maintain strategic stability in the Pacific area.

2003 – The US-led civil administrators announced the creation of a new Iraqi army.

2004 – In Iraq Polish forces purchased 17 rockets for a Soviet-era launcher and two mortar rounds containing the nerve agent cyclosarin for an undisclosed sum.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

DRURY, JAMES
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company C, 4th Vermont Infantry. Place and date: At Weldon Railroad, Va., 23 June 1864. Entered service at: Chester, Vt. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 18 January 1893. Citation: Saved the colors of his regiment when it was surrounded by a much larger force of the enemy and after the greater part of the regiment had been killed or captured.

*BUTTS, JOHN E.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Co. E, 60th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division. Place and date: Normandy, France, 14, 16, and 23 June 1944. Entered service at: Buffalo, N.Y. Birth: Medina, N.Y. G.O. No.: 58, 19 July 1945. Citation: Heroically led his platoon against the enemy in Normandy, France, on 14, 16, and 23 June 1944. Although painfully wounded on the 14th near Orglandes and again on the 16th while spearheading an attack to establish a bridgehead across the Douve River, he refused medical aid and remained with his platoon. A week later, near Flottemanville Hague, he led an assault on a tactically important and stubbornly defended hill studded with tanks, antitank guns, pillboxes, and machinegun emplacements, and protected by concentrated artillery and mortar fire. As the attack was launched, 2d Lt. Butts, at the head of his platoon, was critically wounded by German machinegun fire. Although weakened by his injuries, he rallied his men and directed 1 squad to make a flanking movement while he alone made a frontal assault to draw the hostile fire upon himself. Once more he was struck, but by grim determination and sheer courage continued to crawl ahead. When within 10 yards of his objective, he was killed by direct fire. By his superb courage, unflinching valor and inspiring actions, 2d Lt. Butts enabled his platoon to take a formidable strong point and contributed greatly to the success of his battalion’s mission.

*KINGSLEY, DAVID R. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 97th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force. Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 23 June 1944. Entered service at. Portland, Oreg. Birth: Oregon. G.O. No.: 26, 9 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, 23 June 1944 near Ploesti, Rumania, while flying as bombardier of a B17 type aircraft. On the bomb run 2d Lt. Kingsley’s aircraft was severely damaged by intense flak and forced to drop out of formation but the pilot proceeded over the target and 2d Lt. Kingsley successfully dropped his bombs, causing severe damage to vital installations. The damaged aircraft, forced to lose altitude and to lag behind the formation, was aggressively attacked by 3 ME-109 aircraft, causing more damage to the aircraft and severely wounding the tail gunner in the upper arm. The radio operator and engineer notified 2d Lt. Kingsley that the tail gunner had been wounded and that assistance was needed to check the bleeding. 2d Lt. Kingsley made his way back to the radio room, skillfully applied first aid to the wound, and succeeded in checking the bleeding. The tail gunner’s parachute harness and heavy clothes were removed and he was covered with blankets, making him as comfortable as possible.

Eight ME-109 aircraft again aggressively attacked 2d Lt. Kingsley’s aircraft and the ball turret gunner was wounded by 20mm. shell fragments. He went forward to the radio room to have 2d Lt. Kingsley administer first aid. A few minutes later when the pilot gave the order to prepare to bail out, 2d Lt. Kingsley immediately began to assist the wounded gunners in putting on their parachute harness. In the confusion the tail gunner’s harness, believed to have been damaged, could not be located in the bundle of blankets and flying clothes which had been removed from the wounded men. With utter disregard for his own means of escape, 2d Lt. Kingsley unhesitatingly removed his parachute harness and adjusted it to the wounded tail gunner. Due to the extensive damage caused by the accurate and concentrated 20mm. fire by the enemy aircraft the pilot gave the order to bail out, as it appeared that the aircraft would disintegrate at any moment. 2d Lt. Kingsley aided the wounded men in bailing out and when last seen by the crewmembers he was standing on the bomb bay catwalk. The aircraft continued to fly on automatic pilot for a short distance, then crashed and burned. His body was later found in the wreckage. 2d Lt. Kingsley by his gallant heroic action was directly responsible for saving the life of the wounded gunner.

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24 June

1664 – New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.

1675 – In colonial New England, King Philip’s War begins when a band of Wampanoag warriors raid the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists there. In the early 1670s, 50 years of peace between the Plymouth colony and the local Wampanoag Indians began to deteriorate when the rapidly expanding settlement forced land sales on the tribe. Reacting to increasing Native American hostility, the English met with King Philip, chief of the Wampanoag, and demanded that his forces surrender their arms. The Wampanoag did so, but in 1675 a Christian Native American who had been acting as an informer to the English was murdered, and three Wampanoag were tried and executed for the crime. King Philip responded by ordering the attack on Swansee on June 24, which set off a series of Wampanoag raids in which several settlements were destroyed and scores of colonists massacred. The colonists retaliated by destroying a number of Indian villages. The destruction of a Narragansett village by the English brought the Narragansett into the conflict on the side of King Philip, and within a few months several other tribes and all the New England colonies were involved. In early 1676, the Narragansett were defeated and their chief killed, while the Wampanoag and their other allies were gradually subdued. King Philip’s wife and son were captured, and on August 12, 1676, after his secret headquarters in Mount Hope, Rhode Island, was discovered, Philip was assassinated by a Native American in the service of the English. The English drew and quartered Philip’s body and publicly displayed his head on a stake in Plymouth. King Philip’s War, which was extremely costly to the colonists of southern New England, ended the Native American presence in the region and inaugurated a period of unimpeded colonial expansion.

1861 – Federal gunboats attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.

1861 – Tennessee became the 11th and last state to secede from US.

1862 – U.S. intervention saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.

1862 – President Abraham Lincoln meets with retired General Winfield Scott, a hero of the Mexican War and the commander of all Union forces at the outbreak of the Civil War. Scott, aged and infirm, still possessed a sharp military mind. More important, he was one of the few impartial advisors surrounding Lincoln. On June 23, Lincoln took a train from Washington to West Point, New York, and called on Scott the following day to discuss Union strategy in Virginia. Lincoln had doubts about George McClellan’s ability to lead the Army of the Potomac, which was stuck in a stalemate with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia outside of Richmond. He also sought Scott’s opinion on the various Federal armies operating in northern Virginia. Scott recommended that Irwin McDowell’s corps be sent to aid McClellan on the James Peninsula, since a defeat of Lee at Richmond would, in Scott’s words, “be a virtual end of the rebellion.” Although it may have been sound advice, Lincoln did not move McDowell’s force. McClellan had provided no evidence to Lincoln that he would effectively apply the reinforcements against Lee. Instead, Lincoln consolidated McDowell’s corps with the commands of John C. Frýmont and Nathaniel Banks, who had recently been bested by Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. John Pope, under whom Frýmont refused to serve and so went on inactive duty, led the newly formed Army of Virginia. This new army would face its first test in August at the Second Battle of Bull Run, where it suffered a humiliating defeat. More than anything, this visit fueled Lincoln’s disenchantment with military advice. Lincoln spent the war’s first two and a half years learning about military affairs and searching for the right advisor. He would not find that voice until the fall of 1863—from Ulysses S. Grant.

1863 – Planning an invasion of Pennsylvania, Lee’s army crossed the Potomac.

1864 – Iron screw steamer U.S.S. Calypso, Acting Master Frederick D. Stuart, and wooden side wheeler U.S.S. Nansemond, Acting Ensign James H. Porter, transported and supported an Army expedition in the vicinity of New River, North Carolina. The object was to cut the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, but Confederates had learned of the attempt and, taking up defensive positions in strength, compelled the Union troops to withdraw under cover of the ships’ guns.

1864 – Lieutenant Cushing, with Acting Ensign J. E. Jones, Acting Master’s Mate Howorth and fifteen men, all from U.S.S. Monticello, reconnoitered up Cape Fear River to within 3 miles of Wilmington, North Carolina. They rowed past the batteries guarding the western bar on the night of the 23rd, and despite three narrow escapes pulled safely ashore below Wilmington as day dawned on the 24th. The expedition had begun as an attempt to gain information about C.S.S. Raleigh, which Cushing was unaware had been wrecked after the engagement on 6 May. He learned that the ram had been “indeed, destroyed, and nothing now remains of her above water.

1864 – U.S.S. Queen City, Acting Master Michael Hickey, lying at anchor off Clarendon, Arkansas, on the White River, was attacked and destroyed in the early morning hours by two regiments of Confederate cavalry supported by artillery. The 210-ton wooden paddle-wheeler, taken by surprise, was disabled immediately, and Hickey surrendered her. Lieutenant Bache, U.S.S. Tyler, attempted to retake the ship, but when within a few miles of the location “heard two successive reports, which proved subsequently to have been the unfortunate Queen City blowing up. [Confederate General] Shelby, hearing us coming, had destroyed her.” Bache proceeded with wooden steamers Tyler, U.S.S. Fawn, Acting Master John R. Grace, and U.S.S. Naumkeag, Acting Master John Rogers, to Clarendon, where he engaged the Confederate battery hotly for forty-five minutes. Naumkeag succeeded in recapturing one howitzer and several crewmen from Queen City as the Confederates fell back from the riverbank.

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1864 – Colorado Governor John Evans warns that all peaceful Indians in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. Evans’ offer of sanctuary was at best halfhearted. His primary goal in 1864 was to eliminate all Native American activity in eastern Colorado Territory, an accomplishment he hoped would increase his popularity and eventually win him a U.S. Senate seat. Immediately after ordering the peaceful Indians to the reservation, Evans issued a second proclamation that invited white settlers to indiscriminately “kill and destroy all…hostile Indians.” At the same time, Evans began creating a temporary 100-day militia force to wage war on the Indians. He placed the new regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington, another ambitious man who hoped to gain high political office by fighting Indians. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe Indians of eastern Colorado were unaware of these duplicitous political maneuverings. Although some bands had violently resisted white settlers in years past, by the autumn of 1864 many Indians were becoming more receptive to Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle’s argument that they must make peace. Black Kettle had recently returned from a visit to Washington, D.C., where President Abraham Lincoln had given him a huge American flag of which Black Kettle was very proud. He had seen the vast numbers of the white people and their powerful machines. The Indians, Black Kettle argued, must make peace or be crushed. When word of Governor Evans’ June 24 offer of sanctuary reached the Indians, however, most of the Indians remained distrustful and were unwilling to give up the fight. Only Black Kettle and a few lesser chiefs took Evans up on his offer of amnesty. In truth, Evans and Chivington were reluctant to see hostilities further abate before they had won a glorious victory, but they grudgingly promised Black Kettle his people would be safe if they came to Fort Lyon in eastern Colorado.

In November 1864, the Indians reported to the fort as requested. Major Edward Wynkoop, the commanding federal officer, told Black Kettle to settle his band about 40 miles away on Sand Creek, where he promised they would be safe. Wynkoop, however, could not control John Chivington. By November, the 100-day enlistment of the soldiers in his Colorado militia was nearly up, and Chivington had seen no action. His political stock was rapidly falling, and he seems to have become almost insane in his desire to kill Indians. “I long to be wading in gore!” he is said to have proclaimed at a dinner party. In this demented state, Chivington apparently concluded that it did not matter whether he killed peaceful or hostile Indians. In his mind, Black Kettle’s village on Sand Creek became a legitimate and easy target. At daybreak on November 29, 1864, Chivington led 700 men, many of them drunk, in a savage assault on Black Kettle’s peaceful village. Most of the Cheyenne warriors were away hunting. In the awful hours that followed, Chivington and his men brutally slaughtered 105 women and children and killed 28 men. The soldiers scalped and mutilated the corpses, carrying body parts back to display in Denver as trophies. Amazingly, Black Kettle and a number of other Cheyenne managed to escape. In the following months, the nation learned of Chivington’s treachery at Sand Creek, and many Americans reacted with horror and disgust. By then, Chivington and his soldiers had left the military and were beyond reach of a court-martial. Chivington’s political ambitions, however, were ruined, and he spent the rest of his inconsequential life wandering the West. The scandal over Sand Creek also forced Evans to resign and dashed his hopes of holding political office. Evans did, however, go on to a successful and lucrative career building and operating Colorado railroads.

1898 – American troops drove Spanish forces from La Guasimas, Cuba.

1908 – The 22nd and 24th president (1893-1897) of the United States, Grover Cleveland, died in Princeton, N.J., at age 71.

1915 – Some 70,000 attend the National German-American meeting at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

1917 – US General John Pershing lands with the first contingents of the American Expeditionary Force. Other units will follow; 180,000 men by the end of the year.

1918 – After weeks of grinding infantry combat, the French command finally commits sufficient artillery to reduce Belleau Woods. The guns are brought in to prepare for a renewed assault.

1930 – The 1st radar detection of planes was made at Anacostia, DC.

1941 – President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.

1943 – Allies began a 10-day fire bombing of Hamburg.

1944 – The battle for Cherbourg continues. American forces of US 7th Corps (part of 1st Army) continue to make progress. The German garrison commander, General Schlieben, refuses to surrender.

1944 – The battle for Saipan continues as US 5th Amphibious Corps makes progress. The 27th Division clears the southern part of the island and most of the division moves northward. The 2nd Marine Division continues to battle for Mount Tapotchau.

1944 – Japanese bases on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima are raided by American carrier aircraft. The planes are from Hornet, Yorktown, Bataan and Belleau Wood (a force commanded by Admiral Clark). Japanese losses are 66 aircraft.

1945 – Over Borneo, British and American aircraft drop 1000 tons of bombs on Japanese positions.

1945 – The last of four German Ar234 jet bombers (collected by “Watson’s Wizzers” of the USAAF) lands in Cherbourg, flying from Sola in Norway. These aircraft are to be loaded onboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Reaper, along with 34 other advanced German aircraft, for shipment to the United States.

1946 – Lt. Col. Ellison S. Onizuka (astronaut: mission specialist aboard ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger), was born.

1948 – One of the most dramatic standoffs in the history of the Cold War begins as the Soviet Union blocks all road and rail traffic to and from West Berlin. The blockade turned out to be a terrible diplomatic move by the Soviets, while the United States emerged from the confrontation with renewed purpose and confidence. Following World War II, Germany was divided into occupation zones. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and, eventually, France, were given specific zones to occupy in which they were to accept the surrender of Nazi forces and restore order. The Soviet Union occupied most of eastern Germany, while the other Allied nations occupied western Germany. The German capital of Berlin was similarly divided into four zones of occupation. Almost immediately, differences between the United States and the Soviet Union surfaced. The Soviets sought huge reparations from Germany in the form of money, industrial equipment, and resources.
The Russians also made it clear that they desired a neutral and disarmed Germany. The United States saw things in quite a different way. American officials believed that the economic recovery of Western Europe was dependent on a strong, reunified Germany. They also felt that only a rearmed Germany could stand as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Western Europe.

In May 1946, the Americans stopped reparations shipments from their zone to the Soviets. In December, the British and Americans combined their zones; the French joined some months later. The Soviets viewed these actions as a threat and issued more demands for a say in the economic future of Germany. On June 22, 1948, negotiations between the Soviets, Americans, and British broke down. On June 24, Soviet forces blocked the roads and railroad lines into West Berlin. American officials were furious, and some in the administration of President Harry S. Truman argued that the time for diplomacy with the Soviets was over. For a few tense days, the world waited to see whether the United States and Soviet Union would come to blows. In West Berlin, panic began to set in as its population worried about shortages of food, water, and medical aid. The United States response came just two days after the Soviets began their blockade. A massive airlift of supplies into West Berlin was undertaken in what was to become one of the greatest logistical efforts in history. For the Soviets, the escapade quickly became a diplomatic embarrassment. Russia looked like an international bully that was trying to starve men, women, and children into submission. And the successful American airlift merely served to accentuate the technological superiority of the United States over the Soviet Union. On May 12, 1949, the Soviets officially ended the blockade.


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1955 – Soviet MIG’s down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.

1957 – The US Army’s 1st Special Forces Group is activated in Okinawa. In the course of the year this unit trains 58 men of the Vietnamese Army at the Commando Training Center in Nha Trang. These trainees become the nucleus of the Vietnamese Special Forces.

1965 – Hanoi Radio announces that the Vietcong have shot POW and US Army Sergeant Harold G. Bennett. Harold Bennett and Charles Crafts were MACV advisors to an ARVN unit operating in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. A native of Maine, Crafts had been in country about 1 month. On the afternoon of December 29, 1964, Bennett, Crafts and their ARVN unit made contact with Viet Cong guerrillas and the unit engaged in a firefight. During the firefight, both were taken prisoner. By early 1965, Crafts and Bennett joined other prisoners held by the Viet Cong. Those who returned supplied information on the fates of those who did not.

In late spring, 1965, Bennett began to refuse food. This was not an uncommon occurrence among prisoners suffering dysentery, malnutrition, malaise, injury and other ills that were common among prisoners of war in the South. Normally, the other prisoners worked hard to prevent further illness by forcing food on the POW who refused food, provided the sick man was not isolated. Returned POWs report the death of several men from the cycle of illness-refusal to eat-depression-starvation. Bennett did not die of starvation, however. The Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF) announced on Radio Hanoi on June 24, 1965 that Bennett had been shot in retaliation for Viet Cong terrorist Tran Van Dong’s execution by South Vietnam.

He was the first POW to be executed in retaliation. When the war ended in 1973, the Vietnamese listed Bennett as having died in captivity. They did not return his remains. He is one of nearly 2400 Americans still missing in Southeast Asia.

1957 – A 37-kiloton nuclear fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, was exploded in the Nevada desert at Frenchman Flat. The security of a bank vault was tested in the experiment. At this time the US was manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs a day.

1970 – On an amendment offered by Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) to the Foreign Military Sales Act, the Senate votes 81 to 10 to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In August 1964, after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers (in what became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident), President Johnson asked Congress for a resolution authorizing the president “to take all necessary measures” to defend Southeast Asia. Subsequently, Congress passed Public Law 88-408, which became known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the president the power to take whatever actions he deemed necessary, including “the use of armed force.” The resolution passed 82 to 2 in the Senate, where Wayne K. Morse (D-Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska) were the only dissenting votes; the bill passed unanimously in the House of Representatives. President Johnson signed it into law on August 10. It became the legal basis for every presidential action taken by the Johnson administration during its conduct of the war. Despite the initial support for the resolution, it became increasingly controversial as Johnson used it to increase U.S. commitment to the war in Vietnam. Repealing the resolution was meant as an attempt to limit presidential war powers. The Nixon administration took a neutral stance on the vote, denying that it relied on the Tonkin resolution as the basis for its war-making authority in Southeast Asia. The administration asserted that it primarily drew on the constitutional authority of the president as commander-in-chief to protect the lives of U.S. military forces in justifying its actions and policies in prosecuting the war.

1970 – The US embassy in Phnom Penh discloses that the United States has stepped up the shipment of arms to Cambodia and that all of the $7.9 million in arms aid promised for the current fiscal year either had arrived or would arrive shortly.

1973 – Graham Martin is sworn in as ambassador to South Vietnam, replacing Ellsworth Bunker.

1983 – The space shuttle “Challenger,” carrying America’s first woman in space, Sally K. Ride, coasted to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1993 – Eight Muslim fundamentalists were arrested in New York, accused of plotting a day of bombings of the United Nations, a federal building and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. They and two others were later convicted of seditious conspiracy.

1993 – Yale University computer expert David Gelernter was injured in his office by a bomb sent from Sacramento by Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.

1995 – The cutter CGC Juniper was launched, the first of the new 225-foot Juniper Class buoy tenders.

1997 – The Air Force released a report on the so-called “Roswell Incident,” suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.

1999 – The US offered a $5 million reward for help in the arrest of Pres. Milosevic. US plans to oust Pres. Milosevic included the encouragement for a coup; financial support for the opposition; covert action; a freeze on assets; propaganda; and reconstruction aid for the area excluding Serbia.

2002 – Pres. Bush outlined his blueprint for peace in the Middle East. His statement included a call on Palestinians to replace Yasser Arafat with leaders “not compromised by terror” and adopt democratic reforms that could produce an independent state within three years.

2003 – Pres. Bush met with Pakistan’s Pres. Musharraf and promised a $3 billion aid package that did not included F-16s.

2004 – Western advisers completed their handover Iraq’s remaining government ministries. The final 11 of 25 were handed over 6 days before the official end of coalition occupation.

2004 – Insurgents launched coordinated attacks against police and government buildings across Iraq. The strikes killed over 105 people, including three American soldiers. In Mosul alone 4 car bombs killed 62 people.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HUGHES, OLIVER
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company C, 12th Kentucky Infantry. Place and date: At Weldon Railroad, Va., 24 June 1864. Entered service at: Albany, Ky. Born: 21 January 1841, Fentress County, Tenn. Date of issue: 1 August 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 11th South Carolina (C.S.A.).

SMITH, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Colonel, 1st Maine Cavalry. Place and date: At St. Mary’s Church, Va., 24 June 1864. Entered service at: Maine. Birth: Hollis, Maine. Date of issue: 11 April 1895. Citation: Remained in the fight to the close, although severely wounded.

WEIR, HENRY C.
Rank and organization: Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At St. Mary’s Church, Va., 24 June 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: West Point, N.Y. Date of issue: 18 Nay 1899. Citation: The division being hard pressed and falling back, this officer dismounted, gave his horse to a wounded officer, and thus enabled him to escape. Afterwards, on foot, Captain Weir rallied and took command of some stragglers and helped to repel the last charge of the enemy.

CHURCH, JAMES ROBB
Rank and organization: Assistant Surgeon, 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. Place and date: At Las Guasimas, Cuba, 24 June 1898. Entered service at: Washington, D.C. Birth: Chicago, Ill. Date of issue: 10 January 1906. Citation: In addition to performing gallantly the duties pertaining to his position, voluntarily and unaided carried several seriously wounded men from the firing line to a secure position in the rear, m each instance being subjected to a very heavy fire and great exposure and danger.

*BENNETT, EMORY L.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Sobangsan, Korea, 24 June 1951. Entered service at: Cocoa, Fla. Born: 20 December 1929, New Smyrna Beach, Fla. G.O. No.: 11, 1 February 1952. Citation: Pfc. Bennett a member of Company B, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against an armed enemy of the United Nations. At approximately 0200 hours, 2 enemy battalions swarmed up the ridge line in a ferocious banzai charge in an attempt to dislodge Pfc. Bennett’s company from its defensive positions. Meeting the challenge, the gallant defenders delivered destructive retaliation, but the enemy pressed the assault with fanatical determination and the integrity of the perimeter was imperiled.

Fully aware of the odds against him, Pfc. Bennett unhesitatingly left his foxhole, moved through withering fire, stood within full view of the enemy, and, employing his automatic rifle, poured crippling fire into the ranks of the onrushing assailants, inflicting numerous casualties. Although wounded, Pfc. Bennett gallantly maintained his l-man defense and the attack was momentarily halted. During this lull in battle, the company regrouped for counterattack, but the numerically superior foe soon infiltrated into the position. Upon orders to move back, Pfc. Bennett voluntarily remained to provide covering fire for the withdrawing elements, and, defying the enemy, continued to sweep the charging foe with devastating fire until mortally wounded. His willing self-sacrifice and intrepid actions saved the position from being overrun and enabled the company to effect an orderly withdrawal. Pfc. Bennett’s unflinching courage and consummate devotion to duty reflect lasting glory on himself and the military service.

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25 June

1788 – Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution.

1798 – US passed the Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens.

1862 – The first day of the Seven Days Campaign began with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia, with Robert E. Lee commanding the Confederate Army for the first time.

1863 – Pres. Lincoln chose US General George Meade to replace General Hooker, hoping he would be more aggressive.

1864 – Pennsylvania troops begin digging a tunnel toward the Rebels at Petersburg, Virginia, in order to blow a hole in the Confederate lines and break the stalemate. The great campaign between Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac ground to a halt in mid-June. Having battered each other for a month and a half, the armies came to a standstill at Petersburg, just south of Richmond. Here, they settled into trenches for a long siege of the Confederate rail center. The men of the 48th Pennsylvania sought to break the stalemate with an ambitious project. The brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, the plan called for the men of his regiment—mostly miners from Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region—to construct a tunnel to the Confederate line, fill it with powder, and blow a gap in the fortifications. On June 24, the plan received the approval of the regiment’s corps commander, Ambrose Burnside, and the digging commenced the following day. Burnside’s superiors, Generals Grant and George Meade, expressed little enthusiasm for the project but allowed it to proceed. For five weeks the miners dug the 500-foot long shaft, completing about 40 feet per day. On July 30, a huge cache of gunpowder was ignited. The plan worked, and a huge gap was blown in the Rebel line. But poor planning by Union officers squandered the opportunity, and the Confederates closed the gap before the Federals could exploit the opening. The Battle of the Crater, as it became known, was an unusual event in an otherwise uneventful summer along the Petersburg line.

1867 – The 1st barbed wire was patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio.

1868 – Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were re-admitted to the Union.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

1876 – Determined to resist the efforts of the U.S. Army to force them onto reservations, Indians under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse wipe out Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and much of his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Sioux Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had been successfully resisting American efforts to confine their people to reservations for more than a decade. Although both chiefs wanted nothing more than to be left alone to pursue their traditional ways, the growing tide of white settlers invading their lands inevitably led to violent confrontations. Increasingly, the Sioux and Cheyenne who did try to cooperate with the U.S. government discovered they were rewarded only with broken promises and marginal reservation lands. In 1875, after the U.S. Army blatantly ignored treaty provisions and invaded the sacred Black Hills, many formerly cooperative Sioux and Cheyenne abandoned their reservations to join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. They would not return without a fight.

Late in 1875, the U.S. Army ordered all the “hostile” Indians in Montana to return to their reservations or risk being attacked. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse ignored the order and sent messengers out to urge other Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe Indians to unite with them to meet the white threat. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Indians had gathered in a massive camp along a river in southern Montana called the Little Big Horn. “We must stand together or they will kill us separately,” Sitting Bull told them. “These soldiers have come shooting; they want war. All right, we’ll give it to them.” Meanwhile, three columns of U.S. soldiers were converging on the Little Big Horn. On June 17, the first column under the command of General George Crook was badly bloodied by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse. Stunned by the size and ferocity of the Indian attack, Crook was forced to withdraw. Knowing nothing of Crook’s defeat, the two remaining columns commanded by General Alfred Terry and General John Gibbon continued toward the Little Big Horn.

On June 22, Terry ordered the 7th Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer to scout ahead for Indians. On the morning of this day in 1876, Custer’s scouts told him that a gigantic Indian village lay nearby in the valley of the Little Big Horn River. Custer dismissed the scouts’ claim that the village was extraordinarily large-certainly many thousands of Indians-as exaggerated. Indeed, his main fear was that the Indians would scatter before he could attack. Rather than wait for reinforcements, Custer decided to move forward immediately and stage an unusual mid-day attack. As the 7th Cavalry entered the valley, Custer divided the regiment of about 600 men into four battalions, keeping a force of 215 under his own command. In the vast Indian encampment (historians estimate there were as many as 11,000 Indians), word quickly spread of the approaching soldiers. Too old actually to engage in battle, Sitting Bull rallied his warriors while seeing to the protection of the women and children. The younger Crazy Horse prepared for battle and sped off with a large force of warriors to meet the invaders. As Custer’s divided regiment advanced, the soldiers suddenly found they were under attack by a rapidly growing number of Indians. Gradually, it dawned on Custer that his scouts had not exaggerated the size of the Indian force after all. He immediately dispatched urgent orders in an attempt to regroup his regiment. The other battalions, however, were facing equally massive attacks and were unable to come to his aid. Soon, Custer and his 215 men found themselves cut off and under attack by as many as 3,000 armed braves. Within an hour, they were wiped out to the last man.

The remaining battalions of the 7th Cavalry were also badly beaten, but they managed to fight a holding action until the Indians withdrew the following day. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was the Indians’ greatest victory and the army’s worst defeat in the long and bloody Plains Indian War. The Indians were not allowed to revel in the victory for long, however. The massacre of Custer and his 7th Cavalry outraged many Americans and only confirmed the image of the bloodthirsty Indians in their minds, and the government became more determined to destroy or tame the hostile Indians. The army redoubled its efforts and drove home the war with a vengeful fury. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. Crazy Horse was killed in 1877 after leaving the reservation without permission. Sitting Bull was shot and killed three years later in 1890 by a Lakota policeman.

1886 – Henry (Hap) Arnold, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, was born.

1917 – Navy convoy of troopships carrying American Expeditionary Forces arrives in France.

1918 – At Belleau Woods, major fourteen hour bombardment starting at 0300 makes clearance of the remaining woods possible. The following attack swamps the remaining machine gun outposts of the enemy. Marines and Army machine-gunners participate in the assault.

1940 – New considerably increased taxes are introduced which bring an additional 2,200,000 into the tax roll who have never formerly paid income tax. These increases of course reflect the armament expenditure.

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1942 – Following his arrival in London, Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of U.S. forces in Europe. Although Eisenhower had never seen combat during his 27 years as an army officer, his knowledge of military strategy and talent for organization were such that Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall chose him over nearly 400 senior officers to lead U.S. forces in the war against Germany. After proving himself on the battlefields of North Africa and Italy in 1942 and 1943, Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander of Operation Overlord–the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe. Born in Denison, Texas, in 1890, Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915. Out of a remarkable class that was to produce 59 generals, Eisenhower ranked 61st academically and 125th in discipline out of a total of 164 graduates. As a commissioned officer, his superiors soon took note of his organizational abilities, and appointed him commander of a tank training center after the U.S. entrance into World War I in 1917. In October 1918, he received the orders to take the tanks to France, but the war ended before they could sail. Eisenhower received the Distinguished Service Medal but was disappointed that he had not seen combat. Between the wars, he steadily rose in the peacetime ranks of the U.S. Army. From 1922 to 1924, he was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, and in 1926, as a major, he graduated from the Army’s Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, at the top of a class of 275. He was rewarded with a prestigious post in France and in 1928 graduated first in his class from the Army War College.

In 1933, he became aide to Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, and in 1935 he went with MacArthur to the Philippines when the latter accepted a post as chief military adviser to that nation’s government. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel while in the Philippines, Eisenhower returned to the United States in 1939 shortly after World War II began in Europe. President Franklin Roosevelt began to bring the country to war preparedness in 1940 and Eisenhower found himself figuring prominently in a rapidly expanding U.S. Army. In March 1941, he was made a full colonel and three months later was appointed commander of the 3rd Army. In September, he was promoted to brigadier general. After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Army Chief of Staff Marshall appointed Eisenhower to the War Plans Division in Washington, where he prepared strategy for an Allied invasion of Europe. Promoted to major general in March 1942 and named head of the operations division of the War Department, he advised Marshall to create a single post that would oversee all U.S. operations in Europe. Marshall did so and on June 11 surprised Eisenhower by appointing him to the post over 366 senior officers. On June 25, 1942, Eisenhower arrived at U.S. headquarters in London and took command.

In July, Eisenhower was appointed lieutenant general and named to head Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. As supreme commander of a mixed force of Allied nationalities, services, and equipment, Eisenhower designed a system of unified command and rapidly won the respect of his British and Canadian subordinates. From North Africa, he successfully directed the invasions of Tunisia, Sicily, and the Italian mainland, and in December 1943 was appointed Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Operation Overlord, the largest combined sea, air, and land military operation in history, was successfully launched against Nazi-occupied Europe on June 6, 1944. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered. By that time, Eisenhower was a five-star general. After the war, Eisenhower replaced Marshall as army chief of staff and from 1948 to 1950 served as president of Columbia University. In 1951, he returned to military service as supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Pressure on Eisenhower to run for U.S. president was great, however, and in the spring of 1952 he relinquished his NATO command to run for president on the Republican ticket. In November 1952, “Ike” won a resounding victory in the presidential elections and in 1956 was reelected in a landslide. A popular president, he oversaw a period of great economic growth in the United States and deftly navigated the country through increasing Cold War tensions on the world stage. In 1961, he retired with his wife, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which overlooked the famous Civil War battlefield. He died in 1969 and was buried on a family plot in Abilene, Kansas.

1942 – Some 1,000 British Royal Air Force bombers raided Bremen, Germany, during World War II.

1944 – The 3 divisions of the US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) penetrate into the suburbs of Cherbourg. Naval support includes 3 battleships, 4 cruisers and 11 destroyers. On the left wing of the Normandy front, elements of the British 30th Corps (part of British 2nd Army) attack toward Rauray.

1944 – Elements of US 5th Army capture Piombino. Inland the French Expeditionary Corps (part of 5th Army) and the British 8th Army attack the German-held Albert Line west of Trasimeno Lake, around Chiusi.

1944 – The US 5th Amphibious Corps continues to battle for Saipan. Mount Tapotchau is captured. Heavy fighting is recorded in the Hagman Peninsula and near the southwest tip of the island.

1945 – On Luzon, Tuguegarao is captured by the American forces, of the US 37th Division, in the Cagayan valley. Gattaran is retaken in the southward advance of the American paratroopers dropped at Aparri, after the Japanese had expelled the Filipino guerrillas. Penablanca is also captured. The surviving Japanese units on the island, about 50,000 troops, are now concentrated in the Sierra Madre area to the east of the Cagayan valley.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh traveled to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.

1948 – Truman signed Displaced Persons Bill allowing 205,000 Europeans to come to the US.

1948 – The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.

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1950 – Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years. Korea, a former Japanese possession, had been divided into zones of occupation following World War II. U.S. forces accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in southern Korea, while Soviet forces did the same in northern Korea. Like in Germany, however, the “temporary” division soon became permanent. The Soviets assisted in the establishment of a communist regime in North Korea, while the United States became the main source of financial and military support for South Korea. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces surprised the South Korean army (and the small U.S. force stationed in the country), and quickly headed toward the capital city of Seoul. The United States responded by pushing a resolution through the U.N.’s Security Council calling for military assistance to South Korea. (Russia was not present to veto the action as it was boycotting the Security Council at the time.) With this resolution in hand, President Harry S. Truman rapidly dispatched U.S. land, air, and sea forces to Korea to engage in what he termed a “police action.” The American intervention turned the tide, and U.S. and South Korean forces marched into North Korea. This action, however, prompted the massive intervention of communist Chinese forces in late 1950. The war in Korea subsequently bogged down into a bloody stalemate.

In 1953, the United States and North Korea signed a cease-fire that ended the conflict. The cease-fire agreement also resulted in the continued division of North and South Korea at just about the same geographical point as before the conflict. The Korean War was the first “hot” war of the Cold War. Over 55,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Korea was the first “limited war,” one in which the U.S. aim was not the complete and total defeat of the enemy, but rather the “limited” goal of protecting South Korea. For the U.S. government, such an approach was the only rational option in order to avoid a third world war and to keep from stretching finite American resources too thinly around the globe. It proved to be a frustrating experience for the American people, who were used to the kind of total victory that had been achieved in World War II. The public found the concept of limited war difficult to understand or support and the Korean War never really gained popular support.

1963 – The Joint Service Commendation Medal was Authorized by the Secretary of Defense. The JSCM shall be awarded only to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who, after January 1, 1963, distinguished themselves by meritorious achievement or service.

1964 – President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.

1964 – North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy writes to Communist China and other signers of the Geneva Agreements and urges them ‘to demand that the US government give up its…provocation and sabotage against North Vietnam.’

1965 – President Johnson appeals to the United nations to persuade North Vietnam to negotiate a peace.

1965 – Two Viet Cong terrorist bombs rip through a floating restaurant on the Saigon River. Thirty-one people, including nine Americans, were killed in the explosions. Dozens of other diners were wounded, including 11 Americans.

1967 – Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) was sentenced to 5 years for draft evasion.

1969 – The U.S. Navy turns 64 river patrol gunboats valued at $18.2 million over to the South Vietnamese Navy in what is described as the largest single transfer of military equipment in the war thus far. The transfer raised the total number of boats in the South Vietnamese Navy to more than 600. This was part of the “Viet-namization” program, which President Richard Nixon initiated to increase the fighting capability of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (to include the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps) so that they could assume more responsibility for the war. Viet-namization included the provision of new equipment and weapons and an intensified advisory effort.

1971 – As announced by the North Vietnamese Paris peace talks delegation, the Pathet Lao renew their peace plan proposal which includes an immediate end to US military involvement and bombing raids in Laos. Laotian Premier Souvanna Phouma rejects the plan by calling for Vientiane as the site of the proposed Laotian peace talks and by calling for the prior withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from Laos.

1981 – The Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.

1981 – HMH-464 at MCAS New River, North Carolina, received its first CH-53E “Super Stallion.”

1986 – Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

1988 – American-born Mildred Gillars, better known during World War II as “Axis Sally” for her Nazi propaganda broadcasts, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 87. Gillars had served 12 years in prison for treason.

1992 – The space shuttle Columbia, carrying seven astronauts, blasted off on a two-week mission.

1996 – At least 23 Americans were killed at a US base near Dhahran and another 105 suffered serious injuries from a truck bomb estimated at 5,000 pounds at the Khobar Towers apartment complex adjacent to King Abdul Aziz Air Base. About 5,000 US troops served in Saudi Arabia. US, French and British aircraft resumed flying 100 missions per day over southern Iraz from Saudi Arabia. In 1997 intelligence information tied a senior Iranian intelligence officer to Hani Abd Rahim Sayegh, a man who fled Saudi Arabia shortly after the bombing. In 1999 the US threatened was set to deport Hani al-Sayegh to Saudi Arabia. Sayegh feared torture and asked for US asylum. Sayegh was deported Oct 10. In 2000 Ahmad Behbahani told a 60 Minutes journalist from a refugee camp in Turkey that he proposed the Pan Am operation and coordinated the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. In 2001 13 Saudis and one Lebanese man were indicted for the bombing that killed 19 American airmen and wounded nearly 400 others.

1996 – Later reports said that Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi billionaire, bankrolled the bombing of the US base that killed 19 US servicemen. He was an advocate of strict Islamic rule and had said that he would campaign to overthrow the Saudi royal family. He had lived in the Sudan for 5 1/2 years and recently moved to Afghanistan and was accepted by the Taliban. In 1998 a senior Saudi official absolved Iran of any involvement in the bombing. In 2000 it was reported that the Bin Laden family firm was awarded the contract to rebuild the Khobar Towers.

1998 – Albanian security personnel (SHIK) under CIA guidance arrested Shawki Salama Attiya, a Tirana cell forger. Over the next month they made successful raids on more suspected members of the Egyptian Jihad terrorist organization. The suspected terrorists were turned over to anti-terrorist officials in Egypt, where they delivered forced confessions following torture.

1999 – US Marines killed one person following an attack southeast of Pristina.

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2000 – In Puerto Rico US Navy bombing in Vieques resumed with nonexplosive dummy bombs after 37 demonstrators were arrested. A fatal accident had prompted a yearlong occupation by protesters.

2001 – In southern Iraq a US Navy fighter jet attacked an anti-aircraft site in response to artillery fire.

2001 – In Skopje, Macedonia, rioting erupted after US troops escorted rebels away from the capital.

2002 – A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., refused to accept a no-contest plea from Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, and instead entered an innocent plea on his behalf.

2002 – The Defense Department told Congress it planned to supply the Canadian navy with Raytheon Co. -built SM-2 Standard surface-to-air missiles and related gear valued at up to $19 million.

2002 – U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation Michael Jackson, joined by U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thomas H. Collins, announced the award of the largest acquisition in the history of the Coast Guard. The Integrated Deepwater System (IDS) contract was awarded to Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), a joint venture established by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. The Deepwater contract had the potential to extend up to 30 years, with an approximate value of $17 billion. At full implementation, the interoperable ICGS system comprised three classes of new cutters and their associated small boats, a new fixed-wing manned aircraft fleet, a combination of new and upgraded helicopters, and both cutter-based and land-based unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). All of these highly capable assets were to be linked with Command, Control, Communications and Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, and were supported by an integrated logistics regime.

2002 – In Morocco authorities have arrested three more people in a widening investigation into the Moroccan tendrils of al-Qaida, bringing the number of suspects held here to 10, including three Saudis.

2004 – In southern Afghanistan suspected Taliban gunmen sprayed a van with bullets after finding that occupants had registered to vote. At least 10 people were killed.

2004 – US air strikes hit Fallujah and up to 25 people were killed. Al-Sadr announced a unilateral cease fire.

2011 – U.S. Predator drones attacked a Shabaab training camp south of Kismayo. Ibrahim al-Afghani, a senior al Shabaab leader was rumored to be killed in the strike.

2014 – Al-Nusra Front’s branch in the Syrian town of al-Bukamal pledged loyalty to ISIS, thus bringing to a close months of fighting between the two groups.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

DILLON, MICHAEL A.
Rank and organization: Private, Company G, 2d New Hampshire Infantry. Place and date: At Williamsburg, Va., 5 May 1862. At Oak Grove, Va., 25 June 1862. Entered service at: Wilton, N.H. Birth: Chelmsford, Mass. Date of issue: 10 October 1889. Citation: Bravery in repulsing the enemy’s charge on a battery, at Williamsburg, Va. At Oak Grove, Va., crawled outside the lines and brought in important information.

McKEEN, NINEVEH S.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company H, 21st Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Stone River, Tenn., 30 December 1862. At Liberty Gap, Tenn., 25 June 1863. Entered service at: Marshall, Clark County, Ill. Birth: Marshall, Clark County, Ill. Date of issue: 23 June 1890. Citation: Conspicuous in the charge at Stone River, Tenn., where he was three times wounded. At Liberty Gap, Tenn., captured colors of 8th Arkansas Infantry (C.S.A.).

SULLIVAN, JOHN
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1839, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 45, 31 December 1864. Citation: Served as seaman on board the U.S.S. Monticello during the reconnaissance of the harbor and water defenses of Wilmington, N.C. 23 to 25 June 1864. Taking part in a reconnaissance of enemy defenses which covered a period of 2 days and nights, Sullivan courageously carried out his duties during this action, which resulted in the capture of a mail carrier and mail, the cutting of a telegraph wire, and the capture of a large group of prisoners. Although in immediate danger from the enemy at all times, Sullivan showed gallantry and coolness throughout this action which resulted in the gaining of much vital information of the rebel defenses.

TAYLOR, HENRY H.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company C, 45th Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 25 June 1863. Entered service at: Galena, Jo Daviess County, Ill. Birth: Jo Daviess County, Ill. Date of issue: 1 September 1893. Citation: Was the first to plant the Union colors upon the enemy’s works.

WARD, NELSON W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company M, 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Staunton River Bridge, Va., 25 June 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Columbiana County, Ohio. Date of issue: 10 September 1897. Citation: Voluntarily took part in a charge; went alone in front of his regiment under a heavy fire to secure the body of his captain, who had been killed in the action.

WARREN, DAVID
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1836, Scotland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 45, 31 December 1864. Citation: Served as coxswain on board the U.S.S. Monticello during the reconnaissance of the harbor and water defenses of Wilmington, N.C., 23 to 25 June 1864. Taking part in a reconnaissance of enemy defenses which lasted 2 days and nights, Warren courageously carried out his duties during this action which resulted in the capture of a mail carrier and mail, the cutting of a telegraph wire, and the capture of a large group of prisoners. Although in immediate danger from the enemy, Warren showed gallantry and coolness throughout this action which resulted in the gaining of much vital information of the rebel defenses.

WRIGHT, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Yoeman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1835, London, England. Accredited to: Maryland. G.O. No.: 45, 31 December 1864. Citation: Served as yeoman on board the U.S.S. Monticello during the reconnaissance of the harbor and water defenses of Wilmington, N.C., 23 to 25 June 1864. Taking part in a reconnaissance of enemy defenses which covered a period of 2 days and nights, Wright courageously carried out his cutting of a telegraph wire and the capture of a large group of prisoners. Although in immediate danger from the enemy at all times, Wright showed gallantry and coolness throughout this action which resulted in the gaining of much vital information of the rebel defenses.

BANCROFT, NEIL
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: Oswego, N.Y. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Brought water for the wounded under a most galling fire.

BRANT, ABRAM B.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: St. Louis, Mo. Birth: New York, N.Y. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Brought water for the wounded under a most galling fire.

CRISWELL, BANJAMIN C.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at:——. Birth: Marshall County, W. Va. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Rescued the body of Lt. Hodgson from within the enemy’s lines; brought up ammunition and encouraged the men in the most exposed positions under heavy fire.

CUNNINGHAM, CHARLES
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: Hudson, N.Y. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Declined to leave the line when wounded in the neck during heavy fire and fought bravely all next day.

DEETLINE, FREDERICK
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Baltimore, Md. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 15 October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire.

GEIGER, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company H, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Cincinnati, Ohio. Date of issue: S October 1878. Citation: With 3 comrades during the entire engagement courageously held a position that secured water for the command.

HANLEY, RICHARD P.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company C, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at:——. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation. Recaptured, singlehanded, and without orders, within the enemy’s lines and under a galling fire lasting some 20 minutes, a stampeded pack mule loaded with ammunition.

HARRIS, DAVID W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Cincinnati, Ohio. Birth: Indianapolis, Ind. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Brought water to the wounded, at great danger to his life, under a most galling fire from the enemy.

HARRIS, WILLIAM M.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Mt. Vernon, Ky. Birth: Madison County, Ky. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire of the enemy.

HOLDEN, HENRY
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: ——. Birth: England. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Brought up ammunition under a galling fire from the enemy.

HUTCHINSON, RUFUS D.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Cincinnati, Ohio. Birth: Butlerville, Ohio. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Guarded and carried the wounded, brought water for the same, and posted and directed the men in his charge under galling fire from the enemy.

MECHLIN, HENRY W. B.
Rank and organization: Blacksmith, Company H, 7th U.S. Cavalry Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Pittsburgh, Pa. Born: 14 October 1851, Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pa. Date of issue: 29 August 1878. Citation: With 3 comrades during the entire engagement courageously held a position that secured water for the command.

MURRAY, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at:——. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: S October 1878. Citation: Brought up the pack train, and on the second day the rations, under a heavy fire from the enemy.

PYM, JAMES
Rank and organization: Private, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn River, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Birth: Oxfordshire, England. Date of issue: S October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily went for water and secured the same under heavy fire.

ROY, STANISLAUS
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company A, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at:——. Birth: France. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Brought water to the wounded at great danger to life and under a most galling fire of the enemy.

THOMPSON, PETER
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25 June 1876. Entered service at: Pittsburgh, Pa. Birth: Scotland. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: After having voluntarily brought water to the wounded, in which effort he was shot through the head, he made two successful trips for the same purpose, notwithstanding remonstrance of his sergeant.




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*EPPERSON, HAROLD GLENN
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 14 July 1923, Akron, Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 2d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on the Island of Saipan in the Marianas, on 25 June 1944. With his machinegun emplacement bearing the full brunt of a fanatic assault initiated by the Japanese under cover of predawn darkness, Pfc. Epperson manned his weapon with determined aggressiveness, fighting furiously in the defense of his battalion’s position and maintaining a steady stream of devastating fire against rapidly infiltrating hostile troops to aid materially in annihilating several of the enemy and in breaking the abortive attack. Suddenly a Japanese soldier, assumed to be dead, sprang up and hurled a powerful hand grenade into the emplacement. Determined to save his comrades, Pfc. Epperson unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and, diving upon the deadly missile, absorbed the shattering violence of the exploding charge in his own body. Stouthearted and indomitable in the face of certain death, Pfc. Epperson fearlessly yielded his own life that his able comrades might carry on the relentless battle against a ruthless enemy. His superb valor and unfaltering devotion to duty throughout reflect the highest credit upon himself and upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

*KELLY, JOHN D.
Rank and organization: Technical Sergeant (then Corporal), U.S. Army, Company E, 314th Infantry, 79th Infantry Division. Place and date: Fort du Roule, Cherbourg, France, 25 June 1944. Entered service at: Cambridge Springs, Pa. Birth: Venango Township, Pa. G.O. No.: 6, 24 January 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. On 25 June 1944, in the vicinity of Fort du Roule, Cherbourg, France, when Cpl. Kelly’s unit was pinned down by heavy enemy machinegun fire emanating from a deeply entrenched strongpoint on the slope leading up to the fort, Cpl. Kelly volunteered to attempt to neutralize the strongpoint. Arming himself with a pole charge about 10 feet long and with 15 pounds of explosive affixed, he climbed the slope under a withering blast of machinegun fire and placed the charge at the strongpoint’s base. The subsequent blast was ineffective, and again, alone and unhesitatingly, he braved the slope to repeat the operation. This second blast blew off the ends of the enemy guns. Cpl. Kelly then climbed the slope a third time to place a pole charge at the strongpoint’s rear entrance. When this had been blown open he hurled hand grenades inside the position, forcing survivors of the enemy gun crews to come out and surrender The gallantry, tenacity of purpose, and utter disregard for personal safety displayed by Cpl. Kelly were an incentive to his comrades and worthy of emulation by all.

OGDEN, CARLOS C.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company K, 314th Infantry, 79th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Fort du Roule, France, 25 June 1944. Entered service at: Fairmont, Ill. Born: 19 May 1917, Borton, Ill. G.O. No.: 49, 28 June 1945. Citation: On the morning of 25 June 1944, near Fort du Roule, guarding the approaches to Cherbourg, France, 1st Lt. Ogden’s company was pinned down by fire from a German 88-mm. gun and 2 machineguns. Arming himself with an M-1 rifle, a grenade launcher, and a number of rifle and handgrenades, he left his company in position and advanced alone, under fire, up the slope toward the enemy emplacements. Struck on the head and knocked down by a glancing machinegun bullet, 1st Lt. Ogden, in spite of his painful wound and enemy fire from close range, continued up the hill. Reaching a vantage point, he silenced the 88mm. gun with a well-placed rifle grenade and then, with hand grenades, knocked out the 2 machineguns, again being painfully wounded. 1st Lt. Ogden’s heroic leadership and indomitable courage in alone silencing these enemy weapons inspired his men to greater effort and cleared the way for the company to continue the advance and reach its objectives.

 

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26 June

1604 – French explorer Samuel de Champlain, Pierre Dugua and 77 others landed on the island of St. Croix and made friends with the native Passamaquoddy Indians. It later became part of Maine on the US-Canadian border.

1742 – Arthur Middleton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

1819 – Abner Doubleday (died 1893), Civil War General, was born. He was incorrectly credited with inventing American baseball.

1862 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia strikes Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, beginning the Seven Days’ Battles. Although the Confederates sustained heavy losses and did not succeed in decisively defeating the Yankees, the battle had unnerved McClellan. During the next week, Lee drove him from the outskirts of Richmond back to his base on the James River. This was Lee’s first battle as commander of the army. On June 1, 1862, he had replaced Joseph Johnston, who was severely wounded at the Battle of Fair Oaks. McClellan’s offensive had stalled just five miles from Richmond, and his army remained there until late June. During that time, General J.E.B. Stuart and his Rebel cavalry made a spectacular ride around McClellan’s force, bringing back information that indicated that McClellan’s right flank was “in the air,” or unprotected by natural barriers. Lee informed his commanders on June 23 of his intention to attack the flank, occupied by Fitz John Porter’s V corps, which was separated from the rest of the Union army by the Chickahominy River. This was a bold move—because it meant leaving a skeleton force to face the rest of McClellan’s army south of the Chickahominy—and an early indication of Lee’s audacious style. But the attack did not go as planned. McClellan, alerted to the vulnerability of his flanks by Stuart’s ride two weeks prior, had shored up his left, and moved Porter’s men to high ground with a deep creek in front of them.

Lee’s plan had called for several smaller forces to overwhelm Porter’s men, but it required precise timing. When the assault came, the coordination did not materialize. A major problem, among others, was General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps, which was slow to move into place. Jackson was just back from his brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, but he showed none of his previous vigor and speed at Mechanicsville. Lee planned to bring about 55,000 troops against Porter, but the mistakes made by Jackson and others meant there were only about 11,000. Lee lost 1,475 men; Union losses were only 361. But Lee had stunned McClellan, who then began to fall back away from Richmond. Lee continued to hammer on McClellan for the next week, and the Yankees retreated to the James River. McClellan did not threaten Richmond again, and he eventually sailed his army back to Washington.

1863 – General Jubal Early and his Confederate forces moved into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1863 – Rear Admiral Andrew Hull Foote died in New York City of the wound received while brilliantly leading the naval forces on the Western rivers. The next day the Navy Department announced: ‘A gallant and distinguished naval officer is lost to the country. The hero of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the daring and inimitable spirit that created and led to successive victories the Mississippi Flotilla, the heroic Christian sailor, who in the China Seas and on the coast of Africa, as well as the great interior rivers of our country, sustained with unfaltering fidelity and devotion the honor of our flag and the causes of the Union-Rear-Admiral Andrew Hull Foote-is no more. . . . Appreciating his virtues and his services, a grateful country had rendered him while living its willing honors, and will mourn his death.”

1876 – Following Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s death the previous day in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Major Marcus Reno takes command of the surviving soldiers of the 7th Cavalry. A West Point graduate who fought for the North during the Civil War, Marcus Reno was an experienced soldier and officer. Yet, despite having been sent west in 1868 as a major in Custer’s 7th Cavalry, Reno had never actually fought any Indians prior to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. On June 25, 1876, Custer’s scouts reported they had located a gigantic village of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians encamped nearby along the banks of the Little Big Horn River in southern Montana. Believing that his scouts must have grossly overestimated the size of the village, Custer immediately prepared to attack. He divided the 600 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry into four battalions, placing Reno in command of one of them. Custer and Reno led their two battalions down a small creek (later called Reno Creek) toward the Little Big Horn River. A third battalion commanded by Captain Frederick Benteen scouted the hills to the west, while the fourth stayed in the rear to protect the army’s horses. About three or four miles from the Little Big Horn, Custer and Reno spotted a group of about 50 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Fearing that the village ahead was already fleeing, Custer ordered Reno and his battalion to give pursuit, promising “the whole outfit” would soon support him. Reno and his men quickly rode down the valley and crossed the Little Big Horn. As they charged toward the Indian village, they began to encounter growing numbers of warriors mounting a strong defense. Uncertain of what lay ahead, Reno called a halt and ordered his men to dismount and fight on foot. Within minutes, he was under attack by a massive force of Sioux and Cheyenne braves. With no sign of the support Custer had promised, Reno decided he had no choice but to retreat and try to regain a defensible position on the high bluffs across the river.

Some witnesses later said Reno panicked at this point and at least temporarily gave conflicting and confused orders. In any event, the retreat quickly became chaotic, allowing the Indians to easily pick off about one third of Reno’s troops before they reached the bluffs. There, Benteen and his battalion soon joined them. Benteen had received a dispatch from Custer downstream ordering the troops to hasten forward, but there was considerable disagreement among the officers about what to do. Their battalions had been badly hurt, and they needed time to regroup. Finally, the officers led the troops downstream toward the sound of heavy gunfire, but the presence of many wounded slowed their advance. Unbeknownst to Reno and Benteen, by this point the Indians had already wiped out Custer’s battalion. The braves now rushed upstream to attack the advancing soldiers, forcing them to retreat to their entrenched positions on the bluffs. The soldiers held off the Indians for another three hours of heavy fighting. When darkness fell, the Indians withdrew. The following day, June 26, Reno took formal command of the remnants of the 7th Cavalry, and he succeeded in fighting a holding action until the Indians decided to withdraw around noon. On June 27, fresh troops under General Terry arrived, and the soldiers began the grisly task of identifying and burying the dead. In the postmortem of the disastrous battle, some refused to believe that the magnificent Custer could have been responsible and they blamed Reno. At Reno’s request, in early 1879 the army staged a formal inquiry into the battle. After more than 26 days of testimony, a panel of three officers exonerated Reno. They ruled that he had fought desperately and bravely to keep his own battalion from being wiped out during the battle, and he could not be blamed for failing to go to Custer’s aid. Some civilian critics labeled the ruling a whitewash, and Reno never managed fully to redeem himself in their eyes.

1884 – Congress authorizes commissioning of Naval Academy graduates as ensigns.

1891 – The Corps established its first post at Port Royal, South Carolina, later known as Parris Island.

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