This Date in Military History:

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1952 – As the presidential election of 1952 begins to heat up, so do accusations and counteraccusations concerning communism in America. The “Red Scare”–the widespread belief that international communism was operating in the United States–came to dominate much of the debate between Democrats and Republicans in 1952. On August 27, 1952, the New York Times front page contained three stories suggesting the impact of the Red Scare on the upcoming election. In the first story, the Republican-dominated Senate Internal Security Subcommittee released a report charging that the Radio Writers Guild was dominated by a small number of communists.

The Guild, whose members were responsible for producing more than 90 percent of the programs on radio, had purportedly been run by a small clique of communists for at least the last nine years. According to the subcommittee report, communist subversion of the Guild was merely one step in a larger effort to control the media of the United States-including radio, television, movies, and book publishing. The second front-page story was a report that the American Legion was demanding, for the third year in a row, that President Harry S. Truman dismiss Secretary of State Dean Acheson for his lack of vigor in dealing with the communist threat. The Legion report declared that the Department of State was in desperate need of “God-fearing Americans” who had the “intestinal fortitude not to be political puppets.” The organization demanded a quick and victorious settlement of the Korean War, even if this meant expanding the war into China. The third story provided a counter of sorts to the previous two stories. It reported a speech by Democratic nominee for president Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, in which he strongly criticized those who used “patriotism” as a weapon against their political opponents. In an obvious slap at the Senate Subcommittee and others, such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, Stevenson repeated the words of the writer Dr. Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” The governor claimed that it was “shocking” that good Americans, such as Acheson and former secretary of state General George C. Marshall, could be attacked on the grounds that they were unpatriotic.

The three related stories from the front page of the Times indicated just how deeply the Red Scare had penetrated American society. Accusations about communists in the film, radio, and television industries, in the Department of State and the U.S. Army, in all walks of American life, had filled the newspapers and airwaves for years. By 1952, many Americans were convinced that communists were at work in the United States and must be rooted out and hunted down. Republicans and their allies were obviously planning to use the Red Scare to their advantage in the presidential election of that year, while the Democrats were going to have to battle the perception that they had been “soft” on communism during the administration of President Truman (who came to office in 1945 following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt). The Republicans were eventually victorious, with Dwight D. Eisenhower scoring a victory over Stevenson.

1959 – Off Cape Canaveral, FL, USS Observation Island (EAG-154) makes first shipboard launching of a Polaris missile.

1962 – The United States launched the Mariner 2 space probe with an Atlas D booster. On December 14, 1962, Mariner 2 passed within just over 20,000 miles of Venus, reporting an 800F surface temperature, high surface pressures, a predominantly carbon dioxide atmosphere, continuous cloud cover, and no detectable magnetic field.

1972 – In the heaviest bombing in four years, U.S. aircraft flatten North Vietnamese barracks near Hanoi and Haiphong as part of ongoing Operation Linebacker I, part of President Nixon’s response to the NVA Easter Offensive. Planes also hit bridges on the northeast railroad line to China. In an associated action, four U.S. ships raided the Haiphong port area after dark, shelling to within two miles of the city limits. As the U.S. ships withdrew from the area, the cruiser USS Newport News sank one of two North Vietnamese patrol boats in pursuit, and destroyer USS Rowan set the other on fire.

1984 – President Reagan announced the Teacher in Space project.

1989 – The first U.S. commercial satellite rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite.

1989 – Chuck Berry performed his tune Johnny B. Goode for NASA staff in celebration of Voyager II’s encounter with the planet Neptune.

1990 – Fifty-two Americans reached freedom in Turkey after they were allowed to leave Iraq; three young men originally in the group, however, were detained by the Iraqis. In Washington, the State Department ordered the expulsion of 36 Iraqi diplomats.

1992 – President Bush ordered federal troops to Florida for emergency relief in the wake of Hurricane Andrew.

1993 – Operation “Eyes Over Mogadishu” steps up helicopter flights over the capitol.

1993 – The U.N. Security Council suspended 2 1/2-month-old economic sanctions against Haiti to spur the country’s return to democracy. They were reimposed the following October.

1997 – There was a report on the US nuclear arsenal broken down to the number of nuclear weapons in each state. New Mexico was 1st with 2,850, Georgia 2nd with 2,000, and Washington State 3rd with 1,600. The total stockpile was totaled at 12,500 warheads, of which 8,750 were described as “operational.”

1998 – Two suspects in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were sent to the United States to face charges.

1999 – A boarding team from the CGC Munro discover 172 illegal Chinese migrants aboard the fishing vessel Chih Yung off the coast of Mexico.

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2001 – An unmanned US reconnaissance aircraft, Predator, was reported shot down over southern Iraq near Basra. In northern Iraq US planes attacked a missile and Iraq claimed 1 civilian was killed.

2001 – Intel unveiled a 2-GHz Pentium 4 chip.

2001 – In Macedonia NATO troops began collecting rebel weapons and one British soldier was killed when a suspected block of concrete was thrown at his vehicle by Macedonian youths.

2002 – President Bush met with Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who said war with Iraq was not acceptable and that Saudi Arabia would not cooperate. Bush told the Saudi diplomat he had not yet decided whether to attack Iraq.

2003 – American and Afghan forces killed about a dozen insurgents and recaptured a mountain pass in southeastern Afghanistan.

2004 – Al-Sadr’s followers handed over the keys to the Imam Ali Shrine to religious authorities loyal to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Militants, who had been holed up in the site, left it after Iraq’s top Shiite cleric brokered a peace deal to end three weeks of fighting. Iraqi police discovered about 10 bodies in a maverick religious court run by rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers.

2004 – In Iraq saboteurs hit a pipeline that runs within the West Qurna oilfields, 90 miles north of the southern city of Basra.

2004 – Riot police used water cannons to disperse protesters demanding that the Philippines lift its ban on allowing its citizens to go to war-ravaged Iraq for jobs.

2008 – CGC Dallas, while deployed as part of the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet, delivered 76,000 pounds of humanitarian relief supplies to the port of Bat’umi, Georgia after that country was attacked by Russia as part of “Operation Assured Delivery.” She was the second U.S. military vessel to deliver relief supplies to Georgia.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BROWN, JAMES
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company F, 5th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Davidson Canyon near Camp Crittenden, Ariz., 27 August 1872. Entered service at:——. Birth: Wexford, Ireland. Date of issue: 4 December 1874. Citation: In command of a detachment of 4 men defeated a superior force.

GREGG, STEPHEN R.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 143d Infantry, 36th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Montelimar, France, 27 August 1944. Entered service at: Bayonne, N.J. Birth: New York, N.Y. G.O. No.: 31, 17 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 27 August 1944, in the vicinity of Montelimar, France. As his platoon advanced upon the enemy positions; the leading scout was fired upon and 2d Lt. Gregg (then a Tech. Sgt.) immediately put his machineguns into action to cover the advance of the riflemen. The Germans, who were at close range, threw hand grenades at the riflemen, killing some and wounding 7. Each time a medical aid man attempted to reach the wounded, the Germans fired at him. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, 2d Lt. Gregg took 1 of the light .30-caliber machineguns, and firing from the hip, started boldly up the hill with the medical aid man following him. Although the enemy was throwing hand grenades at him, 2d Lt. Gregg remained and fired into the enemy positions while the medical aid man removed the 7 wounded men to safety. When 2d Lt. Gregg had expended all his ammunition, he was covered by 4 Germans who ordered him to surrender. Since the attention of most of the Germans had been diverted by watching this action, friendly riflemen were able to maneuver into firing positions. One, seeing 2d Lt. Gregg’s situation, opened fire on his captors. The 4 Germans hit the ground and thereupon 2d Lt. Gregg recovered a machine pistol from one of the Germans and managed to escape to his other machinegun positions. He manned a gun, firing at his captors, killed 1 of them and wounded the other.

This action so discouraged the Germans that the platoon was able to continue its advance up the hill to achieve its objective. The following morning, just prior to daybreak, the Germans launched a strong attack, supported by tanks, in an attempt to drive Company L from the hill. As these tanks moved along the valley and their foot troops advanced up the hill, 2d Lt. Gregg immediately ordered his mortars into action. During the day by careful observation, he was able to direct effective fire on the enemy, inflicting heavy casualties. By late afternoon he had directed 600 rounds when his communication to the mortars was knocked out. Without hesitation he started checking his wires, although the area was under heavy enemy small arms and artillery fire. When he was within 100 yards of his mortar position, 1 of his men informed him that the section had been captured and the Germans were using the mortars to fire on the company. 2d Lt. Gregg with this man and another nearby rifleman started for the gun position where he could see 5 Germans firing his mortars. He ordered the 2 men to cover him, crawled up, threw a hand grenade into the position, and then charged it. The hand grenade killed 1, injured 2, 2d Lt. Gregg took the other 2 prisoners, and put his mortars back into action.

*HARTELL, LEE R.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Battery A, 15th Field Artillery Battalion, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Kobangsan-ni, Korea, 27 August 1951. Entered service at: Danbury, Conn. Birth: Philadelphia, Pa. G.O. No.: 16, 1 February 1952. Citation: 1st. Lt. Hartell, a member of Battery A, 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. During the darkness of early morning, the enemy launched a ruthless attack against friendly positions on a rugged mountainous ridge. 1st Lt. Hartell, attached to Company B, 9th Infantry Regiment, as forward observer, quickly moved his radio to an exposed vantage on the ridge line to adjust defensive fires. Realizing the tactical advantage of illuminating the area of approach, he called for flares and then directed crippling fire into the onrushing assailants. At this juncture a large force of hostile troops swarmed up the slope in banzai charge and came within 10 yards of 1st Lt. Hartell’s position. 1st Lt. Hartell sustained a severe hand wound in the ensuing encounter but grasped the microphone with his other hand and maintained his magnificent stand until the front and left flank of the company were protected by a close-in wall of withering fire, causing the fanatical foe to disperse and fall back momentarily.

After the numerically superior enemy overran an outpost and was closing on his position, 1st Lt. Hartell, in a final radio call, urged the friendly elements to fire both batteries continuously. Although mortally wounded, 1st Lt. Hartell’s intrepid actions contributed significantly to stemming the onslaught and enabled his company to maintain the strategic strongpoint. His consummate valor and unwavering devotion to duty reflect lasting glory on himself and uphold the noble traditions of the military service.

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28 August

1565 – St Augustine Fla, oldest city in the US, was established.

1609 – Henry Hudson discovered Delaware Bay.

1640 – The Indian War in New England ended with the surrender of the Indians.

1676 – Indian chief King Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by English soldiers, ending the war between Indians and colonists.

1814 – The War of 1812 was still going strong, as the British continued their ransacking of America. By August 28, they had captured a large portion of the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., prompting New York banks to halt specie payments.

1861 – Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, falls to Union troops after a two-day operation, closing an important outlet from Pamlico Sound for Confederate blockade runners.

1862 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee, by splitting his smaller army and using flanking maneuvers, succeeds in routing the Union Army under the command of General John Pope from field. Fought over much of the same area as the Battle of First Manassas a year earlier, the losses on both sides were much higher. Lee attempts to capitalize on this victory by marching into Maryland to take the war north. He was stopped at Antietam Creek in September.

1862 – The Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, VA.

1862 – Confederate spy Belle Boyd was released from Old Capital Prison in Washington, DC.

1864 – Union General Alfred Terry is promoted from brigadier general to major general of the United State Volunteers. A native of Connecticut, Terry studied law and became a clerk of the New Haven Superior Court before the war. He was a colonel in the Second Connecticut when the war began, and his regiment fought at the First Battle of Bull Run. Terry and his regiment fought at Port Royal, South Carolina, in the fall of 1861. He spent the next two and a half years fighting along the southern coast. For his service, he was promoted to brigadier general and given temporary command of the captured Fort Pulaski in Georgia. At the end of 1863, Terry was assigned to General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James. He participated in the early stages of the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, before his promotion to major general, and assumed temporary command of the Tenth Corps when General David Birney died of malaria.

At the end of 1864, Terry participated in an attempt to capture Fort Fisher in North Carolina, a stronghold that protected the approach to Wilmington, the Confederacy’s most important blockade-running port. Led by General Benjamin Butler, the expedition was a dismal failure. General-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant was so disappointed with Butler that he removed him from command and placed Terry in charge of the next attempt. In January 1865, Terry teamed with Admiral David Porter to make another attempt on Fort Fisher. Porter’s ships shelled the fort, and Terry led nearly 10,000 troops on multiple attacks that effected a surrender by the Confederate garrison inside. Terry went on to a distinguished postwar military career. He commanded the Department of Dakota in the late 1860s, then took over the Department of the South during Reconstruction. He returned to the Department of Dakota, and he was the overall commander of the expedition that resulted in the massacre of George Custer and his entire command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. Terry retired in 1888, and he died in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1890 at age 63.

1867 – Captain William Reynolds of Lackawanna raises U.S. flag over Midway Island and took formal possession of these islands for the U.S.

1883 – John Montgomery (d.1911 in a glider crash) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his “Gull” glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds.

1898 – Marines defended American interests in Valparaiso, Chile.

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signed Executive Order 3160 which returned the Coast Guard to the administrative control of the Treasury Department from the Navy after World War I.

1933 – The government took steps to safeguard the nation’s gold supplies as the Depression rolled on. On this day, an executive order was handed down that prohibited “hoarding” gold and placed limits on exports of precious metal.

1941 – With the nation on the verge of entering World War II and prices threatening to skyrocket, the government chose to take action against inflation. On this day, President Franklin Roosevelt handed down an executive order establishing the Office of Price Administration (OPA). Charged with controlling consumer prices in the face of war, the OPA wheeled into action, imposing rent controls and a rationing program which initially targeted auto tires. Soon, the agency was churning out coupon books for sugar, coffee, meat, fats, oils, and numerous other items. Though goods were in tight supply, Americans were urged to stick to the system of rationing. Some even took the Homefront Pledge, a declaration of their commitment to avoiding the black market in favor of buying the OPA way. The end of the war didn t prompt an instant shutdown of the OPA. Reasoning that some goods were still quite scarce, President Truman kept the agency running. However, the existence of a government agency for regulated prices and production didn’t sit well with some people. Big business bristled at the controls, as did farmers, who suffered under continued meat rationing. Soon after the ’46 election, the OPA was relieved of its duties, with only rents, sugar, and rice still subject to controls. The agency’s record of service during the war was fairly impressive: by V-J, consumer prices had increased by 31 percent, a number which was noticeably better than the 62 percent bloating of prices during World War I.


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1942 – 1st and 2nd Bn 7th Marines leave Pago Pago for combat.

1942 – 120 women, commissioned directly as ENS or LTJG, reported to “USS Northampton,” Smith College for training.

1942 – At Guadalcanal, the Japanese received more reinforcements brought in by Admiral Tanaka’s 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, nicknamed the “Tokyo Express.”

1943 – Mussolini was transferred from La Maddalena Sardinia to Gran Sasso.

1944 – Elements of US 1st Army cross the Marne River at Meaux. The US 3rd Army is approaching Reims.

1944 – The German garrisons in Toulon and Marseilles surrender. In the Rhone valley, some elements of the German 19th Army have been cut off, to the south of Montelimar, by forces of the US 7th Army. Among those elements is the German 11th Panzer Division, which launches an attack northward and succeeds in breaking through the line with heavy losses from Allied artillery and ground attack aircraft.

1945 – Goring, Ribbentrop, and 22 others former Nazi government officials are indicted as war criminals. Hermann Goring heads the list of 24. Rudolf Hess, formerly deputy to Hitler, who has been a prisoner in Britain since May 1941, is next on the list, followed by Martin Bormann, the secretary of the NSDAP, who disappeared from the Berlin bunker. Others include Konstantin von Neurath, the first foreign minister to Hitler; Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, the industrialist; Franz von Papen, the vice-chancellor in 1933-34; and, Hjalmar Schacht, who served as the minister of finance in the Nazi government until falling out of favor with Hitler.

1945 – US forces under General George Marshall landed in Japan. This advance guard of 150 American technicians land at Atsugi airfield, near Yokohama. For the first time, the Allies set foot on Japanese soil. Their arrival has been delayed for 48 hours by the forecast of a typhoon.

1945 – Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung arrived in Chunking to confer with Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in a futile effort to avert civil war.

1952 – Units on USS Boxer (CV-21) launch explosive-filled drone which explodes against railroad bridge near Hungnam, Korea. First guided missile launched from ship during Korean Conflict.

1963 – As soon as two U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker aircraft became reported as overdue at their destination, Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard Eastern Area Commander initiated an intensive air search. It lasted through 2 September with as many as 25 U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, and Navy planes participating. None of the 11 occupants of the two KC-135’s were ever found, only wreckage, indicating that there had been a midair collision.

1965 – Navy CDR Scott Carpenter and 9 aquanauts enter SeaLab II, 205 ft. below Southern California’s waters to conduct underwater living and working tests.

1965 – The Viet Cong were routed in the Mekong Delta by U.S. forces, with more than 50 killed.

1966 – It is reported in three Soviet newspapers that North Vietnamese pilots are undergoing training in a secret Soviet air base to fly supersonic interceptors against U.S. aircraft. This only confirms earlier reports that the Soviets had initiated close relations with North Vietnam after a visit by Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin to Hanoi in February 1965 during which he signed economic and military treaties with the North, pledging full support for their war effort. The Soviets and North Vietnamese leadership planned military strategy and discussed North Vietnam’s needs to prosecute such a strategy. The Soviets agreed to supply the necessary war materials, to include air defense weapons for the North and offensive weapons to be employed in the South. At one point in the war, the Soviets would supply 80 percent of all supplies reaching North Vietnam.

1968 – The Democratic National Convention in Chicago endorses the Johnson administration’s platform on the war in Vietnam and chooses Vice President Hubert Humphrey as the party’s nominee for president. The decision on the party platform resulted in a contentious three-hour debate inside the convention hall. Outside, a full-scale riot erupted, where antiwar protesters battled with police and National Guardsmen. By the time the convention was over, 668 demonstrators had been arrested and many Americans were stunned by the images of armed conflict in the streets. Humphrey’s Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, very successfully used this incident in a call for return to law and order that won him much support during the election campaign.

1972 – The U.S. Air Force gets its first ace (a designation traditionally awarded for five enemy aircraft confirmed shot down) since the Korean War. Captain Richard S. Ritchie, flying with his “backseater” (radar intercept officer), Captain Charles B. DeBellevue, in an F-4 out of Udorn Air Base in Thailand, shoots down his fifth MiG near Hanoi. Two weeks later, Captain DeBellvue, flying with Captain John A. Madden, Jr., shot down his fifth and sixth MiGs. The U.S. Navy already had two aces, Lieutenants Randall Cunningham and Bill Driscoll. By this time in the war, there was only one U.S. fighter-bomber base left in South Vietnam at Bien Hoa. The rest of the air support was provided by aircraft flying from aircraft carriers or U.S. bases in Thailand. Also on this day: Back in the United States, President Nixon announces that the military draft will end by July 1973.

1973 – Judge John Sirica ordered President Nixon to turn over secret Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order.

1986 – US Navy officer Jerry A. Whitworth was sentenced to 365 years for spying.

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1990 – German spy Juergen Mohamed Gietler was arrested for passing military information to Iraq. He provided Iraq with intelligence reports on US military plans that included what the West knew of Iraqi Scud-B missile sites. He was convicted in a secret trial in 1991, sentenced to 5 years in prison and released in 1994 after which he moved to Egypt.

1990 – Iraq declared occupied Kuwait the 19th province of Iraq, renamed Kuwait City Kadhima, and created a new district named after President Saddam Hussein. A puppet regime under Alaa Hussein was set up. Alaa Hussein was convicted of treason in 2000 and sentenced to death. Saddam Hussein, saying he sympathized with his foreign captives, pledged to free detained women and children.

1991 – A helicopter from USS America (CV-66) rescues 3 civilian sailors who spent 10 days in a lifeboat 80 miles off Capt May, NJ after their sailboat capsized.

1995 – A request from the commander in chief of naval forces Europe led to the deployment of the CGC Dallas to the Mediterranean. She departed Governors Island on 29 May 1995 and visited ports throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea, including Istanbul and Samsun in Turkey; Durres, Albania; Varna, Bulgaria; Constanta, Romania; Koper, Slovenia; Taranto, Italy; and Bizerte, Tunisia. The crew trained with naval and coast guard forces in each country. She deployed for a few days with the Sixth Fleet and served as a plane guard for the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The crew was also able to coordinate schedules with six NATO and non-NATO nations to conduct boardings. She returned to the U.S. in August and arrived at Governors Island on 28 August.

1995 – A mortar shell tore through a crowded market in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, killing 38 people and triggering NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs. Bosnian Serb shells hit Serajevo near the main market and killed 37 people and wounded 85 others.

1997 – US troops clashed with Bosnian Serbs in Brcko. NATO forces rescued some 50 besieged UN police monitors as crowds, opposed to Pres. Plavsic, demanded the expulsion of Western peacekeepers. U.S. troops fired tear gas and warning shots to fend off rock-hurling Serb mobs. The attempt by US-led NATO forces to install Plavsic forces in police stations in 3 cities failed.

2000 – In the Philippines Abu Sayyaf guerrillas abducted Jeffrey Schilling (24), their first American hostage.

2002 – Federal grand juries charged six men in Detroit with conspiring to support al-Qaeda’s terrorism as members of a sleeper cell.

2002 – U.N. Sec.-Gen. Kofi Annan urged the United States to resist attacking Iraq, joining calls from leaders in Germany, China, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for restraint in considering military action to topple Saddam Hussein.

2003 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that the government had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s weapons threat, and said he would have resigned if it had been true.

2004 – Shiite militants and U.S. forces battled in the Baghdad’s Sadr City slum. U.S. warplanes carried out airstrikes for the second straight day in the city of Fallujah.

2004 – A Yemen court convicted 15 militants on terror charges including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and plotting to kill the U.S. ambassador.

2005 – Iraqi leaders submit a draft constitution just before a self-imposed deadline.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HARRIS, MOSES
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Smithfield, Va., 28 August 1864. Entered service at: New Hampshire. Birth: Andover, N.H. Date of issue: 23 January 1896. Citation: In an attack upon a largely superior force, his personal gallantry was so conspicuous as to inspire the men to extraordinary efforts, resulting in complete rout of the enemy.

RHODES, JULIUS D.
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 5th New York Cavalry. Place and date: At Thoroughfare Gap, Va., 28 August 1862. At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. Entered service at: Springville, N.Y. Birth: Monroe County, Mich. Date of issue: 9 March 1887. Citation: After having had his horse shot under him in the fight at Thoroughfare Gap, Va., he voluntarily joined the 105th New York Volunteers and was conspicuous in the advance on the enemy’s lines. Displayed gallantry in the advance on the skirmish line at Bull Run, Va., where he was wounded.

*JIMENEZ, JOSE FRANCISCO
Rank and organization: Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, Company K, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam, 28 August 1969. Entered service at: Phoenix, Ariz. Born: 20 March 1946, Mexico City, Mex. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a fire team leader with Company K, in operations against the enemy. L/Cpl. Jimenez’ unit came under heavy attack by North Vietnamese soldiers concealed in well camouflaged emplacements. L/Cpl. Jimenez reacted by seizing the initiative and plunging forward toward the enemy positions. He personally destroyed several enemy personnel and silenced an antiaircraft weapon. Shouting encouragement to his companions, L/Cpl. Jimenez continued his aggressive forward movement. He slowly maneuvered to within 10 feet of hostile soldiers who were firing automatic weapons from a trench and, in the face of vicious enemy fire, destroyed the position. Although he was by now the target of concentrated fire from hostile gunners intent upon halting his assault, L/Cpl. Jimenez continued to press forward. As he moved to attack another enemy soldier, he was mortally wounded. L/Cpl. Jimenez’ indomitable courage, aggressive fighting spirit and unfaltering devotion to duty upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the U.S. Naval Service.

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29 August

1708 – Haverhill, Mass., was destroyed by French & Indians.

1758 – The first American Indian Reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey.

1776 – General George Washington retreated during the night from Long Island to New York City withdrawing from Manhattan to Westchester.

1778 – The Battle of Rhode Island, also known as the Battle of Quaker Hill and the Siege of Newport, took place. Continental Army and militia forces under the command of General John Sullivan were withdrawing to the northern part of Aquidneck Island after abandoning their siege of Newport, Rhode Island, when the British forces in Newport sortied, supported by recently arrived Royal Navy ships, and attacked the retreating Americans. The battle ended inconclusively, but the Continental forces afterward withdrew to the mainland, leaving Aquidneck Island in British hands. The battle took place in the aftermath of the first attempt at cooperation between French and American forces following France’s entry into the war as an American ally. The operations against Newport were to have been made in conjunction with a French fleet and troops; these were frustrated in part by difficult relations between the commanders, and a storm that damaged both French and British fleets shortly before joint operations were to begin. The battle was also notable for the participation of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, a locally recruited segregated regiment of African Americans. It was the only major military action to include a racially segregated unit on the American side in the war.

1786 – Shay’s Rebellion began in Springfield, Mass. Daniel Shay led a rebellion in Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of debt. Shay was a Revolutionary War veteran who led a short-lived insurrection in western Massachusetts to protest a tax increase that had to be paid in cash, a hardship for veteran farmers who relied on barter and didn‘t own enough land to vote. The taxes were to pay off the debts from the Revolutionary War, and those who couldn‘t pay were evicted or sent to prison.

1861 – U.S.S. Yankee, Commander T. T. Craven, and U.S.S. Reliance, Lieutenant Mygatt, engaged Confederate battery at Marlborough Point, Virginia.

1861 – United States Navy squadron captures forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.

1861 – Four U.S. steamers engaged Confederate battery at Aquia Creek, Virginia, for three hours.

1862 – Union General John Pope’s army was defeated by a smaller Confederate force at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

1863 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, Lieutenant Payne, sank in Charleston harbor for the first time. After making several practice dives in the harbor, the submarine was moored by lines fastened to steamer Etiwan at the dock at Fort Johnson. When the steamer moved away from the dock unexpectedly, H. L. Hunley was drawn onto her side. She filled with water and rapidly sank, carrying with her five gallant seamen. Payne and two others escaped. H. L. Hunley was subsequently raised and refitted, as, undaunted by the “unfortunate accident,” another crew volunteered to man her.

1862 – U.S.S. Pittsburg, Lieutenant Thompson, escorted steamers White Cloud and Latan with Army troops embarked to Eunice, Arkansas. The gunboat shelled and dispersed Confederate forces from a camp above Carson’s Landing on the Mississippi shore. Landing the troops under cover of Pittsburg’s guns for reconnaissance missions en route, Lieutenant Thompson at Eunice seized a large wharf boat, fitted out as a floating hotel. This type of persistent patrolling of the Mississippi and tributaries by the Union Navy in support of Army operations was instrumental in preventing the Confederates from establishing firm positions.

1864 – While removing Confederate obstructions from the channel leading into Mobile Bay, five sailors were killed and nine others injured when a torpedo exploded. Farragut regretted the unfortunate loss, but resolutely pressed on with the work: ”As it is absolutely necessary to free the channel of these torpedoes, I shall continue to remove them, but as every precaution will be used, I do not apprehend any further accident.” Like the loss of Tecumseh, this event demonstrated that although some torpedoes had been made inactive by long immersion, many were very much alive when Farragut made the instant decision, “Damn the torpedoes !!" .

1909 – World’s 1st air race was held in Rheims France. American Glenn Curtiss won.

1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California. Ishi (c. 1860 – March 25, 1916) was the last member of the Yahi, a group of the Yana people of the U.S. state of California. Widely acclaimed in his time as the “last wild Indian” in America, Ishi lived most of his life completely outside modern culture. At about 49 years of age he emerged from “the wild” near Oroville, California, leaving his ancestral homeland, present-day Tehama County, near the foothills of Lassen Peak, known to Ishi as Wa ganu p’a. Ishi means “man” in the Yana language. The anthropologist Alfred Kroeber gave this name to the man because it was rude to ask someone’s name in the Yahi culture. When asked his name, he said: “I have none, because there were no people to name me,” meaning that no Yahi had ever spoken his name. He was taken in by anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who both studied him and hired him as a research assistant. He lived most of his remaining five years in a university building in San Francisco.

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1915 – Navy salvage divers raise F-4, first U.S. submarine sunk in an accident.

1916 – Congress passes act for expansion of Navy but most ships not completed until after World War I.

1916 – Congress created the US Naval reserve.

1916 – The Marine Corps Reserve was founded.

1916 – Congress authorized Treasury to establish ten Coast Guard air stations but appropriated only $7000 for an instructor and assistant. Appropriation for their construction and for planes was not made until 1924.

1916 – A naval appropriations act (39 Stat. L., 556, 602) provided for the first time the mobilization of the Lighthouse Service in time of war by authorizing the President, “…whenever in his judgment a sufficient national emergency exists, to transfer to the service and jurisdiction of the Navy Department, or of the War Department, such vessels, equipment, stations and personnel of the Lighthouse Service as he may deem to the best interest of the country.”

1922 – The first radio advertisement is broadcast on WEAF-AM in New York City for the Queensboro Corporation, advertising an apartment complex.

1942 – Japanese naval forces enter Milne Bay.

1942 – The American Red Cross announced that Japan had refused to allow safe conduct for the passage of ships with supplies for American prisoners of war.

1944 – Pennsylvania’s 28th Infantry Division leads the American contingent in the “Liberation Day” parade down the Champs Elysees as Paris explodes with joy after the Germans withdraw from the city. The Allies, who had landed in Normandy on June 6th, had spent more than six weeks fighting through the Norman hedgerows before finally breaking out on the French Plain and headed for Paris. The 28th was one of four Guard infantry divisions to see combat in Normandy.

1944 – The British 21st Army Group and US 1st Army Group continue to advance. The US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) captures Soissons and crosses the Aisne River. Elements of US 3rd Army take Reims and Chalons-sur-Marie.

1944 – The United States government gives official recognition to the Polish Home Army. At Dumbarton Oaks, senior Allied representatives conclude their meetings to discuss postwar security. The representatives agree that there should be an assembly of all states supported by a council of leading states. They also agree on the formation of an International Court of Justice.

1945 – The American battleship USS Missouri anchors in Tokyo Bay.

1945 – Gen MacArthur was named the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan.

1945 – U.S. airborne troops landed in transport planes at Atsugi airfield, southwest of Tokyo, beginning the occupation of Japan.

1945 – Secret Army and Navy reports of official enquiries into the raid on Pearl Harbor are made public. The blame is placed on a lack of preparedness, confusion and a breakdown of inter-service coordination. Former Secretary of State Hull, General Marshall and Admiral Stark are criticized. President Truman objects to the findings on Hull and Marshall.

1946 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is decommissioned. USS Nevada (BB-36), the second United States Navy ship to be named after the 36th state, was the lead ship of the two Nevada-class battleships; her sister ship was Oklahoma. Launched in 1914, the Nevada was a leap forward in dreadnought technology; four of her new features would be included on almost every subsequent US battleship: triple gun turrets, oil in place of coal for fuel, geared steam turbines for greater range, and the “all or nothing” armor principle. These features made Nevada the first US Navy “super-dreadnought”. Nevada served in both World Wars: during the last few months of World War I, Nevada was based in Bantry Bay, Ireland, to protect the supply convoys that were sailing to and from Great Britain. In World War II, she was one of the battleships trapped when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She was the only battleship to get underway during the attack, making the ship “the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal and depressing morning” for the United States. Still, she was hit by one torpedo and at least six bombs while steaming away from Battleship Row, forcing her to be beached. Subsequently salvaged and modernized at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Nevada served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic and as a fire-support ship in four amphibious assaults: the Normandy Landings and the invasions of Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

At the end of World War II, the Navy decided that Nevada was too old to be retained, so they assigned her to be a target ship in the atomic experiments that were going to be conducted at Bikini Atoll in July 1946 (Operation Crossroads). After being hit by the blast from the first atomic bomb, Able, she was still afloat but heavily damaged and radioactive. She was decommissioned on 29 August 1946 and sunk during naval gunfire practice on 31 July 1948.

1949 – The USSR successfully detonated its first atomic bomb at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. It was a copy of the Fat Man bomb and had a yield of 21 kilotons known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1952 – In the largest bombing raid of the Korean War, 1,403 planes of the Far East Air Force bombed Pyongyang, North Korea.

1958 – Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1962 – A US U-2 flight saw SAM launch pads in Cuba.

1965 – Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles (“Pete”) Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic after eight days in space.

1980 – The Coast Guard and the Royal Navy signed a Personnel Exchange Agreement. The first exchange between the two services were helicopter pilots. The pilots were assigned to RNAS Coldrose, Helston Cornwall and AIRSTA Miami.

1990 – A defiant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared in a television interview that America could not defeat Iraq, saying, “I do not beg before anyone.”

1991 – In a stunning blow to the Soviet Communist Party, the Supreme Soviet legislature voted to suspend the activities of the organization and freeze its bank accounts because of the party’s role in the failed coup.

1992 – The U.N. Security Council agreed to send 3,000 more relief troops to Somalia to guard food shipments.

2003 – Six nations trying to defuse a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program ended their talks in Beijing with an agreement to keep talking.

2003 – In Najaf, Iraq, a massive car bomb exploded at the Imam Ali mosque during prayers, killing Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most important Shiite clerics, and 124 other people. Two Iraqis and two Saudis were caught soon after.

2004 – In Afghanistan an explosion tore through the office of DynCorp., an American defense contractor, in the heart of Kabul, killing 12 people, including 3 Americans.

2004 – Saboteurs blew up a pipeline in southern Iraq in the latest attack. Al-Sadr called on his followers to lay down arms and get involved in politics.

2004 – A rocket attack and a remote control bomb killed 2 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in the western tribal regions where troops are hunting al Qaeda-linked militants.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina made a second landfall near Empire, Buras and Boothville, Louisiana after first previously striking Southeast Florida on 25 August. The rescue and response effort was one of the largest in Coast Guard history, involving units from every district, saving 24,135 lives and conducting 9,409 evacuations.

2007 – From exile in Iran, Shi’ite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr issues the first of a series of cease-fire orders to his militia, the Madhi Army. Al-Sadr, the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr, established the Mahdi Army as a military wing to his Sadr Bureaus whch were formed as a shadow governmet in opposition to the Iraqi Governing Council.

2007 – 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident: six US cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads are flown without proper authorization from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base.

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[SHOOTER13]

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

SWEARER, BENJAMIN
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1825, Baltimore, Md. Accredited to: Maryland. G.O. No.: 11, 3 April 1863. Citation: Embarked in a surfboat from the U.S.S. Pawnee during action against Fort Clark, off Baltimore Inlet, 29 August 1861. Taking part in a mission to land troops and to remain inshore and provide protection, Swearer rendered gallant service throughout the action and had the honor of being the first man to raise the flag on the captured fort.

WALTON, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization. Private, Company C, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Hell, Petersburg, Va., 29 August 1864. Entered service at: Upper Oxford, Pa. Birth: Chester, Pa. Date of issue: 6 August 1902. Citation: Went outside the trenches, under heavy fire at short range, and rescued a comrade who had been wounded and thrown out of the trench by an exploding shell.

GARLAND, HARRY
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company L, 2d U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Muddy Creek, Mont., 7 May 1877; at Camas Meadows, Idaho, 29 August 1877. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 28 February 1878. Citation: Gallantry in action with hostile Sioux, at Little Muddy Creek, Mont.; having been wounded in the hip so as to be unable to stand, at Camas Meadows, Idaho, he still continued to direct the men under his charge until the enemy withdrew.

JONES, CLAUD ASHTON
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy. Born: 7 October 1885, Fire Creek, W.Va. Accredited to: West Virginia. (1 August 1932.) Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession as a senior engineer officer on board the U.S.S. Memphis, at a time when the vessel was suffering total destruction from a hurricane while anchored off Santo Domingo City, 29 August 1916. Lt. Jones did everything possible to get the engines and boilers ready, and if the elements that burst upon the vessel had delayed for a few minutes, the engines would have saved the vessel. With boilers and steam pipes bursting about him in clouds of scalding steam, with thousands of tons of water coming down upon him and in almost complete darkness, Lt. Jones nobly remained at his post as long as the engines would turn over, exhibiting the most supreme unselfish heroism which inspired the officers and men who were with him. When the boilers exploded, Lt. Jones, accompanied by 2 of his shipmates, rushed into the fire rooms and drove the men there out, dragging some, carrying others to the engine room, where there was air to be breathed instead of steam. Lt. Jones’ action on this occasion was above and beyond the call of duty.

*RUD, GEORGE WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Chief Machinist’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 7 October 1883, Minneapolis, Minn. Accredited to: Minnesota. (1 August 1932.) Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession while attached to the U.S.S. Memphis, at a time when that vessel was suffered total destruction from a hurricane while anchored off Santo Domingo City, 29 August 1916. C.M.M. Rud took his station in the engine room and remained at his post amidst scalding steam and the rushing of thousands of tons of water into his department, receiving serious burns from which he immediately died.

WILLEY, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Machinist, U.S. Navy. Place and date: Off Santo Domingo City, Santo Domingo, 29 August 1916. Entered service at: Massachusetts. Born: 31 March 1889, East Boston, Mass. G.O. No.: –1 August 1932. Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession while serving on board the U.S.S. Memphis, at a time when that vessel was suffering total destruction from a hurricane while anchored off Santo Domingo City, 29 August 1916. Machinist Willey took his station in the engineer’s department and remained at his post of duty amidst scalding steam and the rush of thousands of tons of water into his department as long as the engines would turn, leaving only when ordered to leave. When the boilers exploded, he assisted in getting the men out of the fireroom and carrying them into the engineroom, where there was air instead of steam to breathe. Machinist Willey’s conduct on this occasion was above and beyond the call of duty.

*McVElGH, JOHN J.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U .S. Army, Company H, 23d Infantry, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Brest, France, 29 August 1944. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Philadelphia, Pa. G.O. No.: 24, 6 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty near Brest, France, on 29 August 1944. Shortly after dusk an enemy counterattack of platoon strength was launched against 1 platoon of Company G, 23d Infantry. Since the Company G platoon was not dug in and had just begun to assume defensive positions along a hedge, part of the line sagged momentarily under heavy fire from small arms and 2 flak guns, leaving a section of heavy machineguns holding a wide frontage without rifle protection. The enemy drive moved so swiftly that German riflemen were soon almost on top of 1 machinegun position. Sgt. McVeigh, heedless of a tremendous amount of small arms and flak fire directed toward him, stood up in full view of the enemy and directed the fire of his squad on the attacking Germans until his position was almost overrun. He then drew his trench knife. and single-handed charged several of the enemy. In a savage hand-to-hand struggle, Sgt. McVeigh killed 1 German with the knife, his only weapon, and was advancing on 3 more of the enemy when he was shot down and killed with small arms fire at pointblank range. Sgt. McVeigh’s heroic act allowed the 2 remaining men in his squad to concentrate their machinegun fire on the attacking enemy and then turn their weapons on the 3 Germans in the road, killing all 3. Fire from this machinegun and the other gun of the section was almost entirely responsible for stopping this enemy assault, and allowed the rifle platoon to which it was attached time to reorganize, assume positions on and hold the high ground gained during the day.

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[SHOOTER13]

30 August

1645 – Dutch & Indians signed peace treaty in New Amsterdam (NY).

1682 – William Penn left England to sail to New World. He took along an insurance policy.

1780 – General Benedict Arnold betrayed the US when he promised secretly to surrender the fort at West Point to the British army. Arnold whose name has become synonymous with traitor fled to England after the botched conspiracy. His co-conspirator, British spy Major John Andre, was hanged.

1781 – The French fleet of 24 ships under Comte de Grasse arrived in the Chesapeake Bay to aid the American Revolution. The fleet defeated British under Admiral Graves at battle of Chesapeake Capes.

1800 – Gabriel Prosser postpones a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia, but is arrested before he can make it happen.

1813 – Marines aboard the USS President helped capture the HMS brig Shannon.

1813 – Creek Indians massacred over 500 whites at Fort Mims Alabama.

1836 – The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen.

1861 – Union General John Fremont declared martial law throughout Missouri and made his own emancipation proclamation to free slaves in the state. President Lincoln overruled the general.

1862 – Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Va. Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell fought at the Second Battle of Manassas, which was also a Union defeat (the Union army in this case was commanded by Maj. Gen. John Pope). McDowell was then relieved of his command until he was sent to command the Department of the Pacific in 1864, where he finished the war.

1862 – Confederates under Edmund Kirby Smith rout a Union army at Richmond, Kentucky, in one of the most lopsided engagements of the Civil War. As part of an attempt by the Confederates to drive the Yankees from central Tennessee and Kentucky, Smith moved toward Lexington, Kentucky, with about 19,000 troops in search of supplies. Facing him was a Union force under General Horatio Wright, who was sitting atop a palisade along the Kentucky River just south of Lexington. Part of Wright’s force, under the command of General Mahlon D. Manson, did not receive orders to fall back to the river. Instead, Manson placed his 6,500 troops on high ground around Richmond, further south of the Kentucky River. On the morning of August 30, Smith’s force collided with Manson’s south of Richmond. The Confederates soon routed the Yankees, many of whom were new soldiers with no battle experience. After retreating two miles, Manson’s troops mounted a counterattack but were repulsed. The Union force retreated again, and the Confederates followed with a withering attack. This time, the Yankee retreat was cut off by Colonel John Scott’s Confederate cavalry force. The loss was complete for the Yankees. Fewer than 1,200 of the 6,500 Federals escaped, and more than 4,300 were captured. Confederate losses stood at 98 killed, 492 wounded, and 10 missing out of 6,800. Among those captured were Manson and his entire staff. The Confederates captured Lexington two days later.

1862 – U.S.S. Passaic launched at Greenpoint, New York. A newspaper reporter observed: “A fleet of monsters has been created, volcanoes in a nutshell, breathing under water, fighting under shelter, steered with mirrors, driven by vapor, running anywhere, retreating from nothing. These floating carriages bear immense ordnance, perfected by new processes, and easily worked by new and simple devices.

1863 – A detachment of the Marine Brigade, assigned to Rear Admiral Porter’s Mississippi Squadron, captured three Confederate paymasters at Bolivar, Mississippi. The paymasters, escorted by 35 troops who were also taken prisoner, were carrying $2,200,000 in Confederate currency to pay their soldiers at Little Rock. “This,” Porter commented, “will not improve the dissatisfaction now existing in Price’s army, and the next news we hear will be that General Steele has posses-sion of Little Rock.”

1864 – Small stern-wheeler U.S.S. Fawn, Acting Master Grace, convoyed Union infantry and artillery embarked in transport Kate Hart, on an expedition up the White River from Devall’s Bluff, Arkansas. The troops were to join with General West’s cavalry, then searching for General Shelby’s force of Confederate raiders. Fawn and the transport returned to Devall’s Bluff on 2 September, and commenced a second foray with larger forces embarked in transports Nevada, Commercial, and Celeste that afternoon. Next day, above Peach Orchard Bluffs, Confederate batteries opened on the convoy, but were dislodged from their riverbank position by Fawn’s gunfire. Unable to proceed water-borne because of the low level of the river, scouts and cavalry were sent ahead to communicate with General West, and returned, escorted by Fawn, to Devall’s Bluff on 6 September. Shelby’s forces continued to elude the Union troops and harass shipping on the White River.

1872 – The Neptune Line steamer Metis sank in 30 minutes off Watch Hill, RI. Of 104 passengers and 45 crew, only 33 survived. A coasting schooner had struck the Metis, which had a full passenger list and cotton cargo bound for New England textile mills. Captain Daniel Larkin (retired light keeper and one of the first Life-Saving Station captains), Captain Jared Crandall (light keeper), and lifeboat crewmen Albert Crandall, Frank Larkin, and Byron Green launched from the Life-Saving station. Boat Captain John Harvey and crewmen Courtland Gavitt, Edward Nash, Eugene Nash, and William Nash saw the collision and launched a fishing seine from the beach. The lifeboat and seine rescued 32. Revenue cutter Moccasin from Stonington, CT, met the boats, took their passengers, and located a survivor. The Moccasin and seine continued to search until dark. Participants were awarded Certificates of Heroism from the Massachusetts Humane Society and gold medals, minted to commemorate the rescue, by Congressional resolution, February 24, 1873. The event signified the growing interaction among the members of the Life-Saving Service, the Lighthouse Service, and the Revenue Cutter Service, a factor in the later merger of the three services.

1879 – John Bell Hood, confederate general (lost Atlanta, along with arm and leg), died at 48 of Yellow Fever in a New Orleans epidemic.

1880 – Diablo, a chief of the Cibecue Apache, is killed during a battle with a competing band of Indians. Known as Eskinlaw to his own people, Diablo was a prominent chief of the Cibecue Apache, who lived in the White Mountains of Arizona. Initially, Diablo had attempted to cooperate with the increasing number of whites who were encroaching on the Apache homeland. In July 1869, he traveled to Fort Defiance, the first American military post in Arizona, in hopes of establishing good relations. Three white men returned with Diablo and regular visits between the two groups began. Tensions, however, continued amongst the Apache themselves, many of whom were less welcoming to the Americans. In 1873, a warrior from a competing band of Apaches led by Eshkeldahsilah killed a white man working at the army’s Fort Apache. Diablo tracked down the offending warrior and killed him, winning the Americans’ praise but Eshkeldahsilah’s increased enmity. To avoid further violence, the commander of Fort Apache ordered all the surrounding tribes to move closer to the fort.

This may have decreased the attacks on the Americans, but it increased the tensions between the Apache bands. The government further angered Diablo in July 1875, when it ordered that all of the Apaches in the region move to the San Carlos Reservation east of present-day Phoenix. In apparent frustration at the imperious behavior of the Americans, Diablo finally turned against the whites. In January 1876, he attacked the camp near Fort Apache, and he killed at least one white civilian. He also began attacking a competing band of White Mountain Apache who continued to cooperate with the Americans. Eventually, the White Mountain Apache got their revenge on Diablo. On this day in 1880, the two bands of Apache fought a fierce battle near Fort Apache. By the time the American military arrived on the site, Diablo’s opponents had killed him.

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[SHOOTER13]

1913 – Navy tests Sperry gyroscopic stabilizer (automatic pilot).

1918 – The First Army of General John Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force moves into position around the German-held St. Mihiel salient to the southeast of Verdun along the Meuse River. Together with the French II Colonial Corps, the First Army will launch an attack on the position in mid-September.

1929 – Near New London, CT, 26 officers and men test Momsen lung to exit submerged USS S-4.

1942 – At Guadalcanal, the American forces receive 18 more fighters and 12 dive bombers.

1944 – The US 12th Army Group and the British 21st Army Group continue to advance.

1945 – American and British forces land in the Tokyo area. The US 11th Airborne Division flies in to Atsugi airfield, while the US 4th Marine Regiment of the US 6th Marine Division lands in the naval base at Yokosuka. Meanwhile, the American cruiser USS San Juan starts to evacuate Allied prisoners of war detained in the Japanese home islands.

1945 – Gen. Douglas MacArthur lands in Japan to oversee the formal surrender ceremony and to organize the postwar Japanese government. The career of Douglas MacArthur is composed of one striking achievement after another. When he graduated from West Point, MacArthur’s performance, in terms of awards and average, had only been exceeded in the institution’s history by one other person-Robert E. Lee. His performance in World War I, during combat in France, won him more decorations for valor and resulted in his becoming the youngest general in the Army at the time. He retired from the Army in 1934, only to be appointed head of the Philippine Army by its president (the Philippines had U.S. commonwealth status at the time). When World War II broke out, MacArthur was called back to active service-as commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Far East. Because of MacArthur’s time in the Far East, and the awesome respect he commanded in the Philippines, his judgment had become somewhat distorted and his vision of U.S. military strategy as a whole myopic. He was convinced that he could defeat Japan if it invaded the Philippines. In the long term, he was correct. But in the short term, the United States suffered disastrous defeats at Bataan and Corregidor. By the time U.S. forces were compelled to surrender, he had already shipped out, on orders from President Roosevelt. As he left, he uttered his immortal line, “I shall return.” Refusing to admit defeat, MacArthur took supreme command in the Southwest Pacific, capturing New Guinea from the Japanese with an innovative “leap frog” strategy.

MacArthur, true to his word, returned to the Philippines in October 1944, and once again employed an unusual strategy of surprise and constant movement that still has historians puzzled as to its true efficacy to this day. He even led the initial invasion by wading ashore from a landing craft-captured for the world on newsreel footage. With the help of the U.S. Navy, which succeeded in destroying the Japanese fleet, leaving the Japanese garrisons on the islands without reinforcements, the Army defeated adamantine Japanese resistance. On March 3, 1945, MacArthur handed control of the Philippine capital back to its president. On August 30, 1945, MacArthur landed at Atsugi Airport in Japan and proceeded to drive himself to Yokohama. Along the way, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers lined the roads, their bayonets fixed on him. One last act of defiance-but all for naught. MacArthur would be the man who would reform Japanese society, putting it on the road to economic success.

1945 – A proclamation to the German people is signed today formally announcing the establishment of the Allied Control Council and its assumption of supreme authority in Germany.

1945 – A pale green Super Six coupe rolled off the Hudson Company’s assembly line, the first post-World War II car to be produced by the auto manufacturer. Like all other U.S. auto manufacturers, Hudson had halted production of civilian cars in order to produce armaments during the war. The Super Six boasted the first modern, high-compression L-head motor, though it garnered its name from the original Hudson-manufactured engine produced in 1916. The name stayed, though the engines became more sophisticated.

1950 – The USAF organized Detachment F of the 3rd Rescue Squadron in Korea and equipped it with Sikorsky H-5 helicopters.

1950 – The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division relieved the ROK 1st Division on the Naktong River front.

1950 – The 3rd Infantry Division (minus the 65th Infantry Regiment) sailed from San Francisco for Japan.

1952 – Captain Leonard W. Lilley of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing scored his first aerial victory. He went on to become an F-86 Sabre ace.

1961 – Two Cuban frigates fire on a Naval Reserve aircraft on a training mission over international waters.

1963 – Two months after signing an agreement to establish a 24-hour-a-day “hot line” between Moscow and Washington, the system goes into effect. The hot line was supposed to help speed communication between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union and help prevent the possibility of an accidental war. In June 1963, American and Russian representatives agreed to establish a so-called “hot line” between Moscow and Washington. The agreement came just months after the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, in which the United States and Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear conflict. It was hoped that speedier and more secure communications between the two nuclear superpowers would forestall such crises in the future. In August 1963, the system was ready to be tested. American teletype machines had been installed in the Kremlin to receive messages from Washington; Soviet teletypes were installed in the Pentagon. (Contrary to popular belief, the hot line in the United States is in the Pentagon, not the White House.)

Both nations also exchanged encoding devices in order to decipher the messages. Messages from one nation to another would take just a matter of minutes, although the messages would then have to be translated. The messages would be carried by a 10,000-mile long cable connection, with “scramblers” along the way to insure that the messages could not be intercepted and read by unauthorized personnel. On August 30, the United States sent its first message to the Soviet Union over the hot line: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back 1234567890.” The message used every letter and number key on the teletype machine in order to see that each was in working order. The return message from Moscow was in Russian, but it indicated that all of the keys on the Soviet teletype were also functioning. The hot line was never really necessary to prevent war between the Soviet Union and the United States, but it did provide a useful prop for movies about nuclear disaster, such as Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove. Its significance at the time was largely symbolic. The two superpowers, who had been so close to mutual nuclear destruction in October 1962, clearly recognized the dangers of miscommunication or no communication in the modern world. Though the Cold War is over, the hot line continues in operation between the United States and Russia. It was supplemented in 1999 by a direct secure telephone connection between the two governments.

1966 – Hanoi Radio announces that Deputy Premier Le Thanh Nghi has signed an agreement with Peking whereby the People’s Republic of China will provide additional economic and technical aid to North Vietnam. China had already been providing support to the Communists in Vietnam since the war against the French. When the U.S. became decisively involved after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, China increased the support to both North Vietnam and the insurgents in South Vietnam. It was this support and that provided by the Soviet Union that permitted the North Vietnamese to prosecute the war against South Vietnam and the U.S. forces there.

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[SHOOTER13]

1968 – In what a later official government report would call a “police riot” the four-day Democratic National Convention and all of it’s accompanying violence and mayhem comes to close as 668 people are arrested and 111 are injured mostly by police overreaction. It’s 1968 and the war in Vietnam is going so badly that President Lyndon Johnson announced in March he would not run again for office. His Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, seen by many as supporting Johnson’s policies, is the Democratic nominee for the general election. To attempt to block the process and give their antiwar candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy a chance to get the nomination, a varied group of protesters from students to black radicals to widows and parents of men already killed in the war gather to march on the convention center. Expecting trouble William Daily, the no-nonsense mayor of Chicago, calls out the Illinois National Guard as a back up to his police forces. Nearly 6,000 Guardsmen are placed on state active duty, but few are actually deployed to the streets to face protesters. Most are used to guard important government buildings from possible damage from “rampaging mobs” as one police official phrased it. The resulting investigation found little ‘mob’ action. Most people wanted to make their voices known in the convention center but were forcibly blocked by the police, leading to violence mostly by the police. The only incident where about 500 Guardsmen were involved with the crowds occurred this evening as they helped move the protesters, numbering in the thousands, back toward Lincoln Park to disperse them. The resulting report cleared the Illinois Guard of blame for the violence and in fact, stated in several instances Guardsmen intervened to block confrontation between the two warring sides. It’s perhaps a sobering reminder that during the week these events were unfolding in Chicago in Vietnam 308 American soldiers lost their lives, including five New Hampshire Guardsmen of the 3rd Battalion, 197th Artillery, killed by a landmine on August 26th.

1970 – An estimated 6 million South Vietnamese cast ballots for 30 seats at stake in the Senate elections. While the voting was going on, Communist forces attacked at least 14 district towns, a provincial capital, and several polling places. Fifty-five civilians were reported killed and 140 wounded.

1983 – U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m. The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm. Just before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that date. Guion Stewart Bluford II was born in Philadelphia in 1942. From an early age, “Guy” was fascinated with flight and decided he wanted to design and build airplanes. In 1964, he graduated from Penn State with a degree in aerospace engineering. Deciding he’d need to know how to fly planes if he wanted to build them, he entered the U.S. Air Force and graduated with his pilot wings in 1965. He was assigned to a fighter squadron in Vietnam, where he flew 144 combat missions. After combat service, he became a flight instructor and in the 1970s went on to receive a master’s degree and doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. In 1979, he was accepted into the U.S. astronaut program. He made his first flight in 1983 as a mission specialist on the eighth shuttle mission. He later flew three more shuttle missions, logging a total of 700 miles in orbit. After returning from NASA, he became vice president and general manager of an engineering company in Ohio.

1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

1986 – Soviet authorities arrested Nicholas Daniloff, the Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, after he was handed a package by a Russian acquaintance. He was later released.

1987 – A redesigned space shuttle booster, created in the wake of the Challenger disaster, roared into life in its first full-scale test-firing near Brigham City, Utah.

1993 – 50 Rangers stage a raid in search of Mohammad Farrah Aidid, Warlord in Somalia.

1994 – Lockheed and Martin Marietta inked the paperwork on a merger that created one of the world’s largest aerospace/defense companies. The newly formed Lockheed Martin Corporation had a taste for mergers, and continued to acquire other companies, including Loral and Unisys Defense.

1995 – Bosnian Serbs gave Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milosevic authority to negotiate for them. The West pounded the Bosnian Serbs with artillery and air attacks in hopes of bludgeoning them into serious peace talks.

1996 – The United States presents evidence to the U.N. Sanctions Committee that Iran is complicit in the smuggling of petroleum products from Iraq through the Persian Gulf. According to U.S. allegations, Iran uses barges and small ships to carry oil products from southern Iraq into Iranian territorial waters. Shipping documents then are forged to show that the cargo is of Iranian origin.

2001 – U.S. warplanes launch strikes against Iraqi “military targets” after Iraq claims that it has shot down a U.S. spy plane. The U.S. strike also comes at a time when Iraq appears to be improving its air defence system, including longer-range surface to air missiles.

2001 – In Macedonia NATO troops suspended arms collections to await a parliamentary vote on proceeding forward with the peace accord.

2002 – For the 6th time in a week, coalition aircraft bombed an Iraqi defense facility in one of the no-fly zones patrolled by U.S. and British pilots.

2002 – In the Netherlands 8 men were detained for providing financial and logistical services to al Qaeda and for recruiting fighters.

2003 – In Operation Mountain Viper, the United States Army and the Afghan National Army (nearly 1000 in number) worked together into early September, 2003, to uncover hundreds of suspected Taliban rebels dug into the mountains of Daychopan district, Zabul province, Afghanistan. The Operation killed an estimated 124 militants. Five Afghan Army personnel were killed and seven were injured. One U.S. soldier died in an accidental fall.

2004 – US warplanes bombed Weradesh village in eastern Afghanistan after assailants rocketed a nearby government office.

2004 – Rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for his followers across Iraq to end fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces and is considering joining the political process.

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[SHOOTER13]

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CONNER, RICHARD
Rank and organization. Private, Company F, 6th New Jersey Infantry. Place and date: At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Philadelphia, Pa. Date of issue: 17 September 1897. Citation: The flag of his regiment having been abandoned during retreat, he voluntarily returned with a single companion under a heavy fire and secured and brought off the flag, his companion being killed.

ESTES, LEWELLYN G.
Rank and organization: Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, Volunteers. Place and date: At Flint River, Ga., 30 August 1864. Entered service at: Penobscot, Maine. Birth: Oldtown, Maine. Date of issue: 29 August 1894. Citation: Voluntarily led troops in a charge over a burning bridge.

HAIGHT, JOHN H.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company G, 72d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Williamsburg, Va., 5 May 1862. At Bristol Station, Va., 27 August 1862. At Manassas, Va., 29-30 August 1862. Entered service at: Westfield, N.Y. Born: 1 July 1841, Westfield, N.Y. Date of issue: 8 June 1888. Citation: At Williamsburg, Va., voluntarily carried a severely wounded comrade off the field in the face of a large force of the enemy; in doing so was himself severely wounded and taken prisoner. Went into the fight at Bristol Station, Va., although severely disabled. At Manassas, volunteered to search the woods for the wounded.

RANNEY, MYRON H.
Rank and organization: Private, Company G, 13th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Franklinville, N.Y. Date of issue: 23 March 1895. Citation: Picked up the colors and carried them off the field after the color bearer had been shot down; was himself wounded.

RHODES, JULIUS D.
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 5th New York Cavalry. Place and date: At Thoroughfare Gap, Va., 28 August 1862. At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. Entered service at: Springville, N.Y. Birth: Monroe County, Mich. Date of issue: 9 March 1887. Citation: After having had his horse shot under him in the fight at Thoroughfare Gap, Va., he voluntarily joined the 105th New York Volunteers and was conspicuous in the advance on the enemy’s lines. Displayed gallantry in the advance on the skirmish line at Bull Run, Va., where he was wounded.

ROOSEVELT, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company K. 26th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. At Gettysburg, Pa., 2 July 1863. Entered service at: Chester Pa. Birth: Chester, Pa. Date of issue: 2 July 1887. Citation: At Bull Run, Va., recaptured the colors, which had been seized by the enemy. At Gettysburg captured a Confederate color bearer and color, in which effort he was severely wounded.

WEBB, JAMES
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 5th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Bull Run, Va., 30 August 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Brooklyn, N.Y. Date of issue: 17 September 1897. Citation: Under heavy fire voluntarily carried information to a battery commander that enabled him to save his guns from capture. Was severely wounded, but refused to go to the hospital and participated in the remainder of the campaign.

BOWMAN, ALONZO
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company D, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Cibicu Creek, Ariz., 30 August 1881. Entered service at: Washington Township, Knox County, Maine. Born: 15 June 1848, Washington Township, Knox County, Maine. Date of issue: 4 November 1882. Citation: Conspicuous and extraordinary bravery in attacking mutinous scouts.

CARTER, WILLIAM H.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Cibicu, Ariz., 30 August 1881. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: Nashville, Tenn. Date of issue: 17 September 1891. Citation: Rescued, with the voluntary assistance of 2 soldiers, the wounded from under a heavy fire.

HEARTERY, RICHARD
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Cibicu, Ariz., 30 August 1881. Entered service at: San Francisco, Calif. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 20 July 1888. Citation: Bravery in action.

WALSH, KENNETH AMBROSE
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, pilot in Marine Fighting Squadron 124, U.S. Marine Corps. Place and date: Solomon Islands area, 15 and 30 August 1943. Entered service at: New York. Born: 24 November 1916, Brooklyn, N.Y. Other Navy awards: Distinguished Flying Cross with 5 Gold Stars. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty as a pilot in Marine Fighting Squadron 124 in aerial combat against enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands area. Determined to thwart the enemy’s attempt to bomb Allied ground forces and shipping at Vella Lavella on 15 August 1943, 1st Lt. Walsh repeatedly dived his plane into an enemy formation outnumbering his own division 6 to 1 and, although his plane was hit numerous times, shot down 2 Japanese dive bombers and 1 fighter. After developing engine trouble on 30 August during a vital escort mission, 1st Lt. Walsh landed his mechanically disabled plane at Munda, quickly replaced it with another, and proceeded to rejoin his flight over Kahili. Separated from his escort group when he encountered approximately 50 Japanese Zeros, he unhesitatingly attacked, striking with relentless fury in his lone battle against a powerful force. He destroyed 4 hostile fighters before cannon shellfire forced him to make a dead-stick landing off Vella Lavella where he was later picked up. His valiant leadership and his daring skill as a flier served as a source of confidence and inspiration to his fellow pilots and reflect the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service.

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[SHOOTER13]

31 August

1756 – The British at Fort William Henry, New England, surrendered to Louis Montcalm of France.

1777 – Samuel Mason, a captain in command of Fort Henry on the Ohio frontier, survives a devastating Indian attack only to become one of the young nation’s first western desperados. The son of a distinguished Virginia family, Samuel Mason became a militia officer and was assigned to the western frontier post of Fort Henry in present-day West Virginia. In the summer of 1777, with the colonies fighting a war for independence, Mason feared attacks by the Indian allies of the British. On this day in 1777, a band of Native Americans from several eastern tribes did attack the fort. The Indians initially fired only on several men who were outside the fort rounding up horses. Hearing the shots, Mason gathered 14 men and rode to their rescue. This was exactly what the warriors hoped he would do. They lay in wait and ambushed the party, killing all but Mason. Badly wounded, Mason escaped death by hiding behind a log. A second party that attempted to come to his rescue suffered the same fate as the first. All told, Mason lost 15 men compared to only one fatality among the attackers. Mason recovered from his wounds and continued to command Fort Henry for several years. Following the end of the war, though, he seems to have fallen on hard times. Repeatedly accused of being a thief, he moved farther west into the lawless frontier of the young American nation.

By 1797, he had become a pirate on the Mississippi River, preying on boatmen who moved valuable goods up and down the river. He also reportedly took to robbing travelers along the Natchez Trace (or trail) in Tennessee, often with the assistance of his four sons and several other vicious men. By the early 1800s, Mason had become one of the most notorious desperados on the American frontier, a precursor to Jesse James, Cole Younger, and later outlaws of the Wild West. In January 1803, Spanish authorities arrested Mason and his four sons and decided to turn them over to the Americans. En route to Natchez, Tennessee, Mason and his sons killed the commander of the boat and escaped. Determined to apprehend Mason, the Americans upped the reward for his capture, dead or alive. The reward money soon proved too tempting for two members of Mason’s gang. In July 1803 they killed Mason, cut off his head, and brought it into the Mississippi territorial offices to prove that they had earned the reward. The men were soon identified as members of Mason’s gang, however, and they were arrested and hanged.

1778 – British killed 17 Stockbridge Indians in Bronx during Revolution.

1803 – Captain Meriwether Lewis left Pittsburgh to meet up with Captain William Clark and begin their trek to the Pacific Ocean.

1819 – The cutters Alabama and Louisiana captured the privateer Bravo in the Gulf of Mexico. The master, Jean Le Farges — a lieutenant of Jean Lafitte — was later hanged from the Louisiana’s yardarm on the Mississippi River. The cutters then sailed for Patterson’s Town on Breton Island to destroy the notorious pirates’ den there.

1822 – Fitz John Porter (d.1901), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.

1835 – Angry mob in Charleston, South Carolina, seized U-S mail containing abolitionist literature and burned it in public.

1842 – US Naval Observatory was authorized by an act of Congress.

1842 – Congress replaces the Board of Navy Commissioners, a group of senior officer who oversaw naval technical affairs, with the five technical Bureaus, ancestors of the Systems Commands. One of the 1842 Bureau, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, continues to serve under its original name.

1852 – The Lighthouse Board was created and charged with administering the Lighthouse Service, as the Revenue Cutter Service was again decentralized. The board was comprised of Army and Navy officers, and civilian scientists. Channel marking and light operation acquired scientific precision and engineering. Classical lenses and lateral buoy systems were introduced. The Life-Saving Service separated from the Revenue Cutter Service in 1852 also.

1864 – At the Democratic convention in Chicago, General George B. McClellan was nominated for president. McClellan ran on a Copperhead platform climing the war had been a failure and was hopelessly lost. Only a peace with honor allowing the Southern states their independence could save the North from ruin. This was a scan 8 months before the end of the war.

1864 – General William T. Sherman launches the attack that finally secures Atlanta, Georgia, for the Union, and seals the fate of Confederate General John Bell Hood’s army, which is forced to evacuate the area. The Battle of Jonesboro was the culmination of a four-month campaign by Sherman to capture Atlanta. He had spent the summer driving his army down the 100-mile corridor from Chattanooga, Tennessee, against a Confederate force led by General Joseph Johnston. General Hood, who replaced Johnston in July on the outskirts of Atlanta, proceeded to attack Sherman in an attempt to drive him northward. However, these attacks failed, and by August 1 the armies had settled into a siege. In late August, Sherman swung his army south of Atlanta to cut the main rail line supplying the Rebel army. Confederate General William Hardee’s corps moved to block Sherman at Jonesboro, and attacked the Union troops on August 31, but the Rebels were thrown back with staggering losses. The entrenched Yankees lost just 178 men, while the Confederates lost nearly 2,000. On September 1, Sherman attacked Hardee. Though the Confederates held, Sherman successfully cut the rail line and effectively trapped the Rebels. Hardee had to abandon his position, and Hood had no choice but to withdraw from Atlanta. The fall of Atlanta was instrumental in securing the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in the fall.

1865 – The US Federal government estimated the American Civil War had cost about eight-billion dollars. Human costs have been estimated at more than one-million killed or wounded.

1899 – Paul E. Garber, US founder and 1st curator of National Air & Space Museum, was born.

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[SHOOTER13]

1920 – The first radio news program is broadcast by 8MK (WWJ today) in Detroit, Michigan. It was primary election day, and it was announced that the returns — local, state and congressional — would be sent to the public that night by means of the radio. The next day the following announcement was made: “The sending of the election returns by The Detroit News’ radiophone Tuesday night was fraught with romance and must go down in the history of man’s conquest of the elements as a gigantic step in his progress. In the four hours that the apparatus, set up in an out-of-the-way corner of The News Building, was hissing and whirring its message into space, few realized that a dream and a prediction had come true. The news of the world was being given forth through this invisible trumpet to the waiting crowds in the unseen market place.”

1935 – President Roosevelt signed the first Neutrality Act, an act prohibiting the export of U.S. arms to belligerents.

1939 – At noon, despite threats of British and French intervention, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs an order to attack Poland, and German forces move to the frontier. That evening, Nazi S.S. troops wearing Polish uniforms staged a phony invasion of Germany, damaging several minor installations on the German side of the border. They also left behind a handful of dead German prisoners in Polish uniforms to serve as further evidence of the alleged Polish attack, which Nazi propagandists publicized as an unforgivable act of aggression. At dawn the next morning, 58 German army divisions invaded Poland all across the 1,750-mile frontier. Hitler expected appeasement from Britain and France–the same nations that had given Czechoslovakia away to German conquest in 1938 with their signing of the Munich Pact. However, neither country would allow Hitler’s new violation of Europe’s borders, and Germany was presented with an ultimatum: Withdraw by September 3 or face war with the Western democracies. At 11:15 a.m. on September 3, a few minutes after the expiration of the British ultimatum, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeared on national radio to announce solemnly that Britain was at war with Germany. Australia, New Zealand, and India immediately followed suit. Later that afternoon, the French ultimatum expired, and at 5:00 p.m. France declared war on Germany. The European phase of World War II began.

1940 – US National Guard assembled. They will be mobilized for 1 year, extended to 2, to train and assist in war games to test new tactics.

1940 – 56 U-boats were sunk this month (268,000 ton).

1941 – US Agricultural Secretary Claude Wickard announces that meat rationing will probably be necessary.

1942 – The Battle of Guadalcanal. Japanese General Kawaguchi lands 1200 troops on the island.

1942 – 3rd Marines leave San Diego bound for American Samoa.

1943 – American carrier based aircraft strike Marcus island. The Independence, Essex and Yorktown are involved. These ships are part of the newly formed Fast Carrier Task Force.

1943 – Commissioning of USS Harmon (DE-678), first Navy ship named for an African American Sailor.

1944 – US 4th Corps (part of US 5th Army) advances after German forces conduct withdrawals from some positions along the Arno River.

1944 – Carrier task group begins 3-day attack on Iwo Jima and Bonin Islands.

1944 – A US B-24-J bomber crashed into Maoer Mountain in China after having completed its bombing mission over the port of Takao in Taiwan. All 10 men onboard were killed. The wreckage was not discovered until Oct, 1996.

1945 – General MacArthur establishes the supreme allied command at the main port of Tokyo, as the first foreigner to take charge of Japan in 1000 years. In discussing the preparations for the formal surrender ceremony, scheduled for September 2nd, he said: “The surrender plan has been going splendidly. There is every indication that the occupation will continue without bloodshed or friction.” The American occupation is continuing at a rate of 300 troop planes per day.

1945 – The remaining Japanese troops in the Philippines formally surrender.

1945 – The Japanese garrison on Marcus Island surrenders to the American Admiral Whiting.

1945 – Field Marshal Brauchitsch and Field Marshal von Manstein are arrested by Allied authorities. Meanwhile, the civilian population is in flux. Germans who fled the bombing of their cities are going home to stake their claim on whatever remains of their property. One in five persons in the western zone of Germay is a refugee. There are also Germans driven out of Poland and Silesia as well as other parts of eastern Europe.

1949 – Six of the 16 surviving Union veterans of the Civil War attended the last-ever encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1950 – Far East Air Force B-29s completed air strikes on the docks and railway yards at Songjin and the industrial factory at Chinnampo. From Aug. 28-31, aircraft dropped 326 tons of bombs on Songjin and 284 tons on Chinnampo.

1950 – The second battle of the Naktong Bulge began as the North Korean I Corps crossed the lower Naktong River in a well-planned attack against the U.S. 2nd and 25th Infantry Divisions.

1951 – The former enemies of the world war reconvened in San Francisco to finalize negotiations on the peace treaty to formally end WW II. Japan agreed to pay the Int’l. Red Cross about $15 per POW while the allies agreed not to bring charges against it.

1951 – The last United Nations Command offensive of the war occurred when the 1st Marine Division began its assault against the Punchbowl and from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3. The 2nd Infantry Division seized Bloody Ridge at a cost of 2,700 casualties.

1954 – Under terms of the Geneva Agreement, a flow of almost one million refugees from North to South Vietnam begins. CIA Colonel Lansdale plays a role in encouraging Catholics and providing transportation. France and the United States, especially the US Navy, provide aircraft and ships. US Marine Colonel Victor J. Croziat, first US Marine assigned to the US MAAG in Saigon, creates refugee centers. The majority of the refugees are Catholics, led by their priests. Others include various factions opposed to the Vietminh. They furnish Prime Minister Diem, himself a Catholic, with a fiercely anti-Communist constituency in the South.

1955 – Secretary of State John Foster Dulles supports South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem’s position regarding his refusal to hold “national and general elections” to reunify the two Vietnam states. Although these elections were called for by the Geneva Accords of July 1954, Diem and his supporters in the United States realized that if the elections were held, Ho Chi Minh and the more populous north would probably win, thereby reuniting Vietnam under the Communist banner. Accordingly, he refused to hold the elections and the separation of North and South soon became permanent.

1961 – A concrete wall replaced the barbed wire fence that separated East and West Germany, it would be called the Berlin Wall.

1962 – Last flight of Navy airship made at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1963 – At a National Security Council meeting, Paul Kattenburg, just returned from Saigon, suggests that the United States is backing the wrong man in Diem, and that this might be a good time to get out of Vietnam honorably. Dean Rusk replies that the United States will stay until victorious, McNamara asserts that the United States is winning, and Lyndon Johnson suggests that the war be prosecuted vigorously. Subsequently, Kennedy wonders aloud whether any government in Saigon can successfully resist the Communists.

1965 – Premier Nguyen Cao Ky announces that South Vietnam would not negotiate with the Communists without guarantees that North Vietnamese troops would be withdrawn from the South. He also said that his government would institute major reforms to correct economic and social injustices.

1965 – President Johnson signs into law a bill making it illegal to destroy or mutilate a U.S. draft card, with penalties of up to five years and a $10,000 fine.

1967 – Senate Preparedness Investigating Committee issues a call to step up bombing against the North, declaring that McNamara had “shackled” the air war against Hanoi, and calling for “closure, neutralization, or isolation of Haiphong.” President Johnson, attempting to placate Congressional “hawks” and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expanded the approved list of targets in the north, authorizing strikes against bridges, barracks, and railyards in the Hanoi-Haipong area and additional targets in the previously restricted areas along the Chinese border.

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[SHOOTER13]

1972 – U.S. weekly casualty figures of five dead and three wounded are the lowest recorded since record keeping began in January 1965. These numbers reflected the fact that there were less than 40,000 American troops left in South Vietnam by this time and very few of these were involved in actual combat. U.S. troop withdrawals had begun in the fall of 1969 following President Richard Nixon’s announcement at the Midway conference on June 8, 1972, that he would begin reducing the number of American troops in Vietnam as the war was turned over to the South Vietnamese as part of his “Vietnamization” policy. Once the troop withdrawals began, they continued on a fairly regular basis, steadily reducing the troop level from the 1969 high of 543,400.

1990 – East & West Germany signed a treaty to join legal & political.

1995 – NATO planes and UN artillery blasted Serb targets in Bosnia for a 2nd day in response to the market attack in Serajevo.

1996 – More than 100 members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil were captured by Iraqi secret police and apparently executed. The Congress was set up by the US in 1992 as an alternative to Saddam Hussein. Thousands of opposition members made it to Turkey and were flown to Guam by the US and promised asylum in the US.

1998 – Iraq accuses UNSCOM of spying for the United States and Israel and demands an investigation.

2002 – In Indonesia unidentified gunmen shot dead three people, including two Americans, and wounded up to 14 others in an attack on a vehicle convoy near a giant gold mine in Papua province. Indonesian soldiers were later implicated in the attack.

2002 – Kuwait will buy 16 attack helicopters from Boeing in a deal worth $886 million. Defense Minister Sheik Jaber Mubarak Al Hamad and U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones signed the deal.

2003 – Vowing revenge and beating their chests, more than 300,000 Shiites marched behind the rose-strewn coffin of a beloved cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who had been assassinated in a car bombing in Najaf, Iraq.

2004 – A video purporting to show the methodical, grisly killings of 12 Nepalese construction workers kidnapped in Iraq was posted on a Web site linked to a militant group operating in Iraq.

2004 – In northern Iraq Ibrahim Ismael, head of Kirkuk’s education department, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he drove to work.

2010 – Gen. Ray Odierno was replaced by Gen. Lloyd Austin as Commander of US forces in Iraq.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

GREBE, M. R. WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Captain, Company F, 4th Missouri Cavalry. Place and date: At Jonesboro, Ga., 31 August 1864. Entered service at: St. Louis, Mo. Born: 4 August 1838, Germany. Date of issue: 24 February 1899. Citation: While acting as aide and carrying orders across a most dangerous part of the battlefield, being hindered by a Confederate advance, seized a rifle, took a place in the ranks and was conspicuous in repulsing the enemy.

KOUMA, ERNEST R.
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant (then Sfc.) U.S. Army, Company A, 72d Tank Battalion. Place and date: Vicinity of Agok, Korea, 31 August and 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Dwight, Nebr. Born: 23 November 1919, Dwight, Nebr. G.O. No.: 38, 4 June 1951. Citation: M/Sgt. Kouma, a tank commander in Company A, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. His unit was engaged in supporting infantry elements on the Naktong River front. Near midnight on 31 August, a hostile force estimated at 500 crossed the river and launched a fierce attack against the infantry positions, inflicting heavy casualties. A withdrawal was ordered and his armored unit was given the mission of covering the movement until a secondary position could be established. The enemy assault overran 2 tanks, destroyed 1 and forced another to withdraw. Suddenly M/Sgt. Kouma discovered that his tank was the only obstacle in the path of the hostile onslaught. Holding his ground, he gave fire orders to his crew and remained in position throughout the night, fighting off repeated enemy attacks. During 1 fierce assault, the enemy surrounded his tank and he leaped from the armored turret, exposing himself to a hail of hostile fire, manned the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the rear deck, and delivered pointblank fire into the fanatical foe. His machine gun emptied, he fired his pistol and threw grenades to keep the enemy from his tank. After more than 9 hours of constant combat and close-in fighting, he withdrew his vehicle to friendly lines. During the withdrawal through 8 miles of hostile territory, M/Sgt. Kouma continued to inflict casualties upon the enemy and exhausted his ammunition in destroying 3 hostile machine gun positions. During this action, M/Sgt. Kouma killed an estimated 250 enemy soldiers. His magnificent stand allowed the infantry sufficient time to reestablish defensive positions. Rejoining his company, although suffering intensely from his wounds, he attempted to resupply his tank and return to the battle area. While being evacuated for medical treatment, his courage was again displayed when he requested to return to the front. M/Sgt. Kouma’s superb leadership, heroism, and intense devotion to duty reflect the highest credit on himself and uphold the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army.

*LYELL, WILLIAM F.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company F, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Chup’a-ri, Korea, 31 August 1951. Entered service at: Old Hickory, Tenn. Birth: Hickman County, Tenn. G.O. No.: 4, 9 January 1953. Citation: Cpl. Lyell, a member of Company F, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. When his platoon leader was killed, Cpl. Lyell assumed command and led his unit in an assault on strongly fortified enemy positions located on commanding terrain. When his platoon came under vicious, raking fire which halted the forward movement, Cpl. Lyell seized a 57mm. recoilless rifle and unhesitatingly moved ahead to a suitable firing position from which he delivered deadly accurate fire completely destroying an enemy bunker, killing its occupants. He then returned to his platoon and was resuming the assault when the unit was again subjected to intense hostile fire from 2 other bunkers. Disregarding his personal safety, armed with grenades he charged forward hurling grenades into 1 of the enemy emplacements, and although painfully wounded in this action he pressed on destroying the bunker and killing 6 of the foe. He then continued his attack against a third enemy position, throwing grenades as he ran forward, annihilating 4 enemy soldiers. He then led his platoon to the north slope of the hill where positions were occupied from which effective fire was delivered against the enemy in support of friendly troops moving up. Fearlessly exposing himself to enemy fire, he continuously moved about directing and encouraging his men until he was mortally wounded by enemy mortar fire. Cpl. Lyell’s extraordinary heroism, indomitable courage, and aggressive leadership reflect great credit on himself and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

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[SHOOTER13]

1 September

1676 – Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising against English Governor William Berkeley at Jamestown, Virginia, resulting in the settlement being burned to the ground. Bacon’s Rebellion came in response to the governor’s repeated refusal to defend the colonists against the Indians.

1752 – The Liberty Bell arrived in Philadelphia.

1772 – Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa formed in California. Father Junipero Serra held the 1st Mass at San Luis Obispo. He left Father Jose Cavalier the task of building the state’s 5th mission.

1774 – The Powder Alarm was a major popular reaction to the removal of gunpowder from a magazine by British soldiers under orders from General Thomas Gage, royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. In response to this action, amid rumors that blood had been shed, alarm spread through the countryside as far as Connecticut and beyond, and American Patriots sprang into action, fearing that war was at hand. Thousands of militiamen began streaming toward Boston and Cambridge, and mob action forced Loyalists and some government officials to flee to the protection of the British Army. Although it proved to be a false alarm, the Powder Alarm caused political and military leaders to proceed more carefully in the days ahead, and essentially provided a “dress rehearsal” for the Battles of Lexington and Concord seven and a half months later. Furthermore, actions on both sides to control weaponry, gunpowder, and other military supplies became more contentious, as the British sought to bring military stores more directly under their control, and the Patriot colonists sought to acquire them for their own use.

1781 – French fleet traps British fleet at Yorktown, VA.

1807 – Former U.S. vice president Aaron Burr is acquitted of plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Spanish territory in Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic. He was acquitted on the grounds that, though he had conspired against the United States, he was not guilty of treason because he had not engaged in an “overt act,” a requirement of the law governing treason. Nevertheless, public opinion condemned him as a traitor, and he fled to Europe. Aaron Burr, born into a prestigious New Jersey family in 1756, graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at the age of 17. He joined the Continental Army in 1775 and distinguished himself during the Patriot attack on Quebec. A masterful politician, he was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1783 and later served as state attorney. In 1790, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1797, Burr ran for the vice presidency on Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican ticket (the forerunner of the Democratic Party), but the Federalist John Adams won the presidency. In 1797 Burr left the Senate and returned to the New York Assembly. In 1800, Jefferson again chose Burr as his running mate. Under the electoral procedure then prevailing, president and vice president were not voted for distinctly; the candidate who received the most votes was elected president, and the second in line, vice president. Jefferson and Burr each won 73 votes, and the election was sent to the House of Representatives. What at first seemed but an electoral technicality–handing Jefferson victory over his running mate–developed into a major constitutional crisis when Federalists in the lame-duck Congress threw their support behind Burr.

After a remarkable 35 tie votes, a small group of Federalists changed sides and voted in Jefferson’s favor. Burr became vice president, but Jefferson grew apart from him, and he did not support Burr’s renomination to a second term in 1804. That year, a faction of New York Federalists, who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after the ascendance of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into their party and elect him governor. Burr’s old political antagonist Alexander Hamilton campaigned against him with great fervor, and he lost the Federalist nomination and then, running as an independent for governor, the election. In the campaign, Burr’s character was savagely attacked by Hamilton and others, and after the election he resolved to restore his reputation by challenging Hamilton to a duel, or an “affair of honor,” as they were known. Affairs of honor were commonplace in America at the time, and the complex rules governing them usually led to a resolution before any actual firing of weapons. In fact, the outspoken Hamilton had been involved in several affairs of honor in his life, and he had resolved most of them peaceably. No such recourse was found with Burr, however, and on July 11, 1804, the enemies met at 7 a.m. at the dueling grounds near Weehawken, New Jersey.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. According to Hamilton’s “second”–his assistant and witness in the duel–Hamilton decided the duel was morally wrong and deliberately fired into the air. Burr’s second claimed that Hamilton fired at Burr and missed. What happened next is agreed upon: Burr shot Hamilton in the stomach, and the bullet lodged next to his spine. Hamilton was taken back to New York, and he died the next afternoon. Few affairs of honor actually resulted in deaths, and the nation was outraged by the killing of a man as eminent as Alexander Hamilton. Charged with murder in New York and New Jersey, Burr, still vice president, returned to Washington, D.C., where he finished his term immune from prosecution.

In 1805, Burr, thoroughly discredited, concocted a plot with James Wilkinson, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army, to seize the Louisiana Territory and establish an independent empire, which Burr, presumably, would lead. He contacted the British government and unsuccessfully pleaded for assistance in the scheme. Later, when border trouble with Spanish Mexico heated up, Burr and Wilkinson conspired to seize territory in Spanish America for the same purpose. In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists toward New Orleans, prompting an immediate U.S. investigation. General Wilkinson, in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches to Washington accusing Burr of treason. In February 1807, Burr was arrested in Louisiana for treason and sent to Virginia to be tried in a U.S. court. On September 1, he was acquitted on a technicality. Nevertheless, the public condemned him as a traitor, and he went into exile to Europe. He later returned to private life in New York, the murder charges against him forgotten. He died in 1836.

1821 – William Becknell led a group of traders from Independence, Mo., toward Santa Fe on what would become the Santa Fe Trail.

1838 – William Clark (68), 2nd lt. of Lewis and Clark Expedition, died.

1849 – California Constitutional Convention was held in Monterey.

1858 – The 1st transatlantic cable failed after less than 1 month.

1861 – Ulysses Grant assumed command of Federal forces at Cape Girardeau, MI.

1861 – Lincoln received news late at night from Secretary of the Navy Welles of Flag Officer Stringham’s victory at Hatteras Inlet, in the initial Army- Navy expedition of the war. Coming shortly after the defeat at Bull Run, it electrified the North and greatly raised morale.

1862 – A federal tax was levied on tobacco, especially that grown in Confederate states.

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1862 – Following his brilliant victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run two days earlier, Confederate General Robert E. Lee strikes retreating Union forces at Chantilly, Virginia, and drives them away in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. Although his army routed the Yankee forces of General John Pope at Bull Run, Lee was not satisfied. By attacking the retreating Federals, Lee hoped to push them back into Washington, D.C., and achieve a decisive victory by destroying the Union army. The Bull Run battlefield lay 25 miles east of the capital, allowing Lee room to send General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps on a quick march to cut off part of the Union retreat before reaching the defenses of the capital. Jackson departed with his corps on August 31. Using General J.E.B. Stuart’s Rebel cavalry as a screen, he swung north and then east toward Washington. Under orders of Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, Pope tried to hold the town of Centerville from the advancing Confederates. Jackson moved north around Centerville, placing the bulk of Pope’s force in grave danger as the Southerners moved towards Fairfax.

By the afternoon of September 1st, Pope evacuated Centerville and Jackson pressed to the north of the main Yankee army. Late in the afternoon, a Union division commanded by General Isaac Stevens attacked Jackson near Chantilly. In a driving rainstorm punctuated by thunder and lightning, Stevens’s men drove into the Confederates and scattered a Louisiana brigade. But after Stevens was struck in the head by a Rebel bullet and killed, Jackson’s men drove the Union troops back. Another Yankee general, Philip Kearney, was killed when he accidentally rode behind the Confederate line in the storm. The battle was over within 90 minutes, although the storm persisted. Confederate casualties numbered about 500, while the Union lost 700. Lee could not flank Pope’s army, so he turned his army northward for an invasion of Maryland. The result was the Battle of Antietam on September 17th.

1863 – 6th Ohio Cavalry ambush at Barbees Crossroads, Virginia.

1864 – With Union General William T. Sherman threatening to cut his only escape route, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuates Atlanta, Georgia, at the climax of a four-month campaign by Sherman to capture the vital Rebel supply center.

1864 – 2nd day of battle at Jonesboro, Georgia, left some 3,000 casualties.

1864 – Battle of Petersburg, VA.

1866 – Manuelito, the last Navaho chief, turned himself in at Fort Wingate, New Mexico.

1918 – US troops landed in Vladivostok, Siberia, and stayed until 1920.

1925 – Navy CDR John Rodgers and crew of 4 in PN-9 run out of fuel on first San Francisco to Hawaii flight. Landing at sea, they rigged a sail and set sail for Hawaii.

1939 – At 0445 hours German forces invade Poland without a declaration of war. The operation is code named Fall Weiss (Plan White). The Germans allot 52 divisions for the invasion (some 1.5 million men), including the 6 armored divisions and all their motorized units. Of the divisions left to defend against an Anglo-French front, only about 10 are regarded by the Germans as being fit for any kind of action. General Brauchitsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, is in command of the campaign. Bock leads Army Group North, consisting of the 4th Army (Kuchler) and 3rd Army (Kluge); Rundstedt leads Army Group South, consisting of 8th Army (Balskowitz), 10th Army (Reichenau) and 14th Army (List). Air support comes from two Air Fleets, commanded by Kesselring and Lohr, which have around 1,600 aircraft. Army Group South, advancing from Silesia, is to provide the main German attacks. The 8th Army on the left is to move toward Poznan, the principal thrust is to be delivered by 10th Army which is to advance in the center to the Vistula River between Warsaw and Sandomierz, while 14th Army on the right moves toward Krakow and the Carpathian flank. The 4th Army from East Prussia is to move south toward Warsaw and the line to the Bug River to the east; 3rd Army is to cross the Polish Corridor and join 4th Army in moving south.

The Poles have 23 regular infantry divisions prepared with 7 more assembling, 1 weak armored division and an inadequate supply of artillery. They also have a considerable force of cavalry. The reserve units were only called up on August 30th and are not ready for combat. In the air, almost all the 500 Polish planes are obsolete and prove unable to blunt the impact of the German attack. During the day, the Luftwaffe launches air strikes on Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow. The Polish Commander in Chief, Marshal Rydz-Smigly, has deployed the stronger parts of his army in the northwestern half of the country, including large forces in the Poznan area and the Polish Corridor. He hopes to hold the Germans to only gradual gains. All along the front the superior training, equipment and strength of the Germans quickly brings them the advantage in the first battles. Many Polish units are overrun before their reinforcements from the reserve mobilization can arrive. At sea, as in the air, Polish technical inferiority leads to crushing early defeats. Three of the four Polish destroyers manage to leave for Britain before hostilities begin and later one submarine also escapes. On the first day the old pre-Dreadnought battleship, Schleswig-Holstein, bombards the Polish naval base at Westerplatte.

1939 – President Roosevelt calls for a ban on indiscriminate bombing of civilians and undefended towns.

1940 – Gen. George Marshall was sworn in as chief of staff of US army.

1941 – U.S. assumes responsibility for trans-Atlantic convoys from Argentia, Canada to the meridian of Iceland. The US Atlantic Fleet announces the formation of the Denmark Strait Patrol. Two heavy cruisers and four destroyers are allocated for to the force. The US Navy is now permitted to escort convoys in the Atlantic containing American merchant vessels.

1942 – Establishment of Air Force, Pacific Fleet, VADM Aubrey W. Fitch, USN.

1942 – First Seabee unit to serve in a combat area, 6th Naval Construction Battalion, arrives on Guadalcanal.

1942 – A federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals.

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1942 – Joseph C. Jenkins was given a temporary promotion to warrant officer (Boatswain); becoming the first African-American warrant officer in the Coast Guard.

1942 – The Coast Guard transferred responsibility for running the merchant marine training programs to the War Shipping Administration.

1943 – US forces land on Baker Island and build an air strip within a week. This action is to support the campaign in the Gilbert Islands.

1943 – On Vella Lavella the US force reaches Orete Cove.

1944 – General Eisenhower establishes his headquarters in France as Commander in Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. The forces of US 12th Army Group continue as well. US 1st Army approaches St. Quentin and Cambrai. The US 3rd Army captures Verdun and Comercy.

1944 – French forces of US 7th Army capture Narbonne and St. Agreve.

1944 – CGC Northland captured the crew of a scuttled Nazi supply trawler off Greenland. They had been attempting to establish a weather station on the coast of Greenland.

1945 – Americans received word of Japan’s formal surrender that ended World War II. Because of the time difference, it was Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, where the ceremony took place.

1945 – The US Department of War Information releases a report dealing with an expected world-wide coal shortage which is “of such proportions as to leave untouched no home or industry in any country” — with particular reference to the situation in Europe. It notes that the “destruction and disruption of the coal-producing areas of Europe during the war, the military coal needs of the Allied armies during the war, through the succeeding liberation period, and continuing during the occupation and redeployment” have created a situation in which if “no outside imports are forthcoming, the liberated countries — principally France, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and Greece” will be “some 30,000,000 tons below the figure set as their essential requirements for existence during the winter.”

1945 – General MacArthur ends military rule, which has been in force since the American landings on Leyte, because the Philippine government has been re-established and is functioning normally. Control of all areas reverts to the Philippine commonwealth.

1945 – USS Benevolence (AH-13) evacuates civilian internees from 2 internment camps near Tokyo, Japan.

1950 – US Company C, 1st Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, was almost completely annihilated as North Korean divisions opened an assault on UN lines on the Naktong River. Only Company C and other elements of the 2nd Infantry Division stood in the path.

1950 – US Air Force Captain Iven C. Kincheloe, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, claimed his fifth air-to-air victory in his F-86 Sabre “Ivan” to become the 10th ace of the Korean War. Kincheloe accounted for four MiGs in six days.

1950 – U.S. Navy Lieutenant Eugene F. Clark was put ashore at Yonghung-do to command an operation to gather intelligence for the impending amphibious assault at Inchon.

1951 – At the Presidio in San Francisco, the US, Australia, and New Zealand signed the ANZUS Pact, a joint security alliance to govern their relations.

1961 – The Soviet Union ended a moratorium on atomic testing with an above-ground nuclear explosion in central Asia.

1966 – In a speech before 100,000 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, President Charles de Gaulle of France denounces U.S. policy in Vietnam and urges the U.S. government to pull its troops out of Southeast Asia. De Gaulle said that negotiations toward a settlement of the war could begin as soon as the United States committed to withdrawing its troops by a certain date. He and Prince Norodom Sihanouk signed a declaration calling for noninterference in the Indochinese peninsula by foreign nations. Three days later, Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy on NBC-TV’s Meet The Press rejected de Gaulle’s proposal and said that the United States intended to withdraw its forces when “the North Vietnamese get out.” During the same speech, he also revealed that the United States now had 25,000 military people in Thailand, principally for air force operations.

1969 – A coup in Libya overthrew the monarchy of King Idris and brought Moammar Gadhafi to power. Gadhafi emerged as leader of the revolutionary government and ordered the closure of a U.S. Air Force base.

1969 – The 1st Marine Regiment was presented the Presidential Unit Citation for Operation Hue City (Vietnam).

1970 – The U.S. Senate rejects the McGovern-Hatfield amendment by a vote of 55-39. This legislation, proposed by Senators George McGovern of South Dakota and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, would have set a deadline of December 31, 1971, for complete withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam. The Senate also turned down 71-22, a proposal forbidding the Army from sending draftees to Vietnam. Despite the defeat of these two measures, the proposed legislation indicated the growing dissatisfaction with President Nixon’s handling of the war. On this same day, a bipartisan group of 14 senators, including both the majority and minority leaders, signed a letter to the president asking him to propose a comprehensive “standstill cease-fire” in South Vietnam at the ongoing Paris peace talks. Under this plan, the belligerents would stop fighting where they were on the battlefield while a negotiated settlement was hammered out at the talks.

This approach had been discussed and rejected earlier in the Nixon White House, but the president, concerned that senators from his own party had signed the letter, had to do something to quell the mounting opposition to the seemingly endless war. Accordingly, on October 7, in a major televised speech, he proposed what he called a “major new initiative for peace” — a new truce plan for stopping the fighting in Vietnam. Although Nixon did not offer any new concessions, his speech got high marks in both Congress and the U.S. media. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese rejected the overture, insisting that no truce was possible until the Thieu regime agreed to accept the authority of a coalition government in Saigon that “favors peace, independence, and democracy.” Thieu stubbornly refused to participate in any coalition government with the communists. Subsequent negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris remained deadlocked and the war continued.

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds at a speed of 1,435.587 miles per hour (2,310.353 km/h).

1976 – NASA launched its space vehicle S-197.

1977 – The 1st TRS-80 Model I computer was sold.

1977 – Bobby C. Wilks became the first African American in the Coast Guard to reach the rank of captain. He was also the first African American Coast Guard aviator (Coast Guard aviator No. 735). He later became the first African American to command a Coast Guard air station. He accumulated over 6,000 flight hours in 18 different types of aircraft. He was also the project officer for the Sikorsky HH-3 helicopter when they were first delivered in the 1960s.

1979 – Pioneer 11 made the 1st fly-by of Saturn and discovered new moon rings. Ring F of Saturn was discovered by Lonny Baker at NASA’s Ames Research Center from data sent by Pioneer 11.

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1982 – The United States Air Force Space Command is established. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) is a major command of the United States Air Force, with its headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. AFSPC supports U.S. military operations worldwide through the use of many different types of satellite, launch and cyber operations. Operationally, AFSPC is under the Combatant Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command. More than 40,000 people perform AFSPC missions at 88 locations worldwide, including military, civilians and contractors. This includes approximately 22,000 military personnel and 9,000 civilian employees, although their missions overlap. On 1 December 2009, the intercontinental ballistic missile mission was transferred to the new Air Force Global Strike Command. AFSPC gained the cyber operations mission with the stand-up of 24th Air Force under AFSPC in August 2009.

1983 – Soviet jet fighters intercept a Korean Airlines passenger flight in Russian airspace and shoot the plane down, killing 269 passengers and crewmembers. The incident dramatically increased tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. On September 1, 1983, Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 007 was on the last leg of a flight from New York City to Seoul, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. As it approached its final destination, the plane began to veer far off its normal course. In just a short time, the plane flew into Russian airspace and crossed over the Kamchatka Peninsula, where some top-secret Soviet military installations were known to be located. The Soviets sent two fighters to intercept the plane. According to tapes of the conversations between the fighter pilots and Soviet ground control, the fighters quickly located the KAL flight and tried to make contact with the passenger jet. Failing to receive a response, one of the fighters fired a heat-seeking missile. KAL 007 was hit and plummeted into the Sea of Japan. All 269 people on board were killed.

This was not the first time a South Korean flight had run into trouble over Russia. In 1978, the Soviets forced a passenger jet down over Murmansk; two passengers were killed during the emergency landing. In its first public statement concerning the September 1983 incident, the Soviet government merely noted that an unidentified aircraft had been shot down flying over Russian territory. The United States government reacted with horror to the disaster. The Department of State suggested that the Soviets knew the plane was an unarmed civilian passenger aircraft. President Ronald Reagan called the incident a “massacre” and issued a statement in which he declared that the Soviets had turned “against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere.” Five days after the incident, the Soviets admitted that the plane had indeed been a passenger jet, but that Russian pilots had no way of knowing this. A high ranking Soviet military official stated that the KAL flight had been involved in espionage activities. The Reagan administration responded by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets. Despite the heated public rhetoric, many Soviets and American officials and analysts privately agreed that the incident was simply a tragic misunderstanding. The KAL flight had veered into a course that was close to one being simultaneously flown by a U.S. spy plane; perhaps Soviet radar operators mistook the two. In the Soviet Union, several of the military officials responsible for air defense in the Far East were fired or demoted. It has never been determined how the KAL flight ended up nearly 200 miles off course.

1983 – CGC Munro, on a diplomatic mission in Tokyo, joined in the international SAR effort but no survivors of KAL 007 were found. Munro then assisted in the search for the airliner’s black box and then recovered debris. The cutter safely rescued from the sea all four crewmen of a downed LAMPs helicopter from the USS Badger. The Munro received the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation for her part in the SAR and recovery efforts.

1993 – The Pentagon unveiled a five-year defense plan to further shrink the U.S. military in favor of a lean, high-tech force.

1996 – A day after Iraqi forces moved into a Kurdish safe haven, U.S. officials were warning the Baghdad government that the incursion would not go unpunished. That same day, Iraq ordered its troops to withdraw from Irbil.

1997 – In Bosnia several hundred Bosnian Serbs attacked some 300 armed US troops in an effort to take back a key TV transmitter that was seized by the Americans last week. The melee was a standoff.

1999 – Colombia took delivery of 6 refurbished Vietnam-era US military helicopters for use in the drug war.

2000 – Pres. Clinton put the anti-missile national defense system on hold and passed the decision for moving the project forward to his successor.

2000 – In the Philippines Abu Sayyaf rebels demanded $10 million for the release of Jeffrey Schilling and later said that Schilling had begun a hunger strike.

2002 – Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US should first seek a return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq before taking any further steps.

2002 – Indonesian soldiers battled an armed band in Papua and killed one insurgent, near where gunmen shot dead three people, including two U.S. school teachers, and wounded at least 10 in an ambush the previous day.

2003 – Suspected Taliban fighters attacked a government checkpoint and ambushed another group of Afghan soldiers along the main road linking the south with the capital, killing at least eight soldiers over the last 2 days.

2003 – The U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council named a new Cabinet.

2003 – Arab TV broadcast an audiotape purportedly from Saddam Hussein denying any involvement in a bombing in Najaf, Iraq, that killed a beloved Shiite cleric.

2004 – Accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins said he will surrender to the US to face charges that have dogged him since he vanished from his unit in South Korea nearly 40 years.

2004 – The U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Iran has announced plans to turn tons of uranium into a substance that can be used to make nuclear weapons.

2004 – Pakistani officials said security forces have arrested two “important” al Qaeda operatives, including an Egyptian and a Saudi national.

2005– The Battle of Tal Afar was a military offensive conducted by the United States Army and supported by Iraqi forces, against Al Qaeda insurgents in the city of Tal Afar, Iraq in response to the growing increase of insurgent attacks against U.S. and Iraqi positions in the area. The offensive was launched as a joint United States Army and New Iraqi Army operation to destroy suspected insurgents havens and base of operations in Tal Afar. The initial fighting was heavy, but most of the city was secured on September 3. Although sporadic fighting and attacks would continue through most of September until the operation was declared finished on September 18th.

2008 – CGC Dallas visited the port of Sevastopol, Ukraine during a historic voyage through the Black Sea that included delivering relief supplies to Georgia.

2008 – The U.S. military hands control of Al Anbar Governorate over to the Iraqi government.

2010 – The name “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is replaced by “Operation New Dawn”.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BAIRD, ABSALOM
Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Jonesboro, Ga., 1 September 1864. Entered service at: Washington, Pa. Birth: Washington, Pa. Date of issue: 22 April 1896. Citation: Voluntarily led a detached brigade in an assault upon the enemy’s works.

IRWIN, PATRICK
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company H, 14th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Jonesboro, Ga., 1 September 1864. Entered service at: Ann Arbor, Mich. Born: 1839, Ireland. Date of issue: 28 April 1896. Citation: In a charge by the 14th Michigan Infantry against the entrenched enemy was the first man over the line of works of the enemy, and demanded and received the surrender of Confederate Gen. Daviel Govan and his command.

KUDER, JEREMIAH
Rank and organization: Lieutenant, Company A, 74th Indiana Infantry. Place and date: At Jonesboro, Ga., 1 September 1864. Entered service at: Warsaw, Ind. Birth: Seneca County, Ohio. Date of issue: 7 April 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 8th and 19th Arkansas (C.S.A.).

MATTINGLY, HENRY B.
Rank and organization: Private, Company B, 10th Kentucky Infantry. Place and date: At Jonesboro, Ga., 1 September 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Marion County, Ky. Date of issue: 7 April 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 6th and 7th Arkansas Infantry (C.S.A.).

RYAN, THOMAS JOHN
Rank and organization: Ensign, U.S. Navy. Place and date: Yokohama, Japan, 1 September 1923. Entered service at: Louisiana. Born: 5 August 1901, New Orleans, La. Citation: For heroism in effecting the rescue of a woman from the burning Grand Hotel, Yokohama, Japan, on 1 September 1923. Following the earthquake and fire which occurred in Yokohama on 1 September, Ens. Ryan, with complete disregard for his own life, extricated a woman from the Grand Hotel, thus saving her life. His heroic conduct upon this occasion reflects the greatest credit on himself and on the U.S. Navy, of which he is a part. (Medal presented by President Coolidge at the White House on 15 March 1924.)

*HENRY, FREDERICK F.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company F, 38th Infantry Regiment. Place and date: Vicinity of Am-Dong, Korea, 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Clinton, Okla. Birth: Vian, Okla. G.O. No.: 8, 16 February 1951. Citation: 1st Lt. Henry, Company F, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. His platoon was holding a strategic ridge near the town when they were attacked by a superior enemy force, supported by heavy mortar and artillery fire. Seeing his platoon disorganized by this fanatical assault, he left his foxhole and moving along the line ordered his men to stay in place and keep firing. Encouraged by this heroic action the platoon reformed a defensive line and rained devastating fire on the enemy, checking its advance. Enemy fire had knocked out all communications and 1st Lt. Henry was unable to determine whether or not the main line of resistance was altered to this heavy attack. On his own initiative, although severely wounded, he decided to hold his position as long as possible and ordered the wounded evacuated and their weapons and ammunition brought to him. Establishing a l-man defensive position, he ordered the platoon’s withdrawal and despite his wound and with complete disregard for himself remained behind to cover the movement. When last seen he was single-handedly firing all available weapons so effectively that he caused an estimated 50 enemy casualties. His ammunition was soon expended and his position overrun, but this intrepid action saved the platoon and halted the enemy’s advance until the main line of resistance was prepared to throw back the attack. 1st Lt. Henry’s outstanding gallantry and noble self-sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty reflect the highest honor on him and are in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army.

KOUMA, ERNEST R.
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant (then Sfc.) U.S. Army, Company A, 72d Tank Battalion. Place and date: Vicinity of Agok, Korea, 31 August and 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Dwight, Nebr. Born: 23 November 1919, Dwight, Nebr. G.O. No.: 38, 4 June 1951. Citation: M/Sgt. Kouma, a tank commander in Company A, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. His unit was engaged in supporting infantry elements on the Naktong River front. Near midnight on 31 August, a hostile force estimated at 500 crossed the river and launched a fierce attack against the infantry positions, inflicting heavy casualties. A withdrawal was ordered and his armored unit was given the mission of covering the movement until a secondary position could be established. The enemy assault overran 2 tanks, destroyed 1 and forced another to withdraw. Suddenly M/Sgt. Kouma discovered that his tank was the only obstacle in the path of the hostile onslaught. Holding his ground, he gave fire orders to his crew and remained in position throughout the night, fighting off repeated enemy attacks. During 1 fierce assault, the enemy surrounded his tank and he leaped from the armored turret, exposing himself to a hail of hostile fire, manned the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the rear deck, and delivered pointblank fire into the fanatical foe. His machine gun emptied, he fired his pistol and threw grenades to keep the enemy from his tank. After more than 9 hours of constant combat and close-in fighting, he withdrew his vehicle to friendly lines. During the withdrawal through 8 miles of hostile territory, M/Sgt. Kouma continued to inflict casualties upon the enemy and exhausted his ammunition in destroying 3 hostile machine gun positions. During this action, M/Sgt. Kouma killed an estimated 250 enemy soldiers. His magnificent stand allowed the infantry sufficient time to reestablish defensive positions. Rejoining his company, although suffering intensely from his wounds, he attempted to resupply his tank and return to the battle area. While being evacuated for medical treatment, his courage was again displayed when he requested to return to the front. M/Sgt. Kouma’s superb leadership, heroism, and intense devotion to duty reflect the highest credit on himself and uphold the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army.

*SMITH, DAVID M.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company E, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Yongsan, Korea, 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Livingston, Ky. Born: 10 November 1926, Livingston, Ky. G.O. No.: 78, 21 August 1952. Citation: Pfc. Smith, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action. Pfc. Smith was a gunner in the mortar section of Company E, emplaced in rugged mountainous terrain and under attack by a numerically superior hostile force. Bitter fighting ensued and the enemy overran forward elements, infiltrated the perimeter, and rendered friendly positions untenable. The mortar section was ordered to withdraw, but the enemy had encircled and closed in on the position. Observing a grenade lobbed at his emplacement, Pfc. Smith shouted a warning to his comrades and, fully aware of the odds against him, flung himself upon it and smothered the explosion with his body. Although mortally wounded in this display of valor, his intrepid act saved 5 men from death or serious injury. Pfc. Smith’s inspirational conduct and supreme sacrifice reflect lasting glory on himself and are in keeping with the noble traditions of the infantry of the U.S. Army.

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*STORY, LUTHER H.
Rank and organization Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company A, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Agok, Korea, 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Georgia. Born: 20 July 1931, Buena Vista, Ga. G.O. No.: 70, 2 August 1951. Citation: Pfc. Story, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. A savage daylight attack by elements of 3 enemy divisions penetrated the thinly held lines of the 9th Infantry. Company A beat off several banzai attacks but was bypassed and in danger of being cut off and surrounded. Pfc. Story, a weapons squad leader, was heavily engaged in stopping the early attacks and had just moved his squad to a position overlooking the Naktong River when he observed a large group of the enemy crossing the river to attack Company A. Seizing a machine gun from his wounded gunner he placed deadly fire on the hostile column killing or wounding an estimated 100 enemy soldiers. Facing certain encirclement the company commander ordered a withdrawal. During the move Pfc. Story noticed the approach of an enemy truck loaded with troops and towing an ammunition trailer. Alerting his comrades to take cover he fearlessly stood in the middle of the road, throwing grenades into the truck. Out of grenades he crawled to his squad, gathered up additional grenades and again attacked the vehicle. During the withdrawal the company was attacked by such superior numbers that it was forced to deploy in a rice field. Pfc. Story was wounded in this action, but, disregarding his wounds, rallied the men about him and repelled the attack. Realizing that his wounds would hamper his comrades he refused to retire to the next position but remained to cover the company’s withdrawal. When last seen he was firing every weapon available and fighting off another hostile assault. Private Story’s extraordinary heroism, aggressive leadership, and supreme devotion to duty reflect the highest credit upon himself and were in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the military service.

*TURNER, CHARLES W.
Rank and organization: Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, 2d Reconnaissance Company, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Yongsan, Korea, 1 September 1950. Entered service at: Massachusetts. Birth: Boston, Mass. G.O. No.: 10, 16 February 1951. Citation: Sfc. Turner distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. A large enemy force launched a mortar and automatic weapon supported assault against his platoon. Sfc. Turner, a section leader, quickly organized his unit for defense and then observed that the attack was directed at the tank section 100 yards away. Leaving his secured section he dashed through a hail of fire to the threatened position and, mounting a tank, manned the exposed turret machine gun. Disregarding the intense enemy fire he calmly held this position delivering deadly accurate fire and pointing out targets for the tank’s 75mm. gun. His action resulted in the destruction of 7 enemy machine gun nests. Although severely wounded he remained at the gun shouting encouragement to his comrades. During the action the tank received over 50 direct hits; the periscopes and antenna were shot away and 3 rounds hit the machine gun mount. Despite this fire he remained at his post until a burst of enemy fire cost him his life. This intrepid and heroic performance enabled the platoon to withdraw and later launch an attack which routed the enemy. Sfc. Turner’s valor and example reflect the highest credit upon himself and are in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army.

*KAHO’OHANOHANO, ANTHONY T.
Rank: Private First Class, Organization: U.S. Army, Company: Company H, Division: 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, Born: 1930, Departed: Yes, Entered Service At: Hawaii, G.O. Number: , Date of Issue: 05/02/2011, Accredited To: Hawaii, Place / Date: Chupa-ri, Korea, 1 September, 1951. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty Private First Class Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano, Company H, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy in the vicinity of Chupa-ri, Korea, on 1 September 1951. On that date, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano was in charge of a machine-gun squad supporting the defensive positioning of Company F when a numerically superior enemy force launched a fierce attack. Because of the enemy’s overwhelming numbers, friendly troops were forced to execute a limited withdrawal. As the men fell back, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano ordered his squad to take up more defensible positions and provide covering fire for the withdrawing friendly force. Although having been wounded in the shoulder during the initial enemy assault, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano gathered a supply of grenades and ammunition and returned to his original position to face the enemy alone. As the hostile troops concentrated their strength against his emplacement in an effort to overrun it, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano fought fiercely and courageously, delivering deadly accurate fire into the ranks of the onrushing enemy. When his ammunition was depleted, he engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat until he was killed. Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s heroic stand so inspired his comrades that they launched a counterattack that completely repulsed the enemy. Upon reaching Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s emplacement, friendly troops discovered 11 enemy soldiers lying dead in front of the emplacement and two inside it, killed in hand-to-hand combat. Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s extraordinary heroism and selfless devotion to duty are in keeping with the finest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the 7th Infantry Division, and the United States Army.

*JONES, WILLIAM A., III
Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Air Force, 602d Special Operations Squadron, Nakon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. Place and date: Near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, 1 September 1968. Entered service at: Charlottesville, Va. Born: 31 May 1922, Norfolk, Va. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Col. Jones distinguished himself as the pilot of an A-1H Skyraider aircraft near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. On that day, as the on-scene commander in the attempted rescue of a downed U.S. pilot, Col. Jones’ aircraft was repeatedly hit by heavy and accurate antiaircraft fire. On one of his low passes, Col. Jones felt an explosion beneath his aircraft and his cockpit rapidly filled with smoke. With complete disregard of the possibility that his aircraft might still be burning, he unhesitatingly continued his search for the downed pilot. On this pass, he sighted the survivor and a multiple-barrel gun position firing at him from near the top of a karst formation. He could not attack the gun position on that pass for fear he would endanger the downed pilot. Leaving himself exposed to the gun position, Col. Jones attacked the position with cannon and rocket fire on 2 successive passes. On his second pass, the aircraft was hit with multiple rounds of automatic weapons fire. One round impacted the Yankee Extraction System rocket mounted directly behind the headrest, igniting the rocket. His aircraft was observed to burst into flames in the center fuselage section, with flames engulfing the cockpit area. He pulled the extraction handle, jettisoning the canopy. The influx of fresh air made the fire burn with greater intensity for a few moments, but since the rocket motor had already burned, the extraction system did not pull Col. Jones from the aircraft. Despite searing pains from severe burns sustained on his arms, hands, neck, shoulders, and face, Col. Jones pulled his aircraft into a climb and attempted to transmit the location of the downed pilot and the enemy gun position to the other aircraft in the area. His calls were blocked by other aircraft transmissions repeatedly directing him to bail out and within seconds his transmitters were disabled and he could receive only on 1 channel. Completely disregarding his injuries, he elected to fly his crippled aircraft back to his base and pass on essential information for the rescue rather than bail out. Col. Jones successfully landed his heavily damaged aircraft and passed the information to a debriefing officer while on the operating table. As a result of his heroic actions and complete disregard for his personal safety, the downed pilot was rescued later in the day. Col. Jones’ profound concern for his fellow man at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.

*RODELA, JOSE
Rank and Organization: Sergeant First Class. U.S. Army. Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 3312. Place and Date: September 1, 1969. Born: June 15, 1937, Corpus Christi, TX . Departed: No. Entered Service At: Corpus Christi, TX. G.O. Number: . Date of Issue: 03/18/2014. Accredited To: . Citation: Rodela is being recognized for his valorous actions on Sept. 1, 1969, while serving as the company commander in Phuoc Long Province, Vietnam. Rodela commanded his company throughout 18 hours of continuous contact when his battalion was attacked and taking heavy casualties. Throughout the battle, in spite of his wounds, Rodela repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to attend to the fallen and eliminate an enemy rocket position.

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2 September

1776 – The Hurricane of Independence makes landfall. Between this day and 9 September it will kill 4,170 people from North Carolina to Nova Scotia.

1789 – Although the United States Treasury Department was founded on September 2, 1789, its roots can be traced back to the American Revolution. Back in 1775, the Revolutionary leaders were groping with ways to fund the war. Their solution–issuing cash that doubled as redeemable “bills of credit”–raised enough capital to fuel the Revolution. However, the war notes also led to the country’s first debt. The Continental Congress attempted to reign in the economy, even forming a pre-Constitutional version of the Treasury. Neither this move, nor the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which enabled the U.S. to seek loans from foreign countries, proved effective. The debt kept mounting, while war notes rapidly deflated in value.

With the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the Government established a permanent Treasury Department in hopes of quelling the debt. President Washington named his former “aide-de-camp,” Alexander Hamilton, to head the new office. The former New York lawyer and staunch Federalist stepped in as Secretary of the Treasury on September 11. Hamilton soon outlined a practical plan for reviving the nation’s ailing economy: the Government would pay back its $75 million war debt and thus repair its badly damaged public credit.

1859 – A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.

1862 – President Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope’s disaster at Second Bull Run on August 29 and 30. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, saw much of his army transferred to Pope’s Army of Virginia after his failure to capture Richmond during the Seven Days’ Battles in June 1862. Pope, who had one chance to prove his leadership at Second Bull Run against Confederate General Robert E. Lee, failed miserably and retreated to Washington. He had not received any help from McClellan, who sat nearby in Alexandria and refused to go to Pope’s aid. After a summer of defeats, the Union forces in the east were now in desperate need of a boost in morale. Even though McClellan was, in part, the architect of those losses, Lincoln felt he was the best available general to raise the sagging spirits of the men in blue.

The president recognized McClellan’s talent for preparing an army to fight, even if he had proven to be a poor field commander. Lincoln wrote to his secretary John Hay: “We must use the tools we have. There is no man in the Army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops into shape half as well as he. If he can’t fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight.” There was little time for the Union to dawdle after Second Bull Run. Lee’s army lurked just 25 miles from Washington, and had tried to cut off the Union retreat at Chantilly on September 1. Even as Lincoln restored McClellan’s command, the Confederates were starting to move northward. McClellan was soon on the road in pursuit of Lee’s army.

1863 – Dahlgren, flying his flag in U.S.S. Weehawken, took the ironclads against Fort Sumter late at night following an intensive, day-long bombardment by Army artillery. Moving to within 500 yards of the Fort, the ships cannonaded it for 5 hours, “demolishing,” as Brigadier General Ripley, CSA, reported, “nearly the whole of the eastern scarp . . . .” Confederates returned a heavy fire from Fort Moultrie, scoring over 70 hits on the ironclads. One shot struck Weehawken’s turret, driving a piece of iron into the leg of Captain Oscar C. Badger, severely wounding him. Noting that he was the third Flag Captain he had lost in 2 months, Dahlgren wrote: “I shall feel greatly the loss of Captain Badger’s services at this time.” The Admiral broke off the attack as the flood tide set in, “which,” Dahlgren said, had he remained, “would have exposed the monitors unnecessarily.

1864 – The forces of Union General William T. Sherman march into Atlanta, Georgia—one day after the Confederates evacuate the city.

1864 – Small, 8-gun paddle-wheeler U.S.S. Naiad, Acting Master Keene, engaged Confederate battery near Rowe’s Landing, Louisiana, and, after a brisk exchange, silenced it.

1885 – 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town. The miners working in the Union Pacific coal mine had been struggling to unionize and strike for better working conditions for years. But at every juncture the powerful railroad company had bested them. Searching for a scapegoat, the angry miners blamed the Chinese. The Chinese coal miners were hard workers, but the Union Pacific had initially brought many of them to Rock Springs as strikebreakers, and they showed little interest in the miners’ union. Outraged by a company decision to allow Chinese miners to work the richest coal seams, a mob of white miners impulsively decided to strike back by attacking Rock Spring’s small Chinatown. When they saw the armed mob approaching, most of the Chinese abandoned their homes and businesses and fled for the hills. But those who failed to escape in time were brutally beaten and murdered.

A week later, on September 9, U.S. troops escorted the surviving Chinese back into the town where many of them returned to work. Eventually the Union Pacific fired 45 of the white miners for their roles in the massacre, but no effective legal action was ever taken against any of the participants. The Rock Springs massacre was symptomatic of the anti-Chinese feelings shared by many Americans at that time. The Chinese had been victims of prejudice and violence ever since they first began to come to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, fleeing famine and political upheaval. Widely blamed for all sorts of social ills, the Chinese were also singled-out for attack by some national politicians who popularized strident slogans like “The Chinese Must Go” and helped pass an 1882 law that closed the U.S. to any further Chinese immigration. In this climate of racial hatred, violent attacks against the Chinese in the West became all too common, though the Rock Springs massacre was notable both for its size and savage brutality.

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1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.

1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

1918 – Navy ships and crews assist earthquake victims of Yokohama and Tokyo, Japan.

1940 – Following the agreement made in July and later detailed negotiations, a deal is now ratified between Britain and the USA by which Britain gets 50 old destroyers, veterans of World War I, but desperately needed for escort work, in return for bases granted to the United States in the West Indies and Bermuda. Considerable modification will be necessary to make the ships ready for service.

1944 – Allied landings amount to 190,000 men with 41,000 vehicles and 220,000 tons of supplies. American elements of US 7th Army approach Lyons. French forces are brought forward to be the first into the city.

1944 – The US 12th Army Group experiences shortages as a result of supply problems.

1944 – Navy pilot George Herbert Walker Bush was shot down by Japanese forces as he completed a bombing run over the Bonin Islands. Bush was rescued by the crew of the U.S. submarine Finback; his two crew members, however, died.

1945 – Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named “Operation Olympic” and set for November 1945. The invasion of Japan promised to be the bloodiest seaborne attack of all time, conceivably 10 times as costly as the Normandy invasion in terms of Allied casualties. On July 16, a new option became available when the United States secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Ten days later, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the “unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces.” Failure to comply would mean “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.”

On July 28, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki responded by telling the press that his government was “paying no attention” to the Allied ultimatum. U.S. President Harry Truman ordered the devastation to proceed, and on August 6, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 80,000 people and fatally wounding thousands more. After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan’s supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. On August 8, Japan’s desperate situation took another turn for the worse when the USSR declared war against Japan. The next day, Soviet forces attacked in Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming Japanese positions there, and a second U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki. Just before midnight on August 9, Japanese Emperor Hirohito convened the supreme war council. After a long, emotional debate, he backed a proposal by Prime Minister Suzuki in which Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration “with the understanding that said Declaration does not compromise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as the sovereign ruler.” The council obeyed Hirohito’s acceptance of peace, and on August 10 the message was relayed to the United States.

Early on August 12, the United States answered that “the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” After two days of debate about what this statement implied, Emperor Hirohito brushed the nuances in the text aside and declared that peace was preferable to destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting surrender. In the early hours of August 15, a military coup was attempted by a faction led by Major Kenji Hatanaka. The rebels seized control of the imperial palace and burned Prime Minister Suzuki’s residence, but shortly after dawn the coup was crushed. At noon that day, Emperor Hirohito went on national radio for the first time to announce the Japanese surrender. In his unfamiliar court language, he told his subjects, “we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.” The United States immediately accepted Japan’s surrender. President Truman appointed MacArthur to head the Allied occupation of Japan as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. For the site of Japan’s formal surrender, Truman chose the USS Missouri, a battleship that had seen considerable action in the Pacific and was named after Truman’s native state. MacArthur, instructed to preside over the surrender, held off the ceremony until September 2 in order to allow time for representatives of all the major Allied powers to arrive.

On Sunday, September 2, more than 250 Allied warships lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay. The flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China fluttered above the deck of the Missouri. Just after 9 a.m. Tokyo time, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government. General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces, and his aides wept as he made his signature. Supreme Commander MacArthur next signed on behalf of the United Nations, declaring, “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out the blood and carnage of the past.” Ten more signatures were made, by the United States, China, Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, respectively. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed for the United States. As the 20-minute ceremony ended, the sun burst through low-hanging clouds. The most devastating war in human history was over.

1945 – Hours after Japan’s surrender in World War II, Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh declares the independence of Vietnam from France. The proclamation paraphrased the U.S. Declaration of Independence in declaring, “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!” and was cheered by an enormous crowd gathered in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square. It would be 30 years, however, before Ho’s dream of a united, communist Vietnam became reality. Born in 1890, Ho Chi Minh left Vietnam as a cook on a French steamer in 1911. After several years as a seaman, he lived in London and then moved to France, where he became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920. He later traveled to the Soviet Union, where he studied revolutionary tactics and took an active role in the Communist International. In 1924, he went to China, where he set about organizing exiled Vietnamese communists. Expelled by China in 1927, he traveled extensively before returning to Vietnam in 1941. There, he organized a Vietnamese guerrilla organization–the Viet Minh–to fight for Vietnamese independence.

Japan occupied French Indochina in 1940 and collaborated with French officials loyal to France’s Vichy regime. Ho, meanwhile, made contact with the Allies and aided operations against the Japanese in South China. In early 1945, Japan ousted the French administration in Vietnam and executed numerous French officials. When Japan formally surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh felt emboldened enough to proclaim the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. French forces seized southern Vietnam and opened talks with the Vietnamese communists. These talks collapsed in 1946, and French warships bombarded the northern Vietnamese city of Haiphong, killing thousands. In response, the Viet Minh launched an attack against the French in Hanoi on December 19, 1945–the beginning of the First Indochina War. During the eight-year war, Mao Zedong’s Chinese communists supported the Viet Minh, while the United States aided the French and anti-communist Vietnamese forces.

In 1954, the French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu, in northwest Vietnam, prompting peace negotiations and the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at a conference in Geneva. Vietnam was divided into northern and southern regions, with Ho in command of North Vietnam and Emperor Bao Dai in control of South Vietnam. In the late 1950s, Ho Chi Minh organized a communist guerrilla movement in the South, called the Viet Cong. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong successfully opposed a series of ineffectual U.S.-backed South Vietnam regimes and beginning in 1964 withstood a decade-long military intervention by the United States. Ho Chi Minh died on September 2, 1969, 25 years after declaring Vietnam’s independence from France and nearly six years before his forces succeeded in reuniting North and South Vietnam under communist rule. Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after it fell to the communists in 1975.

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1948 – Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian passenger on a space mission, was born in Boston, Mass. During that 1986 mission, she and the six other crew members on the space shuttle Challenger perished in an explosion shortly after launch.

1951 – The 2nd Infantry Division attacked enemy positions on Bloody Ridge.

1951 – Twenty-two F-86 Sabre jets clashed with 40 MiG-15s in a 30-minute dogfight over the skies between Sinuiju and Pyongyang. The air battle resulted in the destruction of four MiGs.

1956 – Tennessee National Guardsmen halted rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton.

1958 – United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan in Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a SIGINT mission. All crew members are killed.

1969 – President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam dies of a heart attack in Hanoi. North Vietnamese officials announced his death the next day. Ho Chi Minh had been the heart and soul of Vietnamese communism since the earliest days of the movement. Born in 1890, he was the son of a Vietnamese government official who resigned in protest against French domination of his country. He was educated in Hue and as a young man worked as a cook on a French steamship, travelling to the United States, Africa, and then Europe, where he took work in London and Paris. In 1920, having accepted Marxist Leninism because of its anticolonial stance, he changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc (“Nguyen the Patriot”) and helped found the French Communist Party. He traveled to Moscow in 1923 for study and training. In 1924, he went to Canton, China, to meet with Phan Boi Chau, one of the leading Vietnamese nationalists of the era. While in China, Ho played the leading role in the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929. Ho spent most of the next 10 years writing and organizing, all while outside Vietnam. When the Japanese invaded Vietnam at the beginning of World War II, he changed his name to Ho Chi Minh (“Ho, the Bringer of Light”) and moved his revolutionary group to the caves of Pac Bo in northern Vietnam.

There, in May 1941, he organized the Viet Minh, a nationalist and communist organization created to mobilize the people. During the war, Ho and the Viet Minh entered into a loose alliance with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), helping to rescue downed American pilots. In 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, the Viet Minh seized power and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with Ho as president. However, the French, wanting to reimpose colonial rule, refused to grant independence to the Vietnamese. In late 1946, war broke out between the Viet Minh and the French. It lasted for eight bloody years, ending finally with the Viet Minh defeating the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The subsequent Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into North and South Vietnam. Ho devoted his efforts to constructing a communist society in North Vietnam. In the early 1960s, a new war broke out in the South, where communist-led guerrillas mounted an insurgency against the U.S.-supported regime in Saigon. When the United States intervened militarily, Ho directed his forces in a protracted war against the Americans. During this period, Ho continued to provide inspirational leadership to his people, but as his health deteriorated, he increasingly assumed a more ceremonial role as policy was shaped by others. Still, he was the embodiment of the revolution and remained a communist icon after his death in 1969.

1970 – NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.

1972 – Phuc Yen, 10 miles north of Hanoi, and one of the largest air bases in North Vietnam, is smashed by U.S. fighter-bombers. During the attack, a MiG was shot down, bringing the total to 47 enemy aircraft shot down since the beginning of the North Vietnamese offensive. At this point in the war, 18 U.S. planes had been shot down by MiGs.

1990 – Dozens of Americans reached freedom in the first major airlift of Westerners from Iraq during the month-old Persian Gulf crisis.

1991 – President Bush formally recognized the independence of the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

1993 – The United States and Russia formally ended decades of competition in space by agreeing to a joint venture to build a space station.

1996 – The US launched cruise missiles at selected air defense targets in Iraq to discourage Sadam Hussein’s military moves against a Kurd faction.

1997 – In Bosnia US troops relinquished control of the TV transmitter in exchange for agreements to permit opposition voices on the air and an end to inflammatory rhetoric.

1997 – The US demanded exemptions to a proposed global ban on land mines at an int’l meeting in Oslo, Norway. The exemptions were for mines on the Korean peninsula and for certain types of mines.

1999 – NATO and UN officials agreed to the formation of a civilian emergency force in Kosovo from the remnants of the KLA.

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[SHOOTER13]

2002 – Hans Blix rejects the Iraqi request that he travel to Baghdad for technical talks, saying he would not do so until Saddam Hussein approved the return of weapons inspectors.

2003 – In Indonesia a court convicted radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir of inciting others to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to four years in prison for sedition. The court threw out charges that he belonged to al-Qaida’s main Asian ally.

2003 – Secretary Ridge announces the “One Face at the Border” initiative to unify the border inspection process.

2004 – Kidnappers handed over two French journalists in Iraq to an Iraqi Sunni Muslim opposition group. A militant group in Iraq said it had killed three Turkish captives. Gunmen ambushed an Associated Press driver, riddling his car with bullets and killing him near his home in Baghdad.

2004 – The UN Security Council narrowly approved a U.S.-backed resolution aimed at pressuring Lebanon to reject a second term for its pro-Syrian president and calling for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces.

2005 – The NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission robotic Spirit rover sends back a partial panoramic view from the top of “Husband Hill” at Gusev Crater on Mars.

2006 – A 16 day Canadian-led offensive during the second Battle of Panjwaii of the war in Afghanistan. The operation was fought primarily by the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group and other elements of the International Security Assistance Force, supported by the Afghan National Army and a team from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) augmented by C Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment. Its goal was to establish government control over an area of Kandahar Province centered on the town of Panjwayi some 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Kandahar city. A tactical victory, it resulted in the deaths of 12 Canadian soldiers, five during the major combat operations, five in bombings and two in a mortar/RPG attack during the reconstruction phase of the operation. Fourteen British military personnel were also killed when their plane crashed. NATO announced the operation over on September 17, 2006. They said that the operation was a success in destroying the Taliban force that was massing near Kandahar, and the Taliban had been driven from both Panjwayi and Zhari districts of Kandahar province.

2012 – U.S. special operations personnel temporarily halt the training of all Afghan army and police recruits while a full background check of 27,000 people is ongoing. 45 NATO troops have been killed this year in so-called green-on-blue attacks.

2014 – ISIL releases an Internet video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff.

2014 – The United States sends an additional 250 US troops to protect American personnel.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HERRON, LEANDER
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company A, 3d U.S. Infantry. Place and date: Near Fort Dodge, Kans., 2 September 1868. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Bucks County, Pa. Date of issue: Unknown. Citation: While detailed as mail courier from the fort, voluntarily went to the assistance of a party of 4 enlisted men, who were attacked by about 50 Indians at some distance from the fort and remained with them until the party was relieved.

LEE, DANIEL W.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Troop A, 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. Place and date: Montreval, France, 2 September 1944. Entered service at: Alma, Ga. Born: 23 June 1919, Alma, Ga. G.O. No.: 14, 4 February 1946. Citation: 1st Lt. (then 2d Lt. ) Daniel W. Lee was leader of Headquarters Platoon, Troop A, 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, Mechanized, at Montreval, France, on 2 September 1944, when the Germans mounted a strong counterattack, isolating the town and engaging its outnumbered defenders in a pitched battle. After the fight had raged for hours and our forces had withstood heavy shelling and armor-supported infantry attacks, 2d Lt. Lee organized a patrol to knock out mortars which were inflicting heavy casualties on the beleaguered reconnaissance troops. He led the small group to the edge of the town, sweeping enemy riflemen out of position on a ridge from which he observed 7 Germans manning 2 large mortars near an armored half-track about 100 yards down the reverse slope. Armed with a rifle and grenades, he left his men on the high ground and crawled to within 30 yards of the mortars, where the enemy discovered him and unleashed machine-pistol fire which shattered his right thigh. Scorning retreat, bleeding and suffering intense pain, he dragged himself relentlessly forward He killed 5 of the enemy with rifle fire and the others fled before he reached their position. Fired on by an armored car, he took cover behind the German half-track and there found a panzerfaust with which to neutralize this threat. Despite his wounds, he inched his way toward the car through withering machinegun fire, maneuvering into range, and blasted the vehicle with a round from the rocket launcher, forcing it to withdraw. Having cleared the slope of hostile troops, he struggle back to his men, where he collapsed from pain and loss of blood. 2d Lt. Lee’s outstanding gallantry, willing risk of life, and extreme tenacity of purpose in coming to grips with the enemy, although suffering from grievous wounds, set an example of bravery and devotion to duty in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

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[SHOOTER13]

3 September

1609 – Henry Hudson discovered the island of Manhattan.

1709 – The 1st major group of Swiss and German colonists reached the Carolinas.

1752 – The Gregorian Adjustment to the calendar was put into effect in Great Britain and the American colonies followed. At this point in time 11 days needed to be accounted for and Sept. 2 was selected to be followed by Sept. 14. People rioted thinking the government stole 11 days of their lives.

1777 – The American flag is flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Maryland. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the stars and strips banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat to General George Washington’s main force near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania. Three months before, on June 14, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes.

According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disprove this legend. With the entrance of new states into the United States after independence, new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union. In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states. On June 14, 1877, the first Flag Day observance was held on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes. As instructed by Congress, the U.S. flag was flown from all public buildings across the country. In the years after the first Flag Day, several states continued to observe the anniversary, and in 1949 Congress officially designated June 14 as Flag Day, a national day of observance.

1782 – As a token of gratitude for French aid during American Revolution, the U.S. gives America (first ship-of-the-line built by U.S.) to France to replace a French ship lost in Boston.

1783 – The Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary War. The Treaty of 1783, which formally ended the American Revolution, is also known as the Definitive Treaty of Peace, the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. The treaty bears the signatures of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay.

1783 – Mackinac Island, Michigan, passed into US hands following the Paris Peace Treaty.

1812 – A war party of Native Americans (mostly Shawnee, but possibly including some Delawares and Potawatomis) made a surprise attack on the village of Pigeon Roost, Indiana, coordinated with attacks on Fort Harrison (near Terre Haute, Indiana) and Fort Wayne the same month. Twenty-four settlers, including fifteen children, were massacred. Two children were kidnapped. Only four of the Indian attackers were killed.

1826 – USS Vincennes left NY to become 1st warship to circumnavigate globe.

1838 – Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.

1855 – General William Harney and 700 soldiers take revenge for the Grattan Massacre with a brutal attack on a Sioux village in Nebraska that left 100 men, women, and children dead. The path to Harney’s bloody revenge began a year before near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, when a brash young lieutenant named John Grattan and 30 of his men were killed while attempting to arrest a Teton Sioux brave accused of shooting a white man’s cow. Despite the many eyewitness reports that Lieutenant Grattan had foolishly threatened the Sioux and practically forced them to attack, the incident quickly gained infamy around the nation as the “Grattan Massacre.” Americans demanded swift vengeance, and the army turned to the celebrated Indian fighter, General William Harney, to lead a punitive attack against the Sioux. Harney decided an appropriate target for retribution was a village of 250 Sioux led by Chief Little Thunder encamped near Ash Hollow, Nebraska.

Refusing to accept Little Thunder’s offer of immediate surrender, Harney ordered a full-scale attack that completely destroyed the village and killed more than 100 Sioux. After later learning more about what had really happened at the Grattan Massacre, Harney softened his attitude toward the Sioux and eventually convened a successful peace council that temporarily calmed tensions. But for the rest of his life the general was plagued with the nickname of “Squaw Killer Harney,” while the unfortunate pattern of revenge and punishment his attack began would only grow more vicious on both sides of the conflict. One Sioux boy who witnessed the brutal massacre would never forget or forgive and would take his own revenge 21 years later at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. His name was Crazy Horse.

1861 – Confederate General Leonidas Polk commits a major political blunder by marching his troops into Columbus, Kentucky—negating Kentucky’s avowed neutrality and causing the Unionist legislature to invite the U.S. government to drive the invaders away. Kentucky was heavily divided prior to the war. Although slavery was prevalent in the state, nationalism was strong and Unionists prevented the calling of a convention to consider secession after the firing on Fort Sumter in April. Governor Beriah Magoffin refused to send troops to either side, and a special session of the legislature in the summer of 1861 issued a warning to both the Confederate and Union armies not to deploy forces in the state. Union and Confederates alike recognized the folly of entering Kentucky into the war, as it would tip the delicate political balance to the other side.

President Lincoln, a Kentucky native who carefully observed the state’s neutrality, soon realized that the Confederates were acquiring resources and recruiting troops from the state. However, in three special elections held that summer, the Union cause had gained support. Kentucky’s geographic location made permanent neutrality nearly impossible. The major rivers of the upper south drained into the Ohio River through Kentucky, and the state had the country’s ninth largest population. Troops from both sides began to build fortifications along the border in the opening months of the war, but the Confederates made a critical blunder when General Polk occupied Columbus, Kentucky, on September 3. This preemptive move against the forces of General Ulysses S. Grant, who waited across the Ohio River in Illinois, proved costly for the Confederates. Kentucky’s Unionist legislature invited Federal troops in to drive away the invaders, and on September 6, Grant occupied Paducah and Southland, at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively. These were vital positions that allowed the Union a tremendous advantage in the contest for Kentucky and Tennessee. During the war, some 50,000 white and 24,000 black Kentuckians fought for the North, while 35,000 joined the South.

1862 – U.S.S. Essex, Commodore W. D. Porter, in pursuit of C.S.S. Webb, had a landing party fired on at Natchez, Mississippi, from which Union forces had withdrawn on 25 July. Essex bombarded the town for an hour, after which the mayor “unconditionally surrendered” the city to Porter.

1863 – Boat expedition under Acting Ensign William H. Winslow and Acting Master’s Mate Charles A. Edgcomb from U.S.S. Gem of the Sea, Acting Lieutenant Baxter, reconnoitered Peace Creek, Florida. The expedition was set in motion by Baxter because of “reliable information that there was a band of guerrillas, or regulators, as they style themselves, organizing in the vicinity of Peace Creek, with the intention of coming down this harbor [Charlotte Harbor] for the purpose of capturing the refugees on the islands in this vicinity and also the sloop Rosalie. . . “The Union force destroyed buildings used as a depot for blockade runners and a rendezvous for guerrillas as well as four small boats. Baxter reported: “I think this expedition will have a tendency to break up the blockade running and stop the regulators from coming down here to molest the refugees in this vicinity.”

1864 – Battle of Berryville, VA.

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1864 – President Lincoln ordered a 100-gun salute at the Washington Navy Yard at noon on Monday, the 5th of September, and upon receipt of the order, at each arsenal and navy yard in the United States ”for the recent brilliant achievements of the fleet and land forces of the United States in the harbor of Mobile and in the reduction of Fort Powell, Fort Gaines, and Fort Morgan. The President also proclaimed that on the following Sunday thanksgiving should be given for Rear Admiral Farragut’s victory at Mobile and for the capture of Atlanta by General Sherman. These events, said Lincoln, “call for devout acknowledgment to the Supreme Being in whose hands are the destinies of nations.”1865 – Army commander in SC ordered Freedmen’s Bureau to stop seizing land.

1885 – First classes at U.S. Naval War College begin.

1901 – Miss Ellen Stone, a Protestant missionary from Haverhill, Mass., was kidnapped in Bulgaria by a Macedonian revolutionary gang, who demanded $110,000 in gold. Katerina Tsilka, her pregnant Bulgarian companion, was also kidnapped and gave birth during her captivity to a baby girl.

1908 – Orville Wright began two weeks of flight trials that impressed onlookers with his complete control of his new Type A Military Flyer. In addition to setting an altitude record of 310 feet and an endurance record of more than one hour, he had carried aloft the first military observer, Lieutenant Frank Lahm.

1918 – The United States recognized the nation of Czechoslovakia.

1918 – Five soldiers were hanged for alleged participation in the Houston riot of 1917.

1925 – The dirigible “Shenandoah” crashed near Caldwell Ohio, 13 die. The 682-foot Shenandoah, a dirigible built by the U.S. Navy in 1923, broke apart in mid-air, killing 14 persons aboard.

1926 – Marines served at Shanghai, China, and aboard ship during the Yangtze Service Campaign, 3 September 1926 – 21 October 1927.

1939 – In response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. The first casualty of that declaration was not German-but the British ocean liner Athenia, which was sunk by a German U-30 submarine that had assumed the liner was armed and belligerent. There were more than 1,100 passengers on board, 112 of whom lost their lives. Of those, 28 were Americans, but President Roosevelt was unfazed by the tragedy, declaring that no one was to “thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its armies to European fields.” The United States would remain neutral.

As for Britain’s response, it was initially no more than the dropping of anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets-13 tons of them-over Germany. They would begin bombing German ships on September 4, suffering significant losses. They were also working under orders not to harm German civilians. The German military, of course, had no such restrictions. France would begin an offensive against Germany’s western border two weeks later. Their effort was weakened by a narrow 90-mile window leading to the German front, enclosed by the borders of Luxembourg and Belgium-both neutral countries. The Germans mined the passage, stalling the French offensive.

1939 – The British passenger liner, SS Athenia, is torpedoed off the northwest coast of Ireland en route to Canada by U-30 because it is mistakenly identified as an auxiliary cruiser. There are 112 dead including 28 American citizens, of some 1400 passengers including some 316 Americans. The German government is unaware of the action of the U-boat until later in the month. Britain believes that this is the start of unrestricted submarine warfare. At this time, 39 of the German fleet of 58 U-boats are at sea. Doenitz, the submarine chief, had hoped for a fleet of 300 before contemplating war with Britain.

1941 – The Japanese are informed that a meeting between Prince Konoye and President Roosevelt cannot take place.

1943 – Italy surrendered. The Allied invasion of Italy begins on the same day that U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign the Armistice of Cassibile aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.

1944 – US 12th Army Group advances. Forces of US 1st Army take Mon while lead elements of US 3rd Army cross the Moselle River.

1944 – Forces of US 7th Army continue advancing. The French 1st Infantry Division enters Lyons.

1944 – First combat employment of a missile guided by radio and television takes place when Navy drone Liberator, controlled by Ensign James M. Simpson in a PV, flew to attack German submarine pens on Helgoland Island.

1944 – An American force, commanded by Admiral Smith, including 3 heavy cruisers and 3 destroyers, bombards the island. The light carrier USS Monterey provides air cover for the operation.

1945 – General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Japanese commander of the Philippines, surrendered to Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at Baguio.

1945 – Japanese surrender Wake Island in ceremony on board USS Levy (DE-162).

1950 – A U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 35 men arrives in Saigon to screen French requests for American military aid, assist in the training of South Vietnamese troops, and advise on strategy. President Harry Truman had approved National Security Council (NSC) Memorandum 64 in March 1950, proclaiming that French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) was a key area that could not be allowed to fall to the communists and that the United States would provide support against communist aggression in the area. However, NSC 64 did not identify who would receive the aid, the French or the South Vietnamese. The French did not want the aid to go directly to the South Vietnamese and opposed the presence of any American advisory group. Nevertheless, the U.S. government argued that such a team would be necessary to coordinate requisitioning, procurement, and dissemination of supplies and equipment.

Accordingly, an advisory group was dispatched to Saigon. In the long run, however, the French high command ignored the MAAG in formulating strategy, denied them any role in training the Vietnamese, and refused to keep them informed of current operations and future plans. By 1952, the United States would bear roughly one-third of the cost of the war the French were fighting, but find itself with very little influence over French military policy in Southeast Asia or the way the war was waged. Ultimately, the French would be defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and withdraw from Vietnam, passing the torch to the United States. In 1964, MAAG Vietnam would be disbanded and its advisory mission and functions integrated into the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), which had been established in February 1962.

1954 – The German U-boat U-505 begins its move from a specially constructed dock to its final site at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

1954 – The US Espionage & Sabotage Act of 1954 signed.

1956 – Tanks were deployed against racist demonstrators in Clinton, Tennessee.

1967 – In South Vietnam’s national election, General Nguyen Van Thieu wins a four-year term as president with former Premier Nguyen Cao Ky as vice-president. They received only 34.8 percent of the votes cast, but the rest were divided among 10 other candidates. There were many allegations of corruption during the election, including charges of ballot rigging, but a favorable impression of the election process was reported by 22 prominent Americans who visited Vietnam as election observers. The Johnson administration cited the elections, held in the midst of war, as evidence that South Vietnam was maturing as a democratic nation.

1971 – The Watergate team broke into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.

1976 – The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet’s surface.

1989 – The United States began shipping a $65 million package of military aircraft and weapons to help Colombia’s war against drug lords.

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1995 – Testing Serb will, the United Nations reopened a route to Sarajevo and threatened more air attacks if the rebel stranglehold of the Bosnian capital didn’t end.

1996 – The United States launched 27 cruise missiles at “selected air defense targets” in Iraq as punishment for Iraq’s invasion of Kurdish safe havens.

1998 – Executive Chairman Richard Butler briefs the Security Council on the status of UNSCOM’s work in Iraq, including three incidents where Iraq has placed further limits on the Commission’s rights and activities with respect to monitoring.

1999 – NASA temporarily grounded its space shuttle fleet after inspections had uncovered damaged wires that could endanger a mission.

2002 – The US Senate opened debate on legislation creating a new Homeland Security Department.

2002 – Iraq said it was ready to discuss a return of U.N. weapons inspectors, but only in a broader context of ending sanctions and restoring Iraqi sovereignty over all its territory.

2004 – Libya signed an agreement to pay a total of $35 million US in compensation for 168 non-U.S. victims of a 1986 Berlin disco bombing.

2005 – Over 40,000 military personnel will be deployed along the Gulf Coast in the coming week: President George W. Bush orders 7,023 additional active duty forces to the Gulf Coast to add to the 4,000 active duty personnel and 21,000 National Guard troops already in the area. The Pentagon announced an additional 10,000 troop deployment from the National Guard.

2007 – U.S. President George W. Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq and addresses military leaders and the troops, saying that with success, a U.S. Iraq troop cut is possible.

2012 – A car bomb explodes near the U.S. consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least three people and wounding up to 19 others.



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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

MADDEN, MICHAEL
Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 42d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Masons Island, Md., 3 September 1861. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 28 September 1841, Ireland. Date of issue: 22 March 1898. Citation: Assisted a wounded comrade to the riverbank and, under heavy fire of the enemy, swam with him across a branch of the Potomac to the Union lines.

GILLENWATER, JAMES R.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company A, 36th Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: Near Porac, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 3 September 1899. Entered service at: Rye Cove, Va. Birth: Rye Cove Va. Date of issue: 1 S March 1902. Citation: While on a scout drove off a superior force of insurgents and with the assistance of 1 comrade brought from the field of action the bodies of 2 comrades, 1 killed and the other severely wounded.

LEAHY, CORNELIUS J.
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 36th Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: Near Porac, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 3 September 1899. Entered service at: San Francisco, Calif. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 3 May 1902. Citation: Distinguished gallantry in action in driving off a superior force and with the assistance of 1 comrade brought from the field of action the bodies of 2 comrades, 1 killed and the other severely wounded, this while on a scout.

*GOMEZ, EDUARDO C.
Rank and Organization: Sergeant First Class. U.S. Army. Company 1. 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Place and Date: September 3, 1950, Tabu-dong, Korea. Born: October 28, 1919, Los Angeles, CA. Departed: Yes (01/29/1972). Entered Service At: . G.O. Number: . Date of Issue: 03/18/2014. Accredited To: . Citation: Then-Sgt. Eduardo Gomez distinguished himself by defending his company as it was ruthlessly attacked by a hostile force. Notably, Gomez maneuvered across open ground to successfully assault a manned tank. Wounded during his retreat from the tank, Gomez refused medical attention, instead manning his post and firing upon the enemy until his company formed a defensive perimeter.

*KRZYZOWSKI, EDWARD C.
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army, Company B, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Tondul, Korea, from 31 August to 3 September 1951. Entered service at: Cicero, Ill. Born: 16 January 1914, Chicago, Ill. G.O. No.: 56, 12 June 1952. Citation: Capt. Krzyzowski, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and indomitable courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy as commanding officer of Company B. Spearheading an assault against strongly defended Hill 700, his company came under vicious crossfire and grenade attack from enemy bunkers. Creeping up the fire-swept hill, he personally eliminated 1 bunker with his grenades and wiped out a second with carbine fire. Forced to retire to more tenable positions for the night, the company, led by Capt. Krzyzowski, resumed the attack the following day, gaining several hundred yards and inflicting numerous casualties. Overwhelmed by the numerically superior hostile force, he ordered his men to evacuate the wounded and move back. Providing protective fire for their safe withdrawal, he was wounded again by grenade fragments, but refused evacuation and continued to direct the defense. On 3 September, he led his valiant unit in another assault which overran several hostile positions, but again the company was pinned down by murderous fire. Courageously advancing alone to an open knoll to plot mortar concentrations against the hill, he was killed instantly by an enemy sniper’s fire. Capt. Krzyzowski’s consummate fortitude, heroic leadership, and gallant self-sacrifice, so clearly demonstrated throughout 3 days of bitter combat, reflect the highest credit and lasting glory on himself, the infantry, and the U.S. Army.

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URBAN, MATT
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel (then Captain), 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, World War II. Place and date: Renouf, France, 14 June to 3 September 1944. Entered service at: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 2 July 1941. Date and place of birth: 25 August 1919, Buffalo, New York. Lieutenant Colonel (then Captain) Matt Urban, l 12-22-2414, United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of bold, heroic actions, exemplified by singularly outstanding combat leadership, personal bravery, and tenacious devotion to duty, during the period 14 June to 3 September 1944 while assigned to the 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. On 14 June, Captain Urban’s company, attacking at Renouf, France, encountered heavy enemy small arms and tank fire. The enemy tanks were unmercifully raking his unit’s positions and inflicting heavy casualties. Captain Urban, realizing that his company was in imminent danger of being decimated, armed himself with a bazooka. He worked his way with an ammo carrier through hedgerows, under a continuing barrage of fire, to a point near the tanks. He brazenly exposed himself to the enemy fire and, firing the bazooka, destroyed both tanks. Responding to Captain Urban’s action, his company moved forward and routed the enemy. Later that same day, still in the attack near Orglandes, Captain Urban was wounded in the leg by direct fire from a 37mm tank-gun. He refused evacuation and continued to lead his company until they moved into defensive positions for the night.

At 0500 hours the next day, still in the attack near Orglandes, Captain Urban, though badly wounded, directed his company in another attack. One hour later he was again wounded. Suffering from two wounds, one serious, he was evacuated to England. In mid-July, while recovering from his wounds, he learned of his unit’s severe losses in the hedgerows of Normandy. Realizing his unit’s need for battle-tested leaders, he voluntarily left the hospital and hitchhiked his way back to his unit hear St. Lo, France. Arriving at the 2d Battalion Command Post at 1130 hours, 25 July, he found that his unit had jumped-off at 1100 hours in the first attack of Operation Cobra.” Still limping from his leg wound, Captain Urban made his way forward to retake command of his company. He found his company held up by strong enemy opposition. Two supporting tanks had been destroyed and another, intact but with no tank commander or gunner, was not moving. He located a lieutenant in charge of the support tanks and directed a plan of attack to eliminate the enemy strong-point. The lieutenant and a sergeant were immediately killed by the heavy enemy fire when they tried to mount the tank. Captain Urban, though physically hampered by his leg wound and knowing quick action had to be taken, dashed through the scathing fire and mounted the tank. With enemy bullets ricocheting from the tank, Captain Urban ordered the tank forward and, completely exposed to the enemy fire, manned the machine gun and placed devastating fire on the enemy. His action, in the face of enemy fire, galvanized the battalion into action and they attacked and destroyed the enemy position. On 2 August, Captain Urban was wounded in the chest by shell fragments and, disregarding the recommendation of the Battalion Surgeon, again refused evacuation. On 6 August, Captain Urban became the commander of the 2d Battalion.

On 15 August, he was again wounded but remained with his unit. On 3 September, the 2d Battalion was given the mission of establishing a crossing-point on the Meuse River near Heer, Belgium. The enemy planned to stop the advance of the allied Army by concentrating heavy forces at the Meuse. The 2d Battalion, attacking toward the crossing-point, encountered fierce enemy artillery, small arms and mortar fire which stopped the attack. Captain Urban quickly moved from his command post to the lead position of the battalion. Reorganizing the attacking elements, he personally led a charge toward the enemy’s strong-point. As the charge moved across the open terrain, Captain Urban was seriously wounded in the neck. Although unable to talk above a whisper from the paralyzing neck wound, and in danger of losing his life, he refused to be evacuated until the enemy was routed and his battalion had secured the crossing-point on the Meuse River. Captain Urban’s personal leadership, limitless bravery, and repeated extraordinary exposure to enemy fire served as an inspiration to his entire battalion. His valorous and intrepid actions reflect the utmost credit on him and uphold the noble traditions of the United States.

*OUELLETTE, JOSEPH R.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company H, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Yongsan, Korea, from 31 August to 3 September 1950. Entered service at: Lowell, Mass. Birth: Lowell, Mass. G.O. No.: 25, 25 April 1951. Citation: Pfc. Ouellette distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy in the Makioug-Chang River salient. When an enemy assault cut off and surrounded his unit he voluntarily made a reconnaissance of a nearby hill under intense enemy fire to locate friendly troop positions and obtain information of the enemy’s strength and location. Finding that friendly troops were not on the hill, he worked his way back to his unit under heavy fire. Later, when an airdrop of water was made outside the perimeter, he again braved enemy fire in an attempt to retrieve water for his unit. Finding the dropped cans broken and devoid of water, he returned to his unit. His heroic attempt greatly increased his comrades’ morale. When ammunition and grenades ran low, Pfc. Ouellette again slipped out of the perimeter to collect these from the enemy dead. After collecting grenades he was attacked by an enemy soldier. He killed this enemy in hand-to-hand combat, gathered up the ammunition, and returned to his unit. When the enemy attacked on 3 September, they assaulted his position with grenades. On 6 occasions Pfc. Ouellette leaped from his foxhole to escape exploding grenades. In doing so, he had to face enemy small-arms fire. He continued his resistance, despite a severe wound, until he lost his life. The extraordinary heroism and intrepidity displayed by Pfc. Ouellette reflect the highest credit on himself and are in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the military service.

*WATKINS, TRAVIS E.
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company H, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division Place and date: Near Yongsan, Korea, 31 August through 3 September 1950. Entered service at: Texas. Birth: Waldo, Ark. G.O. No.: 9, 16 February 1951. Citation: M/Sgt. Watkins distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. When an overwhelming enemy force broke through and isolated 30 men of his unit, he took command, established a perimeter defense and directed action which repelled continuous, fanatical enemy assaults. With his group completely surrounded and cut off, he moved from foxhole to foxhole exposing himself to enemy fire, giving instructions and offering encouragement to his men. Later when the need for ammunition and grenades became critical he shot 2 enemy soldiers 50 yards outside the perimeter and went out alone for their ammunition and weapons. As he picked up their weapons he was attacked by 3 others and wounded. Returning their fire he killed all 3 and gathering up the weapons of the 5 enemy dead returned to his amazed comrades.

During a later assault, 6 enemy soldiers gained a defiladed spot and began to throw grenades into the perimeter making it untenable. Realizing the desperate situation and disregarding his wound he rose from his foxhole to engage them with rifle fire. Although immediately hit by a burst from an enemy machine gun he continued to fire until he had killed the grenade throwers. With this threat eliminated he collapsed and despite being paralyzed from the waist down, encouraged his men to hold on. He refused all food, saving it for his comrades, and when it became apparent that help would not arrive in time to hold the position ordered his men to escape to friendly lines. Refusing evacuation as his hopeless condition would burden his comrades, he remained in his position and cheerfully wished them luck. Through his aggressive leadership and intrepid actions, this small force destroyed nearly 500 of the enemy before abandoning their position. M/Sgt. Watkins’ sustained personal bravery and noble self-sacrifice reflect the highest glory upon himself and is in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army.

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4 September

1781 – Mexican Provincial Governor, Felipe de Neve, founded Los Angeles. He founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles (Valley of Smokes), originally named Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, by Gaspar de Portola, a Spanish army captain and Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest, who had noticed the beautiful area as they traveled north from San Diego in 1769. 44 Spanish settlers named a tiny village near San Gabriel, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, was founded by Spanish decree. 26 of the settlers were of African ancestry.

1807 – Robert Fulton began operating his steamboat.

1812 – The Siege of Fort Harrison begins when the fort is set on fire. On September 3, 1812, a band of Miami arrived and warned Captain Zachary Taylor that they would soon be attacked by a large force of Native Americans. That evening, shots were heard, but Taylor was hesitant to send a scout party. He only had 50 men in his garrison, and sickness had reduced the number of effective soldiers to only 15. In the morning, a party was dispatched and discovered the bodies of two white settlers, the Doyle brothers. The brothers were buried, and the party reported back to Fort Harrison. Captain Taylor, with his 15 able soldiers and about 5 healthy settlers, made ready for the expected attack. Each of the 20 men was issued sixteen rounds to fire. That day, September 4, a force of 600 Potawatomi (under Chief Pa-koi-shee-can), Wea (under War Chief Stone Eater), Shawnee, Kickapoo and Winnebago warriors approached Fort Harrison. A party of 40 men under command of Kickapoo Chief Namahtoha approached under a flag of truce and asked to parley with Taylor the next morning. Taylor agreed, and the Indian force retreated to camp for the night. That night, a warrior crawled up and set the blockhouse on fire. When the sentries opened fire on the arsonist, the 600-strong Indian war party attacked the west side of the fort. Taylor ordered the fort’s surgeon and a handful of defenders to control the fire. The blockhouse, which was attached to the barracks, had a store of whiskey, which soon ignited, and the fire raged out of control. Taylor admitted in his report that the situation looked hopeless, and two of his healthy men fled the fort. Warning the fort that “Taylor never surrenders!”, the captain organized a bucket brigade to fight the fire before it destroyed the fort’s picket walls. One woman, Julia Lambert, even lowered herself down into the fort’s well to fill buckets more quickly. The fire did serve one purpose, in that it illuminated the night, revealing the attackers.

The fire left a 20-foot-wide (6.1 m) gap in the outer wall, which the garrison temporarily sealed with a 5-foot-high (1.5 m) breastwork. The remaining few of the garrison returned the fire of the Indians so fiercely that they were able to hold off the attack. All remaining invalids were armed to maintain defense, while healthy men were put to work repairing a hole left in the fort’s walls. The fort was repaired by daybreak of September 5. The Indian force withdrew just beyond gun range and butchered area farm animals within sight of the fort. The garrison and settlers inside the fort, meanwhile, had lost most of their food in the fire, and had only a few bushels of corn, and faced starvation. News of the siege arrived in Vincennes as Colonel William Russell was passing through with a company of regular infantry and a company of rangers, on their way to join Ninian Edwards, governor of Illinois Territory. Colonel Russell’s companies joined with the local militia and 7th Infantry Regiment and marched to the relief of Fort Harrison. Over 1000 men arrived from Vincennes on September 12, and the Indian force departed. The next day, however, a supply train following Colonel Russell was attacked in what became known as the Attack at the Narrows in modern Sullivan County, Indiana.

1861 – C.S.S. Yankee (also known as C.S.S. Jackson) and Confederate batteries at Hickman, Kentucky, fired on U.S.S.Tyler, Commander J Rodgers, and Lexington. Commander Stembel, while the gunboats were reconnoitering Mississippi River south from Cairo.

1862 – Robert E. Lee’s Confederate 50,000-man army invaded Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam.

1863 – Small boats manned by Union sailors under Lieutenant Francis J. Higginson transported troops in an attempted night assault on Fort Gregg at Cumming’s Point, Morris Island. “The object,” Brigadier General Gillmore reported, “was to spike the guns and blow up the magazine.” At the mouth of Vincent’s Creek a boat carrying a wounded Confederate soldier was captured, but the shots fired alerted the defenders at Fort Gregg and the secret attack was called off. A similar attempt the next night found the Southerners ready and no further attempts were made. Gillmore reported that Lieutenant Higginson “has rendered good service. Major [Oliver S.] Sanford . . . speaks highly of his presence of mind and personal bravery, as well as his efficiency as a commander. I give this testimonial unasked because it is deserved.”

1864 – Bread riots took place in Mobile, Alabama.

1864 – An amazing career ends when feared Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan is killed during a Union cavalry raid on the town of Greenville, Tennessee. An Alabama native, Morgan grew up in Kentucky and attended Transylvania University before being expelled for poor behavior. He served under Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War and became a successful hemp manufacturer in Kentucky afterwards. Morgan was a strong sympathizer with the Southern cause in the 1850s, and moved to Alabama when Kentucky did not secede from the Union. After joining the Confederate Army, Morgan quickly became a colonel in the cavalry. He fought at Shiloh and soon became famous for his cavalry raids. In one year, starting in July 1862, Morgan made four spectacular raids on Union-held territory. In the first raid, Morgan rode 1,000 miles around Kentucky, disrupting Yankee supply lines and capturing 1,200 Union soldiers. His force, consisting of as many as 1,800 troopers, traveled light and lived off the land. By December 1862, Morgan’s raids had successfully diverted 20,000 Union troops in order to secure supply lines and communications networks.

His fourth raid was the most dramatic, but it ended in disaster. Leaving Tennessee in July 1863 with 2,400 men, Morgan headed again for Kentucky. This time, he continued northward into the Union states. Morgan’s force swept through southern Indiana and Ohio before heading back to the Ohio River, but Union troops blocked his passage back to Kentucky, and Yankee cavalry chased him into northeastern Ohio. He and the remnants of his force were trapped, and they surrendered at Salineville, Ohio, on July 26. Morgan and his officers were incarcerated at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. On November 23, 1863, he and some of his men tunneled out of the prison and escaped to the South. He returned to duty and commanded the Department of Southwestern Virginia. At the time of his death, Morgan was preparing for a raid on Knoxville, Tennessee. Alerted to his presence, Union cavalry attacked his headquarters at Greenville. Morgan was shot and killed while trying to join his men.

1882 – Thomas Edison displayed the first practical electrical lighting system. He successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City with the world’s 1st electricity generating plant.

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