This Date in Military History:

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SWIFT, FREDERIC W.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 17th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Lenoire Station, Tenn., 16 November 1863. Entered service at: Michigan. Born: 30 January 1831, Mansfield Center, Conn. Date of issue: 15 February 1897. Citation: Gallantly seized the colors and rallied the regiment after 3 color bearers had been shot and the regiment, having become demoralized, was in imminent danger of capture.

WILLIAMS, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Landsman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1840, Ireland. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 32, 16 April 1864. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Lehigh, Charleston Harbor, 16 November 1863, during the hazardous task of freeing the Lehigh, which had been grounded, and was under heavy enemy fire from Fort Moultrie. After several previous attempts had been made, Williams succeeded in passing in a small boat from the Lehigh to the Nahant with a line bent on a hawser. This courageous action while under severe enemy fire enabled the Lehigh to be freed from her helpless position.

YOUNG, HORATIO N.
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 19 July 1845, Calaise, Maine. G.O. No.: 32, 16 April 1864. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Lehigh, Charleston Harbor, 16 November 1863, during the hazardous task of freeing the Lehigh, which had grounded, and was under heavy enemy fire from Fort Moultrie. After several previous attempts had been made, Young succeeded in passing in a small boat from the Lehigh to the Nahant with a line bent on a hawser. This courageous action while under severe enemy fire enabled the Lehigh to be freed from her helpless position.

THAYER, JAMES
Rank and organization: Ship’s Corporal U.S. Navy. Born: 1853, Ireland. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: For rescuing from drowning a boy serving with him on the U.S.S. Constitution, at the Navy Yard, Norfolk, Va., 16 November 1879.

HORNER, FREEMAN V.
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company K, 119th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division. Place and date: Wurselen, Germany, 16 November 1944. Entered service at: Shamokin, Pa. Birth: Mount Carmel, Pa. G.O. No.: 95, 30 October 1945. Citation: S/Sgt. Horner and other members of his company were attacking Wurselen, Germany, against stubborn resistance on 16 November 1944, when machinegun fire from houses on the edge of the town pinned the attackers in flat, open terrain 100 yards from their objective. As they lay in the field, enemy artillery observers directed fire upon them, causing serious casualties. Realizing that the machineguns must be eliminated in order to permit the company to advance from its precarious position, S/Sgt. Horner voluntarily stood up with his submachine gun and rushed into the teeth of concentrated fire, burdened by a heavy load of ammunition and hand grenades.

Just as he reached a position of seeming safety, he was fired on by a machinegun which had remained silent up until that time. He coolly wheeled in his fully exposed position while bullets barely missed him and killed 2 hostile gunners with a single, devastating burst. He turned to face the fire of the other 2 machineguns, and dodging fire as he ran, charged the 2 positions 50 yards away. Demoralized by their inability to hit the intrepid infantryman, the enemy abandoned their guns and took cover in the cellar of the house they occupied. S/Sgt. Horner burst into the building, hurled 2 grenades down the cellar stairs, and called for the Germans to surrender. Four men gave up to him. By his extraordinary courage, S/Sgt. Horner destroyed 3 enemy machinegun positions, killed or captured 7 enemy, and cleared the path for his company’s successful assault on Wurselen.

LINDSEY, JAKE W.
Rank and organization: Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Hamich, Germany, 16 November 1944. Entered service at: Lucedale, Miss. Birth: Isney, Ala. G.O. No.: 43, 30 May 1945. Citation: For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 16 November 1944, in Germany. T/Sgt. Lindsey assumed a position about 10 yards to the front of his platoon during an intense enemy infantry-tank counterattack, and by his unerringly accurate fire destroyed 2 enemy machinegun nests, forced the withdrawal of 2 tanks, and effectively halted enemy flanking patrols. Later, although painfully wounded, he engaged 8 Germans, who were reestablishing machinegun positions, in hand-to-hand combat, killing 3, capturing 3, and causing the other 2 to flee. By his gallantry, T/Sgt. Lindsey secured his unit’s position, and reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

*MILLER, ANDREW
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company G, 377th Infantry, 95th Infantry Division. Place and date: From Woippy, France, through Metz to Kerprich Hemmersdorf, Germany, 1629 November 1944. Entered service at: Two Rivers, Wis. Birth: Manitowoc, Wis. G.O. No.: 74, 1 September 1945. Citation: For performing a series of heroic deeds from 1629 November 1944, during his company’s relentless drive from Woippy, France, through Metz to Kerprich Hemmersdorf, Germany. As he led a rifle squad on 16 November at Woippy, a crossfire from enemy machineguns pinned down his unit. Ordering his men to remain under cover, he went forward alone, entered a building housing 1 of the guns and forced S Germans to surrender at bayonet point. He then took the second gun single-handedly by hurling grenades into the enemy position, killing 2, wounding 3 more, and taking 2 additional prisoners. At the outskirts of Metz the next day, when his platoon, confused by heavy explosions and the withdrawal of friendly tanks, retired, he fearlessly remained behind armed with an automatic rifle and exchanged bursts with a German machinegun until he silenced the enemy weapon. His quick action in covering his comrades gave the platoon time to regroup and carry on the fight. On 19 November S/Sgt. Miller led an attack on large enemy barracks. Covered by his squad, he crawled to a barracks window, climbed in and captured 6 riflemen occupying the room. His men, and then the entire company, followed through the window, scoured the building, and took 75 prisoners. S/Sgt. Miller volunteered, with 3 comrades, to capture Gestapo officers who were preventing the surrender of German troops in another building. He ran a gauntlet of machinegun fire and was lifted through a window. Inside, he found himself covered by a machine pistol, but he persuaded the 4 Gestapo agents confronting him to surrender.

Early the next morning, when strong hostile forces punished his company with heavy fire, S/Sgt. Miller assumed the task of destroying a well-placed machinegun. He was knocked down by a rifle grenade as he climbed an open stairway in a house, but pressed on with a bazooka to find an advantageous spot from which to launch his rocket. He discovered that he could fire only from the roof, a position where he would draw tremendous enemy fire. Facing the risk, he moved into the open, coolly took aim and scored a direct hit on the hostile emplacement, wreaking such havoc that the enemy troops became completely demoralized and began surrendering by the score. The following day, in Metz, he captured 12 more prisoners and silenced an enemy machinegun after volunteering for a hazardous mission in advance of his company’s position.

On 29 November, as Company G climbed a hill overlooking Kerprich Hemmersdorf, enemy fire pinned the unit to the ground. S/Sgt. Miller, on his own initiative, pressed ahead with his squad past the company’s leading element to meet the surprise resistance. His men stood up and advanced deliberately, firing as they went. Inspired by S/Sgt. Miller’s leadership, the platoon followed, and then another platoon arose and grimly closed with the Germans. The enemy action was smothered, but at the cost of S/Sgt. Miller’s life. His tenacious devotion to the attack, his gallant choice to expose himself to enemy action rather than endanger his men, his limitless bravery, assured the success of Company G.

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17 November

1775 – The Continental Congress unanimously elected Henry Knox “Colonel of the Regiment of Artillery.” The Field Artillery regiment formally entered service on January 1, 1776. This is also considered the birth of the Air Defense Artillery branch.

1777 – Articles of Confederation (United States) are submitted to the states for ratification.

1800 – The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convened in Washington, D.C. for the first time. Previously, the federal capital had briefly been in other cities, including New York, Philadelphia, and Annapolis, Maryland. George Washington- a surveyor by profession- had been assigned to find a site for a capital city somewhere along the upper Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia. Apparently expecting to become president, Washington sited the capital at the southernmost possible point, the closest commute from Mount Vernon, despite the fact that this placed the city in a swamp called Foggy Bottom.

1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)

1842 – A grim abolitionist meeting was held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment under the Fugitive Slave Bill (1793) of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts. Four hundred dollars was collected to buy his freedom, and plans to storm the jail were prepared as an alternative to secure his release.

1856 – The United States buttresses its control over the Gadsden Purchase with the establishment of Fort Buchanan. Named for recently elected President James Buchanan, Fort Buchanan was located on the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona. The U.S. acquired the bulk of the southwestern corner of the nation from Mexico in 1848 as victors’ spoil after the Mexican War. However, congressional leaders, eager to begin construction of a southern railroad, wished to push the border farther to the south. The government directed the American minister to Mexico, James Gadsden, to negotiate the purchase of an additional 29,000 square miles. Despite having been badly beaten in war only five years earlier and forced to cede huge tracts of land to the victorious Americans, the Mexican ruler Santa Ana was eager to do business with the U.S. Having only recently regained power, Santa Ana was in danger of losing office unless he could quickly find funds to replenish his nearly bankrupt nation. Gadsden and Santa Ana agreed that the narrow strip of southwestern desert land was worth $10 million.

When the treaty was signed on December 30, 1853, it became the last addition of territory (aside from the purchase of Alaska in 1867) to the continental United States. The purchase completed the modern-day boundaries of the American West. The government established Fort Buchanan to protect emigrants traveling through the new territory from the Apache Indians, who were strongly resisting Anglo incursions. However, the government was never able to fulfill its original purpose for buying the land and establishing the fort-a southern transcontinental railroad. With the outbreak of the Civil War four years later, northern politicians abandoned the idea of a southern line in favor of a northern route that eventually became the Union Pacific line.

1859 – Melody utilized in “The Marines’ Hymn” premiered in an Offenbach operetta. Following the war with the Barbary Pirates in 1805, when Lieutenant Presely N. O’Bannon and his small force of Marines participated in the capture of Derne and hoisted the American flag for the first time over a fortress of the Old World, the Colors of the Corps was inscribed with the words: “To the Shores of Tripoli.” After the Marines participated in the capture and occupation of Mexico City and the Castle of Chapultepec, otherwise known as the “Halls of Montezuma,” the words on the Colors were changed to read: “From the Shores of Tripoli to the Halls of Montezuma.” Following the close of the Mexican War came the first verse of the Marines’ Hymn, written, according to tradition, by a Marine on duty in Mexico. For the sake of euphony, the unknown author transposed the phrases in the motto on the Colors so that the first two lines of the Hymn would read: “From the Halls of Montezuma, to the Shores of Tripoli.”

A serious attempt to trace the tune of the Marines’ Hymn to its source is revealed in correspondence between Colonel A.S. McLemore, USMC, and Walter F. Smith, second leader of the Marine Band. Colonel McLemore wrote: “Major Richard Wallach, USMC, says that in 1878, when he was in Paris, France, the aria to which the Marines’ Hymn is now sung was a very popular one.” The name of the opera and a part of the chorus was secured from Major Wallach and forwarded to Mr. Smith, who replied: “Major Wallach is to be congratulated upon a wonderfully accurate musical memory, for the aria of the Marine Hymn is certainly to be found in the opera, ‘Genevieve de Brabant’. . .The melody is not in the exact form of the Marine Hymn, but is undoubtedly the aria from which it was taken. I am informed, however, by one of the members of the band, who has a Spanish wife, that the aria was one familiar to her childhood and it may, therefore, be a Spanish folk song.”

In a letter to Major Harold F. Wirgman, USMC, John Philip Sousa says: “The melody of the ‘Halls of Montezuma’ is taken from Offenbach’s comic opera, ‘Genevieve de Brabant’ and is sung by two gendarmes.” Most people believe that the aria of the Marines’ Hymn was, in fact, taken from “Genevieve de Brabant,” an opera-bouffe (a farcical form of opera, generally termed musical comedy) composed by Jacques Offenbach, and presented at the Theatre de Bouffes Parisians, Paris, on 19 November 1859.

1862 – Union General Burnside marched north out of Washington, D.C. to begin the Fredericksburg Campaign.

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1863 – Nov 17-Dec 4th, Battle of Knoxville, Ten. Confederate General James Longstreet places the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, under siege. After two weeks and one failed attack, he abandoned the siege and rejoined General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Knoxville campaign began in November when Longstreet took 17,000 troops from Chattanooga and moved to secure eastern Tennessee for the Confederates. Longstreet’s corps was normally part of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but after the Battle of Gettysburg in July, Longstreet took two of his divisions to shore up the Confederate effort in the West. He and his troops participated in the victory at Chickamauga in September and the siege of Chattanooga in October and November. Longstreet quarreled with Braxton Bragg, the Confederate commander in the West, and he was given independent command of the Department of East Tennessee.

Longstreet took his 17,000 troops and moved toward Knoxville. Facing him was General Ambrose Burnside and 5,000 Yankees. Burnside fought a delaying action at Campbell Station on November 16 before retreating into the Knoxville defenses. The next day, Longstreet pulled into position around the north side of the city, but he could not cut off supplies to the Union troops. Longstreet waited for reinforcements to arrive, which they did on November 28. He attacked, but was repulsed with heavy loses. Longstreet continued the siege in order to draw troops away from Chattanooga. The ruse worked, and 25,000 Union troops were dispatched from Chattanooga to chase Longstreet’s force away. Ultimately, Longstreet retreated back to Virginia. His Knoxville campaign was disappointing for the Confederates, who had hoped to secure eastern Tennessee. Longstreet rejoined Lee in the spring after his disappointing turn as head of an independent command.

1875 – The American Theosophical Society was founded by Mme. Blavatsky and Col. Olcott. Colonel H.S. Olcott helped found the Theosophical Society in New York after a group of third-century Alexandrian scholars. It was set up to study occult phenomena and literature. Early members included Thomas Edison and Gen. Abner Doubleday. Its 3 main principles were: “To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color; to encourage the comparative study of religion, science and philosophy; and to investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity.

1913 – The first ship sailed through the Panama Canal.

1914 – US declared the Panama Canal Zone neutral.

1917 – The Marine Corps’ Leatherneck Magazine established. In 1917 a couple of enlisted Marines wanted a newspaper for themselves and their fellow Marines stationed at Quantico, Va. They wanted stories and features that chronicled their Corps and contained news of specific interest to Marines. With the assistance of the Army-Navy YMCA, the men, in their off-duty time, published their first newspaper on Nov. 17, 1917, and they called it The Quantico Leatherneck. In 1918 the word Quantico was dropped from the title. The base commander gave the paper his imprimatur. Funding was paid by advertisements from local merchants catering to the base Marines and sailors. The result was a one-fold, four-page, broadsheet newspaper. By 1920 The Quantico Leatherneck was very popular with enlisted men and officers alike. The men who ran the paper were, nonetheless, Marines and subject to transfer. If the paper was to continue, the Marine Corps would have to step in. This happened during the era of Major General John A. Lejeune, who as Commandant of the Marine Corps not only wanted his Marines to have a newspaper but also wanted to raise the level of knowledge and education in the Corps.

As a result, he formed the Marine Corps Institute (MCI). It seemed a natural marriage to move the newspaper from Quantico to Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., and put it under the auspices of MCI. In 1925 Leatherneck’s format was changed from that of a newspaper to a magazine. It remained a small circulation magazine in a small Corps. Prior to World War II, the Corps was smaller than the New York City Police Department. As such, a circulation of 13,000 to 17,000 Marine readers during the Great Depression was exceptionally good. It was during this time that professional illustrations and photos in Leatherneck became prominent. Japanese Zero aircraft spitting bullets at the Marine Corps Air Station, Ewa, Hawaii, and at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, signaled a tremendous expansion of the Corps and, proportionately, of Leatherneck magazine. The Corps also enlisted its own combat correspondents, many with civilian experience gained from working on the nation’s best commercial newspapers and magazines. Many of them were assigned to Leatherneck. The magazine reflected this with an even higher level of professional news and feature stories, high-quality art, and photos.

The Leatherneck staff grew to more than 100 and published an overseas edition (without advertisements) for Marines island-hopping across the Pacific. Circulation reached 225,000. Leatherneck also ensured that Marines in every clime and place received all the news through free distribution of civilian magazines. While the Marine Corps may have its own cadre of public affairs talent, it traditionally has not had a compelling interest in managing the news for Marines and did not want its commanders to be distracted in this area. In 1943 Corps officials decided that Leatherneck magazine should be more autonomous. Thus, the Leatherneck Association was founded. Under the purview of Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, the association was governed by HQMC-based officers. The sole purpose of the association was to manage Leatherneck in the interests of the Marine Corps and to provide a governing body answerable only to the Commandant. After the war’s end, Leatherneck’s circulation dropped proportionately with the number of Marines who had earned enough overseas points to be shipped home and back to civilian life. Many of the Leatherneck staff went back to the various news media they had left. A great number went on to fame as writers, editors, artists and photographers. Some of the magazine’s department positions were converted to civilian billets. In several cases the Marine who occupied a billet when it was converted went to work the next day as a civilian.

Even so, Leatherneck was still staffed primarily by active-duty Marines until 1972 when all billets for Marines at Leatherneck were eliminated and moved to more needed positions in the Corps. That same year, the magazine’s offices moved back to Quantico. Four years later, in 1976, the Leatherneck Association merged with the Marine Corps Association in a partnership that has proven beneficial to both organizations. Today Leatherneck boasts a circulation of nearly 100,000 readers. And although the look of the magazine has evolved dramatically since its inception, its mission remains the same: to be the magazine of Marines—yesterday, today and tomorrow.

1917 – USS Fanning (DD-37) and USS Nicholson (DD-52) sink first enemy submarine, U-58, off Milford Haven, Wales. U-58 had been responsible for sinking 21 ships for a total of 30.901 tons in commercial shipping.

1918 – Influenza deaths reported in the U.S. far exceeded World War I casualties.

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1918 – The 4th Marine Brigade, as part of the 2d Division, American Expeditionary Force, began its march to the Rhine River, passing through Belgium and Luxembourg, as part of the American forces occupying a defeated Germany.

1924 – USS Langley, first aircraft carrier, reports for duty. USS Langley, a 11,500-ton aircraft carrier, was converted from the collier USS Jupiter (Collier # 3) beginning in 1920. Commissioned in March 1922, Langley was the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier. In October-November 1922, she launched, recovered and catapulted her first aircraft during initial operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean areas. Transferred to the Pacific in 1924, Langley was the platform from which Naval Aviators, guided by Captain Joseph M. Reeves, undertook the development of carrier operating techniques and tactics that were essential to victory in World War II. Though newer, larger and faster aircraft carriers arrived in the fleet in the later 1920s, the old “Covered Wagon” remained an operational carrier until October 1936, when she began conversion to a seaplane tender. Reclassified AV-3 following completion of this work in early 1937, Langley was mainly employed in the Pacific for the rest of her days. She was sent to the Far East in 1939 and was still there when the Pacific War began in December 1941. Through the early months of the conflict, she supported seaplane patrols and provided aircraft transportation services. While carrying Army fighters to the Netherlands East Indies on 27 February 1942, Langley was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Hit by several bombs and disabled, she was scuttled by her escorting destroyers.

1933 – US recognized USSR and opened trade. The United States had refused to recognize the USSR because of Communist propaganda which promoted Communist revolutions around the world. However, the U.S. recognized the USSR in 1933 in order to limit Japanese expansion in the Far East. The Soviet Union promised to discuss debts with the U.S., end propaganda efforts in the U.S., and protect the rights of Americans in the USSR. None of the terms of the deal were followed as the U.S. did not provide a large loan that the USSR had expected.

1941 – Congress amends Neutrality Act to allow U.S. merchant ships to be armed. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation directs Navy personnel with Armed Guard training to be assigned for further training before going to Armed Guard Centers for assignment to merchant ships.

1942 – A Japanese convoy successfully lands 1000 troops at Buna, New Guinea. The Japanese strongholds at Gona, Buna and Sanananada are well fortified and now well garrisoned.

1944 – Around Aachen, both US 1st and 9th Armies advance. To the right, German forces facing US 3rd and 7th Armies conduct withdrawals after which the American forces advance. On the right flank of the Allied line, the French 1st Army reaches Montbeliard in its drive to Belfort.

1944 – The USS Spadefish sinks the Japanese fleet carrier Junyo in the China Sea.

1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.

1951 – At Panmunjom, the U.N. negotiators proposed acceptance of the current line of contact, provided other issues outstanding at the truce talks were settled within 30 days. U.N. ground action was permitted to continue.

1952 – Colonel Royal N. Baker, commander of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing shot down his fifth enemy aircraft to become the Korean War’s 21st ace.

1952 – Naval air forces of Task Force 77 began a two-day bombing campaign targeting Hoeryong on the Tumen River in North Korea.

1954 – General J. Lawton Collins arrives in Saigon. Affirming $100 million in US aid, he announces, ‘I have come to Vietnam to bring every possible aid to the Government of Diem and to his Government only…. It is the legal government in Vietnam, and the aid which the United States will lend it ought to permit the government to save the county.’ Warning that the Army will receive US military aid only if it supports Diem, Collins announces, ‘This American mission will soon take charge of instructing the Vietnamese Army.’

1955 – Navy sets up Special Projects Office under Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, USN, to develop a solid propellant ballistic missile for use in submarines.

1967 – Surveyor 6 made a six-second flight on moon, the first lift off on lunar surface. This spacecraft was the fourth of the Surveyor series to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon, obtain post landing television pictures, determine the abundance of the chemical elements in the lunar soil, obtain touchdown dynamics data, obtain thermal and radar reflectivity data, and conduct a Vernier engine erosion experiment. Virtually identical to Surveyor 5, this spacecraft carried a television camera, a small bar magnet attached to one footpad, and an alpha-scattering instrument as well as the necessary engineering equipment. It landed on November 10, 1967, in Sinus Medii, 0.49 deg in latitude and 1.40 deg w longitude – the center of the moon’s visible hemisphere. This spacecraft accomplished all planned objectives and also performed a successful ‘hop’ rising approximately 4 m and moving laterally about 2.5 m to a new location on the lunar surface. The successful completion of this mission satisfied the Surveyor program’s obligation to the Apollo project. On November 24, 1967, the spacecraft was shut down for the 2-week lunar night. Contact was made on December 14, 1967, but no useful data were obtained.

1973 – President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla., that “people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

1973 – The “Largest Icebreaker in the Western World,” CGC Polar Star, is launched.

1979 – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

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1987 – Ronald Reagan was sharply criticized by Congress, when a report from congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra scandal said: “If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have.” National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his aide Oliver North traded arms for hostages in the Middle East and then diverted the profits to the rebels trying to overthrow the Marxist government of Nicaragua, which Congress had banned. Most constitutional scholars think Reagan had a good chance of getting the Supreme Court to throw out the congressional ban as an unconstitutional usurpation of executive powers.

1987 – A federal jury in Denver convicted two neo-Nazis and acquitted two others of civil rights violations in the 1984 slaying of radio talk show host Alan Berg.

1989 – The Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite was launched. It provided evidence for the “Big Bang” that spawned the universe 10-20 billion years ago. Dr. David T. Wilkinson (1935-2002) was the driving force behind the launch.

1993 – Clinton administration calls off the manhunt for Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Mohamed Farrah Aidid (1934 – August 1, 1996) was a Somali politician and the leader of the Habr Gidr clan, who hindered international famine relief efforts in the early 1990s and challenged the presence of United Nations and United States troops in the country. Aidid was one of the main targets of Operation Restore Hope, the U.N. and U.S. military operation to provide humanitarian aid and breaking the military siege in Somalia. Aidid was educated in Rome and Moscow and served in the government of Mohamed Siad Barre in several capacities; in the end as intelligence chief. Barre suspected him of planning an overthrow and had him imprisoned for six years. In 1991, the clan of Aidid did indeed overthrow Barre, and Aidid emerged as a major force in the ensuing civil war. Aidid hindered international food deliveries and attacked U.N. forces in 1992.

As a result, the US put a $25,000 bounty on his head and attempted to capture him. In October 3, 1993 a force of U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force operators set out to capture several officials of Aidid’s militia in an area of the Somalian capital city of Mogadishu, controlled by him. The operation did not go as planned, and 18 American soldiers as well as about 350 Somalis died as a result. The events are commonly known as the Battle of Mogadishu or the Battle of Bakara Market. America withdrew its forces soon after, and the U.N. left Somalia in 1995. Aidid then declared himself president of Somalia, but his government was not internationally recognized. Aidid died in August 1, 1996 possibly as a result of gunshot wounds sustained a week earlier in a fight with competing factions.

1994 – Francisco Martin Duran, the Colorado man accused of an assault-rifle attack on the White House, was indicted on a new charge of trying to assassinate President Clinton.

1995 – The commander of US forces in the Pacific called the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl “absolutely stupid” and said in Washington the incident could have been avoided if the US servicemen involved had simply paid for sex. Admiral Richard C. Macke later apologized for his remarks, and took early retirement.

1997 – In Egypt 6 gunmen killed over 65 tourists at the Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor. The assailants, members of the Gamaa al-Islamiya, were all killed. The attack was meant to force the US to release Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman who was serving a life term for a plot to bomb NYC landmarks. The assailants, members of the Gamaa al-Islamiya, were all killed. It was later reported that Mustafa Hamza ordered the attack and that he was financed by Osama bin Laden. Mohamed Ali Hassan Mokhlis, a suspected planner of the attack, was arrested in Uruguay in 1999 and handed over to Egypt in 2003.

1998 – In Iraq, UN weapons inspectors returned to resume work at designated caches.

2000 – The Florida Supreme Court froze the state’s presidential tally, forbidding Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying results of the marathon vote count. Also, a federal appeals court refused to block recounts under way in two heavily Democratic counties.

2001 – Two US sailors, Benjamin Johnson and Vincent Parker, were missing after the oil tanker Samra sank in the northern Persian Gulf. The ship was suspected of smuggling Iraqi oil. Naval personnel had boarded the ship to inspect it.

2001 – The Taliban confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden’s military chief Mohammed Atef in an airstrike three days earlier.

2001 – In Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani, the political leader of the Northern Alliance, returned to Kabul. This complicated efforts for a broad-based government. US warplanes continued to bomb around Kunduz and Kandahar.

2001 – In Canada finance ministers of the G-20 nations agreed to freeze terrorist assets and to implement a UN resolution against terrorist financing.

2001 – Kosovo voted in a symbolic step toward independence. Ibrahim Rugova claimed victory the next day and issued a call for quick independence. Ex-rebel leader Hashim Thaci made a strong showing and a coalition was expected.

2002 – Tawfiq Fukra (23), an Israeli Arab accused of trying to hijack an El Al Airlines flight, wanted to copy the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States and fly the aircraft into a public building in Tel Aviv.

2003 – In Greece riot squads fired tear gas to disperse groups protesters throwing gasoline bombs and rocks at police guarding the US Embassy as thousands marched during a rally held to mark the anniversary of a student-led uprising in 1973. Demonstrations are held each year to protest the belief that Washington gave vital support to the 1967-74 military dictatorship that crushed the student rebellion. The November 17 or N-17 Terrorist group takes its name from the 1973 uprising.

2003 – Mexico dismissed UN Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar following his comments that the US regards Mexico as a 2nd-class country.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day


PORTER, DAVID DIXON
Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 29 April 1877, Washington, D.C. Appointed from: District of Columbia. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle at the junction of the Cadacan and Sohoton Rivers, Samar, Philippine Islands, 17 November 1901. In command of the columns upon their uniting ashore in the Sohoton Region, Col. Porter (then Capt. ) made a surprise attack on the fortified cliffs and completely routed the enemy, killing 30 and capturing and destroying the powder magazine, 40 lantacas (guns), rice, food and cuartels. Due to his courage, intelligence, discrimination and zeal, he successfully led his men up the cliffs by means of bamboo ladders to a height of 200 feet. The cliffs were of soft stone of volcanic origin, in the nature of pumice and were honeycombed with caves. Tons of rocks were suspended in platforms held in position by vines and cables (known as bejuco) in readiness to be precipitated upon people below.

After driving the insurgents from their position which was almost impregnable, being covered with numerous trails lined with poisoned spears, pits, etc., Col. Porter led his men across the river, scaled the cliffs on the opposite side, and destroyed the camps there. He and the men under his command overcame incredible difficulties and dangers in destroying positions which, according to reports from old prisoners, had taken 3 years to perfect, were held as a final rallying post, and were never before penetrated by white troops. Col. Porter also rendered distinguished public service in the presence of the enemy at Quinapundan River, Samar, Philippine Islands, on 26 October 1901.

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BUTLER, SMEDLEY DARLINGTON (Second Award)
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 30 July 1881, West Chester, Pa. Appointed from: Pennsylvania. Other Navy awards: Second Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Medal. Citation: As Commanding Officer of detachments from the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and the marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Maj. Butler led the attack on Fort Riviere, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort in an effort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Caco bandits. Reaching the fort on the southern side where there was a small opening in the wall, Maj. Butler gave the signal to attack and marines from the 15th Company poured through the breach, engaged the Cacos in hand-to-hand combat, took the bastion and crushed the Caco resistance. Throughout this perilous action, Maj. Butler was conspicuous for his bravery and forceful leadership.

GROSS, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps, 23d Co. (Real name is Marguiles, Samuel.) Born: 9 May 1891, Philadelphia, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. Citation: In company with members of the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and the marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Gross participated in the attack on Fort Riviere, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort in an effort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Caco bandits. Approaching a breach in the wall which was the only entrance to the fort, Gross was the second man to pass through the breach in the face of constant fire from the Cacos and, thereafter, for a 10-minute period, engaged the enemy in desperate hand-to-hand combat until the bastion was captured and Caco resistance neutralized.

IAMS, ROSS LINDSEY
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, 5th Co. Born: 5 May 1879, Graysville, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. Citation: In company with members of the 5th, 13th, 23d Companies and marine and sailor detachment from the U.S.S. Connecticut, Sgt. Iams participated in the attack on Fort Riviere, Haiti, 17 November 1915. Following a concentrated drive, several different detachments of marines gradually closed in on the old French bastion fort in an effort to cut off all avenues of retreat for the Caco bandits. Approaching a breach in the wall which was the only entrance to the fort, Sgt. Iams unhesitatingly jumped through the breach despite constant fire from the Cacos and engaged the enemy in a desperate hand-to-hand combat until the bastion was captured and Caco resistance neutralized.

*RAY, BERNARD J.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company F, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. Place and date: Hurtgen Forest near Schevenhutte, Germany, 17 November 1944. Entered service at: Baldwin, N.Y. Birth: Brooklyn, N.Y. G.O. No.: 115, 8 December 1945. Citation: He was platoon leader with Company F, 8th Infantry, on 17 November 1944, during the drive through the Hurtgen Forest near Schevenhutte, Germany. The American forces attacked in wet, bitterly cold weather over rough, wooded terrain, meeting brutal resistance from positions spaced throughout the forest behind minefields and wire obstacles. Small arms, machinegun, mortar, and artillery fire caused heavy casualties in the ranks when Company F was halted by a concertina-type wire barrier. Under heavy fire, 1st Lt. Ray reorganized his men and prepared to blow a path through the entanglement, a task which appeared impossible of accomplishment and from which others tried to dissuade him. With implacable determination to clear the way, he placed explosive caps in his pockets, obtained several bangalore torpedoes, and then wrapped a length of highly explosive primer cord about his body. He dashed forward under direct fire, reached the barbed wire and prepared his demolition charge as mortar shells, which were being aimed at him alone, came steadily nearer his completely exposed position. He had placed a torpedo under the wire and was connecting it to a charge he carried when he was severely wounded by a bursting mortar shell.

Apparently realizing that he would fail in his self-imposed mission unless he completed it in a few moments he made a supremely gallant decision. With the primer cord still wound about his body and the explosive caps in his pocket, he completed a hasty wiring system and unhesitatingly thrust down on the handle of the charger, destroying himself with the wire barricade in the resulting blast. By the deliberate sacrifice of his life, 1st Lt. Ray enabled his company to continue its attack, resumption of which was of positive significance in gaining the approaches to the Cologne Plain.

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18 November

1493 – Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico.

1820 – U.S. Navy Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer discovered the frozen continent of Antarctica. Nathaniel B. Palmer, born in l799 in Stonington, Connecticut like many young men of his time Nathaniel went to sea at an early age. With great tenacity, skill, and some luck, he became a ship’s master before his l9th birthday. During his early years he sailed to some of the most desolate regions of the world in search of profits from sealing and whaling. During a particular voyage to the South Atlantic in l820, Captain “Nat”, as he was known, skippered his small 47 foot sloop “Hero” southward searching for new seal rookeries. In the area at the same time was another ship’s master on a similar mission. He was Captain Bellinghaus of the Russian Imperial Navy. Captain Nat sighted land not yet shown on any chart. The next morning the Russian Captain sailed his 250 foot ship into the same area only to find the small sloop already anchored in the harbor. Curious to learn who had beaten him to this unknown land, Captain Bellinghaus signaled for the master of the sloop to come aboard his ship to identify himself. Upon meeting the young skipper, the Russian acknowledged his skill and bravery and said to him, “You, sir, have discovered new territory so let it be named Palmer Land. Today’s maps of Antarctica show Palmer Peninsula named in honor of the Yankee Skipper from Stonington.

1824 – Franz Sigel, Major General (Union volunteers), was born. Franz Sigel was born in Baden, Germany. A graduate of the German Military Academy, he resigned from the German Army in 1847 and became involved in radical politics. Sigel took part in the 1848 German Revolution and was afterwards forced to flee to Switzerland. Sigel lived in England for a while until emigrating to the United States. He taught in New York City schools before becoming the director of education in St. Louis. An opponent of slavery, he immediately joined the Union Army on the outbreak of the American Civil War. He was commissioned Colonel of the 3rd Missouri but within a few weeks had been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. Sigel commanded the 4th Brigade of Army of Southwest Missouri from January to February of 1862. He took part in the battles at Wilson’s Creek. and Pea Ridge before being appointed Major General on 21st March, 1862. Three months later he fought against Thomas Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley (4th to 26th June) and against Robert E. Lee at the 2nd Battle of Bull Run. In the winter of 1863 bad health forced Sigel to rest from active duty. He returned in March, 1864, but was badly defeated at New Market. In July he fought Major General Jubal Early at Harpers Ferry but soon afterwards was relieved of his command for “lack of aggression”. After the war Sigel went to live in Baltimore where he worked as a journalist. He later moved to New York City where he became involved in publishing and lecturing. Franz Sigel died in New York on 21st August, 1902.

1863 – Merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity, 2 days out of Matamoras bound for New York, was seized by five Southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later a Master in the Confederate Navy. They had boarded the ship as passengers. Hogg landed Joseph L. Garrity’s crew “without injury to life or limb” on the coast of Yucatan on 26 November, and sailed her to British Honduras where he entered her as blockade runner Eureka and sold her cargo of cotton. Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool, England, and charged with piracy, but on 1 June 1864, Confederate Commissioner James Mason informed Secretary of State Benjamin that they had been acquitted of the charge. In the meantime, Garrity was turned over to the custody of the U.S. commercial agent at Belize, British Honduras, and ultimately returned to her owners.

1863 – President Lincoln boards a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech at the dedication for the cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to 3, 1863. The address he gave became perhaps the most famous speech in American history. Lincoln had given much thought to what he wanted to say at Gettysburg, but he nearly missed his chance to say it. On November 18, Lincoln’s son, Tad, became ill with a fever. Abraham and Mary Lincoln were, sadly, no strangers to juvenile illness: they had already lost two sons. Prone to fits of hysteria, Mary Lincoln panicked when the president prepared to leave for Pennsylvania. Lincoln felt that the opportunity to speak at Gettysburg and present his defense of the war was too important to miss, though. He boarded a train at noon and headed for Gettysburg.

Despite his son’s illness, Lincoln was in good spirits on the journey. He was accompanied by an entourage that included Secretary of State William Seward, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Interior Secretary John Usher, Lincoln’s personal secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay, several members of the diplomat corps, some foreign visitors, a Marine band, and a military escort. During one stop, a young girl lifted a bouquet of flowers to his window. Lincoln kissed her and said, “You’re a sweet little rose-bud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.” When Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, he was handed a telegram that lifted his spirits: Tad was feeling much better. Lincoln enjoyed an evening dinner and a serenade by Fifth New York Artillery Band before he retired to finalize his famous Gettysburg Address.

1883 – At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and freight over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America by the 1880s. Since human beings had first begun keeping track of time, they set their clocks to the local movement of the sun. Even as late as the 1880s, most towns in the U.S. had their own local time, generally based on “high noon,” or the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. As railroads began to shrink the travel time between cities from days or months to mere hours, however, these local times became a scheduling nightmare. Railroad timetables in major cities listed dozens of different arrival and departure times for the same train, each linked to a different local time zone.

Efficient rail transportation demanded a more uniform time-keeping system. Rather than turning to the federal governments of the United States and Canada to create a North American system of time zones, the powerful railroad companies took it upon themselves to create a new time code system. The companies agreed to divide the continent into four time zones; the dividing lines adopted were very close to the ones we still use today. Most Americans and Canadians quickly embraced their new time zones, since railroads were often their lifeblood and main link with the rest of the world. However, it was not until 1918 that Congress officially adopted the railroad time zones and put them under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

1886 – Chester A. Arthur (56), 21st president of the United States (1881-1885), died in New York. Born in Fairfield, Vermont in 1830, and a lawyer noted for civil rights work on behalf of slaves, Arthur was a high ranking Union staff officer during the Civil War. Because he had been a loyal Republican, President Grant appointed him to the powerful position of collector of the Port of New York in 1871. Several years later President Rutherford B. Hayes, a fellow Republican from Ohio with renowned integrity, fired Arthur, alleging that he had used tax money to reward his political supporters. Although there was no doubt of Arthur’s connections with the incredibly powerful and corrupt New York political machine of that era, Arthur’s direct involvement with any illegal act could not be established with certainty. As a result, sympathy within the Republican party for what was considered unfair treatment of Arthur B. Hayes contributed to Arthur receiving the Republican Vice Presidential nod to run with James Garfield in the election of 1880, which the Garfield/Arthur ticket won.

In July 1881, after only four months in office, President Garfield was mortally wounded at the Washington railroad station by gunfire from a disgruntled office seeker and died 80 days later, leaving Chester A. Arthur as President of the United States and the third President to have served as President within a 12 month period. Spectres of the tainted past greeted Arthur when he assumed office as the political pundits of the day predicted a flood of corruption and graft. However, that never occurred and Arthur ran the presidency in an honest and upright fashion. In fact, he showed great political courage by vetoing a graft-laden “rivers and harbors” bill, by breaking relations with his former New York political boss and by vigorously prosecuting fellow Republicans accused of defrauding the government. Legislatively, though, little of any consequence was achieved during his term except for the creation of the modern Civil Service system with its competitive examinations and non-political merit system. It became law because, in another display of exceptional political courage, Chester Arthur went against the will of his own party and supported it. President Arthur could not seek a second term as President because he had been diagnosed as having kidney disease. In fact, it claimed his life within two years of leaving office.

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1890 – USS Maine, first American battleship, is launched. The first Maine, a second-class armored battleship, was laid down at the New York Navy Yard 17 October 1888; sponsored by Miss Alice Tracy Wllinerding, granddaughter of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Tracy; and commissioned 17 September 1895, Capt. Arent S. Crowninshield in command. Maine departed the New York Navy Yard 5 November 1895 for Newport, R.I., via Gardiner’s Bay, N.Y., to fit out 16 to 23 November, and then proceeded on the 25th to Portland, Me. , to visit her namesake. The battlewagon then put to sea on the 29th on trials and inspection, being as signed to the North Atlantic Squadron 16 December, and sailing via Newport to Tompkinsvllle, N.Y., arriving 23 December.

The ship sailed the next day for Fort Monroe, Va., arriving on Christmas Day. She operated out of that place and Newport News through June 1896 and then on the 4th sailed for Key West on a 2-month training cruise, returning to Norfolk 3 August. Maine continued extensive east coast operations until late 1897. Then the ship prepared for a voyage to Havana, Cuba, to show the flag and to protect American citizens in event of violence in the Spanish struggle with the revolutionary forces in Cuba. On 11 December Maine stood out of Hampton Roads bound for Key West, arriving on the 15th. She was joined there by ships of the North Atlantic Squadron on maneuvers, then left Key West 24 January 1898 for Havana.

Arriving 25 January, Maine anchored in the center of the port, remained on vigilant watch, allowed no liberty, and took extra precautions against sabotage. Shortly after 2140, 15 February, the battleship was torn apart by a tremendous explosion that shattered the entire forward part of the ship. Out of 350 officers and men on board that night (4 officers were ashore), 252 were dead or missing. Eight more were to die in Havana hospitals during the next few days. The survivors of the disaster were taken on board Ward Line steamer City of Washington and Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII. The Spanish officials at Havana showed every attention to the survivors of the disaster and great respect for those killed. The Court of Inquiry convened in March was unable to obtain evidence associating the destruction of the battleship with any person or persons. The destruction of Maine did not cause the U.S. to declare war on Spain, but it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse. In addition, the sinking and deaths of U.S. sailors rallied American opinion more strongly behind armed intervention.

The United States declared war on Spain 21 April. On 5 August 1910, Congress authorized the raising of Maine and directed Army engineers to supervise the work. A second board of inquiry appointed to inspect the wreck after it was raised reported that injuries to the ship’s bottom were caused by an external explosion of low magnitude that set off the forward magazine, completing destruction of the ship. It has never been determined who placed the explosive. Technical experts at the time of both investigations disagreed with the findings, believing that spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker adjacent to the reserve six-inch magazine was the most likely cause of the explosion on board the ship. In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover published his book, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. The admiral became interested in the disaster and wondered if the application of modern scientific knowledge could determine the cause. He called on two experts on explosions and their effects on ship hulls.

Using documentation gathered from the two official inquiries, as well as information on the construction and ammunition of Maine, the experts concluded that the damage caused to the ship was inconsistent with the external explosion of a mine. The most likely cause, they speculated, was spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker next to the magazine. Some historians have disputed the findings in Rickover’s book, maintaining that failure to detect spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker was highly unlikely. Yet evidence of a mine remains thin and such theories are based primarily on conjecture. Despite the best efforts of experts and historians in investigating this complex and technical subject, a definitive explanation for the destruction of Maine remains one of the continuing enigmas of American history. Maine’s hulk was finally floated 2 February 1912 and towed out to sea where it was sunk in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico with appropriate ceremony and military honors 16 March.

1901 – The 2nd Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed. The U.S. was given extensive rights by Britain for building and operating a canal through Central America. The course of the Spanish-American War had highlighted the need for rapid access between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Foreign policy experts began to question adherence to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, an agreement pledging the U.S. and Britain to not take independent action in constructing a transoceanic canal in Central America. Negotiations began during the McKinley administration between John Hay, the U.S. secretary of state, and Lord Julian Pauncefote, the British ambassador to Washington. Initial bargaining was slowed by disagreements over fortifying the proposed canal and seeking other signatories for any agreement that might be reached. Agreement was reached late in the year after Roosevelt had succeeded the slain McKinley.

1903 – The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed, granting the United States a strip of land across the Isthmus of Panama and the right to build and fortify the Panama Canal. Building an interoceanic canal was not a new idea at the turn of the 20th century, but U.S. acquisition of California in 1848 and territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean after the Spanish-American War made the canal crucial to American foreign policy. In January 1903, the Hay-Herran Treaty with Columbia–Panama was a part of Columbia–would have given the United States the land and the right to build a canal across Panama, but Columbia refused to ratify the treaty. Subsequently, Panamanian rebels–encouraged by American agents–rose against Columbia on November 3, 1903. After a one-day coup, in which an American warship offshore prevented Columbia from quelling the revolt and the only casualty was a donkey, Panama declared her independence. A jubilant President Theodore Roosevelt, pictured here at a Panama Canal construction site, recognized the new republic three days later. The Panama Canal, a cornerstone of Roosevelt’s aggressive foreign policy, was completed in 10 years.

1909 – Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya.

1915 – Marines participated in the Battle of Fort Riviere during the occupation of Haiti. In the dark of the night on Nov. 17 1915, Butler, leading a strong force of Marines and sailors surrounded the last stronghold of the Cacos. Fort Riviere, on a mountain to the south of Grand Riviere du Nord. At 0730 the next morning, Butler gave a signal on a whistle and all the Marines attacked. The surprise was total and the Cacos were taken in confusion. Crawling through a tunnel. Butler and his men were involved in bloody hand to hand fighting. In 15 minutes, more than 50 Cacos were killed.

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1916 – Ten JN-4 “Jennies” bi-wing aircraft lift off to undertake a historic flight, becoming the first multi-plane organization to fly a cross-country course totaling about 200 miles. They land in Princeton, NJ, and then return to Mineola the next morning, arriving to find fog and low clouds, however all the planes land safely. Starting just six years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, in 1903 several Guardsmen in different states started bringing their personal airplanes to drill to teach flying to their comrades. However, it was not until July 16, 1916 that the first National Guard flying unit received federal recognition. New York’s 1st Aero Squadron, commanded by Captain Raynal Bolling, an early flight pioneer, made this nationally recognized flight. In 1917 the unit enters active duty for World War I, but never sees combat, being disbanded with its pilots sent to France as individuals. Bolling himself would die in the war, killed not in a “dog fight” against a German airplane but rather in a pistol fight with an enemy officer after Bolling’s car was ambushed while near the Front. Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC, is named for this Guard aviator.

1922 – CDR Kenneth Whiting in a PT seaplane, makes first catapult launching from aircraft carrier, USS Langley, at anchor in the York River.

1923 – Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space, was born in East Derry, NH. Shepard began his naval career, after graduation from Annapolis, on the destroyer COGSWELL, deployed in the pacific during World War II. He subsequently entered flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas, and Pensacola, Florida, and received his wings in 1947. His next assignment was with Fighter Squadron 42 at Norfolk, Virginia, and Jacksonville, Florida. He served several tours aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean while with this squadron. In 1950, he attended the United States Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. After graduation, he participated in flight test work which included high- altitude tests to obtain data on light at different altitudes and on a variety of air masses over the American continent; and test and development experiments of the Navy’s in-flight refueling system, carrier suitability trails of the F2H3 Banshee, and Navy trials of the first angled carrier deck. He was subsequently assigned to Fighter Squadron 193 at Moffett Field, California, a night fighter unit flying Banshee jets. As operations officer of this squadron, he made two tours to the Western pacific onboard the carrier ORISKANY. He returned to Patuxent for a second tour of duty and engaged in flight testing the F3H Demon, F8U Crusader, F4D Skyray, and F11F Tigercat. He was also project test pilot on the F5D Skylancer, and his last five months at Patuxent were spent as an instructor in the Test Pilot School.

He later attended the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, and upon graduating in 1957 was subsequently assigned to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, as aircraft readiness officer. Rear Admiral Shepard was one of the Mercury astronauts named by NASA in April 1959, and he holds the distinction of being the first American to journey into space. On May 5, 1961, in the Freedom 7 spacecraft, he was launched by a Redstone vehicle on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight–a flight which carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles and to a landing point 302 statute miles down the Atlantic Missile Range. In 1963, he was designated Chief of the Astronaut Office with responsibility for monitoring the coordination, scheduling, and control of all activities involving NASA astronauts. This included monitoring the development and implementation of effective training programs to assure the flight readiness of available pilot/non-pilot personnel for assignment to crew positions on manned space flights; furnishing pilot evaluations applicable to the design, construction, and operations of spacecraft systems and related equipment; and providing qualitative scientific and engineering observations to facilitate overall mission planning, formulation of feasible operational procedures, and selection and conduct of specific experiments for each flight. He was restored to full flight status in May 1969, following corrective surgery for an inner ear disorder.

Shepard made his second space flight as spacecraft commander on Apollo 14, January 31 – February 9, 1971. He was accompanied on man’s third lunar landing mission by Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, and Edgar D. Mitchell, lunar module pilot. Maneuvering their lunar module, “Antares,” to a landing in the hilly upland Fra Mauro region of the moon, Shepard and Mitchell subsequently deployed and activated various scientific equipment and experiments and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to earth. Other Apollo 14 achievements included: first use of Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET); largest payload placed in lunar orbit; longest distance traversed on the lunar surface; largest payload returned from the lunar surface; longest lunar surface stay time (33 hours); longest lunar surface EVA (9 hours and 17 minutes); first use of shortened lunar orbit rendezvous techniques; first use of colored TV with new vidicon tube on lunar surface; and first extensive orbital science period conducted during CSM solo operations.

Rear Admiral Shepard has logged a total of 216 hours and 57 minutes in space, of which 9 hours and 17 minutes were spent in lunar surface EVA. He resumed his duties as Chief of the Astronaut Office in June 1971 and served in this capacity until he retired from NASA and the Navy on August 1, 1974. Shepard was in private business in Houston, Texas. He served as the President of the Mercury Seven Foundation, a non-profit organization which provides college science scholarships for deserving students.

1941 – 11 Japanese submarines are launched to take up station keeping off Hawaii and scouting mission. A further nine Japanese vessels sail for Hawaii from Kwajalein.

1942 – On Guadalcanal, US forces once again begin moving west with reduced opposition.

1943 – Around Aachen, the British 30th Corps (part of British 2nd Army) coordinates assaults with the US 9th and 1st Armies. Julich and Duren are penetrated. Meanwhile, US 3rd Army advances approach the German border. Bouzonville on the Nied River is captured. Metz is entered from north and south.1949 – The U.S. Air Force grounded B-29s after two crashes and 23 deaths in three days. 1950 – South Korea Pres. Syngman Rhee was forced to end mass executions.

1951 – For the first time in the Korean War, MiG jet fighters are destroyed on the ground in North Korea by two F-86 Sabres in a strafing run.

1952 – Captain Leonard W. Lilley of the 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 22nd ace of the Korean War.

1952 – F9F Panthers from the USS Oriskany shot down two Russian MiG jet fighters and damaged a third over North Korea. The Russian MiGs had been operating from a base near Vladivostok.

1955 – Bell X-2 rocket plane was taken up for its 1st powered flight. The Bell X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft designed to investigate the structural effects of aerodynamic heating as well as stability and control effectiveness at high speeds and altitudes. Two X-2 airframes, nicknamed “Starbuster,” were built at Bell’s plant in Wheatfield, N.Y., using stainless steel and K-monel (a copper-nickel alloy). The vehicles were designed to employ a two-chamber Curtiss-Wright XLR25 throttleable liquid-fueled rocket engine. It had a variable thrust rating from 2,500 to 15,000 pounds. The X-2 was equipped with an escape capsule for the pilot. In an emergency, the entire nose assembly would jettison and deploy a stabilizing parachute. Once at a safe altitude, the pilot would then manually open the canopy and bail out.

The first attempt at a powered flight took place on Oct. 25, 1955, but a nitrogen leak resulted in a decision to change the flight plan. Everest completed the mission as a glide flight. An aborted second attempt ended as a captive flight. Everest finally made the first powered X-2 flight on Nov. 18, igniting only the 5,000-pound-thrust chamber. His maximum speed during the mission was Mach 0.95. Following several aborted attempts, Everest completed a second powered flight on March 24, 1956, this time only igniting the 10,000-pound-thrust rocket chamber.

1955 – A memorial honoring the 4th Marine Brigade was dedicated at Belleau Wood, France by General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.

1961 – JFK sent 18,000 military “advisors” to South Vietnam.

1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service.

1964 – In the largest air assault of the war thus far, 116 U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft fly 1,100 South Vietnamese troops into Binh Duong and Tay Ninh Provinces to attack what is believed to be a major communist stronghold. General Nguyen Khanh personally directed the operation, but the troops made only light contact with the Viet Cong.

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1969 – Sixty South Vietnamese men are killed or wounded when their troops clash with communist forces in the Mekong Delta. The North Vietnamese lost only 14 men. A South Vietnamese spokesman said that the high South Vietnamese casualties were “due to bad fighting on our part.” The battle was the first major action in the northern delta since the U.S. 9th Division was withdrawn and the South Vietnamese assumed responsibility for the area.

1970 – President Nixon asks Congress for supplemental appropriations for the Cambodian government of Premier Lon Nol. Nixon requested $155 million in new funds for Cambodia – $85 million of which would be for military assistance, mainly in the form of ammunition. He also asked for an additional $100 million to restore funds taken from other foreign appropriations during the year by “presidential determination” and given to Cambodia. Nixon wanted the funds to provide aid and assistance to Lon Nol to preclude the fall of Cambodia to the communist Khmer Rouge and their North Vietnamese allies. Lon Nol was a Cambodian general who had overthrown the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in March 1970. He and his army, the Forces Armees Nationale Khmer (FANK), were engaged in a desperate struggle with the communists for control of the Cambodian countryside. The Nixon administration had initiated a program of aid to Lon Nol in April 1970 with $7.5 million in arms and supplies. This aid did not have an immediate impact as the government forces reeled under heavy communist attacks. Besides trying to get additional funds for more military aid for Cambodia, Nixon also committed U.S. aircraft in direct support of Cambodian government troops and initiated a program whereby U.S. Army Special Forces would train Lon Nol’s troops.

With this U.S. support, Lon Nol was able to successfully withdraw most of his forces (which numbered over 200,000 troops) from the rural areas to the larger urban centers, where they were able to hold out against the communist attacks. The fighting continued, but generally a stalemate prevailed so that neither side gained the upper hand. This situation changed in 1973 after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Under the provisions of that agreement, the United States withdrew its forces from South Vietnam and both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves fighting the communists alone. Without U.S. support, Lon Nol’s forces succumbed to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. During the five years of bitter fighting, approximately 10 percent of Cambodia’s 7 million people died, but the suffering of the Cambodian people did not end with the communist takeover. The victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and set about to reorder Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing spree and the notorious “killing fields.” During this period, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died from murder, exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

1978 – People’s Temple leader Jim Jones leads hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in remote northwestern Guyana. The few cult members who refused to take the cyanide-laced fruit-flavored concoction were either forced to do so at gunpoint or shot as they fled. The final death toll was 913, including 276 children. Jim Jones was a charismatic churchman who founded the People’s Temple, a Christian sect, in Indianapolis in the 1950s. He preached against racism, and his integrated congregation attracted mostly African Americans. In 1965, he moved the group to northern California, settling in Ukiah and after 1971 in San Francisco. In the 1970s, his church was accused by the press of financial fraud, physical abuse of its members, and mistreatment of children. In response to the mounting criticism, Jones led several hundred of his followers to South America in 1977 and set up a utopian agricultural settlement called Jonestown in the jungle of Guyana. A year later, a group of ex-members convinced U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat of California, to travel to Jonestown and investigate the commune.

On November 17, 1978, Ryan arrived in Jonestown with a group of journalists and other observers. At first the visit went well, but the next day, as Ryan’s group was about to leave, several People’s Church members approached members of the group and asked them for passage out of Guyana. Jones became distressed at the defection of his members, and one of Jones’ lieutenants attacked Ryan with a knife. Ryan escaped from the incident unharmed, but Jones then ordered Ryan and his companions ambushed and killed at the airstrip as they attempted to leave. The congressman and four others were murdered as they attempted to board their charter planes. Back in Jonestown, Jones directed his followers in a mass suicide in a clearing in the town. With Jones exhorting the “beauty of dying” over a loudspeaker, hundreds drank a lethal cyanide and Flavor-Aid drink. Those who tried to escape were chased down and shot by Jones’ lieutenants. Jones died of a gunshot wound in the head, probably self-inflicted. Guyanese troops, alerted by a cult member who escaped, reached Jonestown the next day. Only a dozen or so followers survived, hidden in the jungle. Most of the 913 dead were lying side by side in the clearing where Jones had preached to them for the last time.

1979 – Ayatollah Khomeini charged US ambassador and embassy of espionage.

1987 – After nearly a year of hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal, the joint Congressional investigating committee issues its final report. It concluded that the scandal, involving a complicated plan whereby some of the funds from secret weapons sales to Iran were used to finance the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was one in which the administration of Ronald Reagan exhibited “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law.” Naming several members of the Reagan administration as having been directly involved in the scheme (including National Security Advisor John Poindexter and deceased CIA Director William Casey), the report stated that Reagan must bear “ultimate responsibility.” A number of government officials were charged and convicted of various crimes associated with the scandal. A minority opinion by some of the Republican members of the committee contained in the report argued that the hearings had been politically motivated. They also suggested that while Reagan administration officials might have used poor judgment, the ultimate end-continuing the fight against the leftist regime in Nicaragua-was a worthy goal.

1990 – President Bush began a series of meetings in Paris with allied leaders aimed at solidifying support for his Persian Gulf policies.

1990 – In Iraq Saddam offered to free an estimated 2,000 men held in Kuwait.

1996 – Harold James Nicholson, former CIA station chief, was arrested for espionage. He was said to have started passing information to Russia from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June of 1994 and collected [more than $120,000] as much as $180,000. He was the highest-ranking CIA official ever arrested for espionage. Nicholson was arrested at a Washington, D. C., airport en route to a clandestine meeting in Europe with his Russian intelligence handlers. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying rolls of exposed film which contained Secret and Top Secret information. In March 1997, Nicholson pleaded guilty to the charges, and he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

1997 – In Russia Tariq Aziz and Pres. Yeltsin worked on a peaceful resolution to the UN weapons inspection crises and announced a plan.

1998 – Serbian President Milan Milutinovic rejected a US blueprint for the future of Kosovo, saying that it gave too much power to the ethnic Albanians.

2000 – In Florida the absentee ballot count raised Governor Bush’s lead over Al Gore to 930 votes.

2001 – Northern Alliance leaders agreed to join UN sponsored talks to form a new government. Haji Qadir formed a new alliance to govern Jalalabad. US planes continued strikes around Kunduz and Kandahar. US strikes on a Taliban convoy were later considered as a marking point for the downfall of the Taliban.

2001 – In Spain 8 men, Soldiers of Allah, detained last week were reported to be members of the al Qaeda network and to have played a role in the September 11th attacks.

2002 – UN inspectors returned to Iraq after a 4-year hiatus to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction.

2003 – President Bush brought a forceful defense of the Iraq invasion to skeptical Britons, arguing that history proves war is sometimes necessary when certain values are threatened.

2003 – The UN war crimes tribunal issued an indictment against former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic on five counts of war crimes for a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Krajina region of Croatia early in the Balkan wars.

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2013 – NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars. Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN) is a space probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. Mission goals include determining how the Martian atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time. MAVEN was successfully launched aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle. Following the first engine burn of the Centaur second stage, the vehicle coasted in low Earth orbit for 27 minutes before a second Centaur burn of five minutes to insert it into a heliocentric Mars transit orbit. On September 22, 2014, MAVEN reached Mars and was inserted into an areocentric elliptic orbit 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above the planet’s surface. NASA reported that MAVEN, as well as the Mars Odyssey Orbiter and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, were healthy after the Comet Siding Spring flyby on October 19, 2014.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

NIETZEL, ALFRED B.
Rank and Organization: Sergeant. U.S. Army. Company H, 16th Infantry Regiment. 1st Infantry Division. Place and Date: November 18, 1944, Heistern, Germany. Born: April 27, 1921, Queens, NY . Departed: Yes (11/18/1944). Entered Service At: Jamaica, NY. G.O. Number: . Date of Issue: 03/18/2014. Accredited To: . Citation: Nietzel is being recognized for his valorous actions in Heistern, Germany, Nov. 18, 1944. When an enemy assault threatened to overrun his unit’s position, Nietzel selflessly covered for the retreating members of his squad, expending all his ammunition and holding his post until he was killed by an enemy hand grenade.

DAVIS, SAMMY L.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Battery C, 2d Battalion, 4th Artillery, 9th Infantry Division. Place and date: West of Cai Lay, Republic of Vietnam, 18 November 1967. Entered service at: Indianapolis, Ind. Born: 1 November 1946, Dayton, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Davis (then Pfc.) distinguished himself during the early morning hours while serving as a cannoneer with Battery C, at a remote fire support base. At approximately 0200 hours, the fire support base was under heavy enemy mortar attack. Simultaneously, an estimated reinforced Viet Cong battalion launched a fierce ground assault upon the fire support base. The attacking enemy drove to within 25 meters of the friendly positions. Only a river separated the Viet Cong from the fire support base. Detecting a nearby enemy position, Sgt. Davis seized a machine gun and provided covering fire for his gun crew, as they attempted to bring direct artillery fire on the enemy. Despite his efforts, an enemy recoilless rifle round scored a direct hit upon the artillery piece. The resultant blast hurled the guncrew from their weapon and blew Sgt. Davis into a foxhole. He struggled to his feet and returned to the howitzer, which was burning furiously. Ignoring repeated warnings to seek cover, Sgt. Davis rammed a shell into the gun.

Disregarding a withering hail of enemy fire directed against his position, he aimed and fired the howitzer which rolled backward, knocking Sgt. Davis violently to the ground. Undaunted, he returned to the weapon to fire again when an enemy mortar round exploded within 20 meters of his position, injuring him painfully. Nevertheless, Sgt. Davis loaded the artillery piece, aimed and fired. Again he was knocked down by the recoil. In complete disregard for his safety, Sgt. Davis loaded and fired 3 more shells into the enemy. Disregarding his extensive injuries and his inability to swim, Sgt. Davis picked up an air mattress and struck out across the deep river to rescue 3 wounded comrades on the far side. Upon reaching the 3 wounded men, he stood upright and fired into the dense vegetation to prevent the Viet Cong from advancing. While the most seriously wounded soldier was helped across the river, Sgt. Davis protected the 2 remaining casualties until he could pull them across the river to the fire support base. Though suffering from painful wounds, he refused medical attention, joining another howitzer crew which fired at the large Viet Cong force until it broke contact and fled. Sgt. Davis’ extraordinary heroism, at the risk of his life, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

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19 November

1493 – Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico on his 2nd voyage. Populated for centuries by aboriginal peoples, the island was claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1493 following Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas. In 1898, after 400 years of colonial rule that saw the indigenous population nearly exterminated and African slave labor introduced, Puerto Rico was ceded to the US as a result of the Spanish-American War. Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917. Popularly-elected governors have served since 1948. In 1952, a constitution was enacted providing for internal self government. In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose to retain commonwealth status.

1620 – The Pilgrims reached Cape Cod. Mariner Bartholomew Gosnold (1572-1607) sailed the New England coast in 1602, naming things as he went. He gave the name ‘Cape Cod’ to the sandy, 105km/65mi-long peninsula that juts eastward from mainland Massachusetts into the Atlantic. When the Pilgrims first set foot in the New World in November 1620, it was at the site of Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. They rested only long enough to draw up rules of governance (the Mayflower Compact) before setting sail westward in search of a more congenial place for their settlement, which they found at Plymouth. Later settlers stayed on the Cape, founding fishing villages along the coasts. The fishing industry drew boat builders and salt makers. Soon there were farmers working the cranberry bogs as well, and whaling ships bringing home rich cargoes of oil and whalebone.

1752 – George Rogers Clark, frontier military leader in Revolutionary War, was born. George Rogers Clark was the second son of John and Ann Rogers Clark. Both families were Virginia landholders, and after their marriage they moved to a 400 acre farm left to Clark by his father, Jonathan. This land was located on the Rivanna River, two miles east of Charlottesville and two and one-half miles northwest of Shadwell, where Thomas Jefferson was born. In 1772, just turning 20 years of age, Clark left on a surveying trip to the West. During the next four years, he located land for himself, his family and other friends in Virginia and acted as a guide for settlers. He participated in Lord Dunmore’s War and gained recognition as a formidable Indian fighter. Increased Indian harassment of the Kentucky settlers led Clark to call a meeting of representatives from all the forts at Harrodsburg, KY in June 1776. He and another delegate were elected to go to Virginia to seek a more definite connection between Kentucky and Virginia. They wanted recognition and protection as a county, and failing this, Clark advocated a separate state.

Governor Patrick Henry and the Executive Council granted him 500 pounds of gunpowder for the defense of Kentucky, and the General Assembly made Kentucky a county of Virginia. The fact that the Kentucky settlers entrusted Clark with such great responsibility at the age of 24, and that he was sufficiently persuasive to bring the General Assembly and a number of important men around to his way of thinking was indicative of his personal charisma, speaking abilities, leadership and qualities of mind. He was well over six feet tall, had red hair and was reliably reported to have been rugged and handsome. The fear and respect which he inspired in his Indian enemies indicated that he was a formidable warrior. Contemporary records show that he enjoyed an unusual rapport with his men, inspiring them to believe that they were unbeatable and firing them with an eagerness for battle. Even after he had lost favor in the East, he was still the leader of choice on the frontier among the men who knew his abilities best. He was also a leader in setting up the forms of government on the frontier, and whenever possible he used diplomacy and bluff rather than battle in dealing with the Indians.

When he retired to Clarksville in later life, the Indian chiefs and warriors still came to smoke the pipe of peace and friendship with their conqueror, calling him “the first man living, the great and invincible long-knife.” In the year of the “Bloody ’77s” Clark returned the gunpowder to Kentucky settlements. The settlements were attacked continually and had difficulty planting or harvesting crops to sustain them through the coming winter. Clark learned that the “hair buyer” Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton was paying the Indians for prisoners and scalps in Detroit and supplying them from posts in the Illinois country. After receiving reports from two spies he had sent to the Illinois country, Clark returned to Virginia to outline a plan of attack to Governor Henry. He received authority from the General Assembly to raise a force for the defense of Kentucky and a commission as Lieutenant Colonel over a force of seven companies with 50 men each. Secretly, Henry gave him written orders to attack Kaskaskia and posts in the Illinois Country. With battles raging in the East, Clark had difficulty raising the authorized force and finally set out from Redstone and Fort Pitt with only 150 frontiersmen and some 20 settlers and their families. Reaching the Falls of Ohio, they established a supply base on Corn Island and were joined by a handful of reinforcements from the Holston River settlements. Clark revealed his plan to attack Kaskaskia and was hard-pressed to prevent desertions.

On June 26, 1778, 175 men left for Kaskaskia. They “shot the falls” during a total eclipse of the sun and concluded that this was a good omen for the campaign (perhaps at Clark’s suggestion?). With oars double-manned they avoided detection and reached the mouth of the Tennessee River where they hid the boats and marched overland for six days. They were dressed in Indian fashion and proceeded single-file in order to leave fewer tracks to reveal their presence. They surprised Kaskaskia on the night of July 4, occupying the fort and the town without a shot being fired. Clark offered the French inhabitants “all of the privileges of American citizenship” in return for their oath of allegiance of safe conduct out of the area. This offer and the news of the recent French-American alliance won their support. Captain Bowman was then dispatched to Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher and St. Phillip. These communities also accepted Clark’s terms without resistance.

In 1809 he suffered a stroke which necessitated the amputation of his right leg. This was performed without anesthetic, and at Clark’s request two fifers and two drummers played outside for two hours during the operation. He lived thereafter at Locust Grove, eight miles from Louisville, KY, with his sister Lucy and her husband, Maj. William Croghan, until he suffered a third stroke and died at the age of 66 on February 13, 1818. His body was moved from the family plot to Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville in 1869. In his funeral oration, Judge John Rowan said, “The mighty oak of the forest has fallen, and now the scrub oaks may sprout all around …. The father of the western country is no more.”

1794 – The United States and Britain signed the Jay Treaty, which resolved some issues left over from the Revolutionary War. This was the 1st US extradition treaty.

1813 – Capt. David Porter took formal possession of Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands, but this act was not recognized by the U.S. government.

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1831 – James Abram Garfield (d.1881) the 20th Pres. of the US, was born in Orange, Ohio in a log cabin, the youngest of five children. His father, Abram Garfield, was a native of New York, but of Massachusetts ancestry, descended from Edward Garfield, an English Puritan, who in 1630 was one of the founders of Watertown. His mother, Eliza Ballou, was born in New Hampshire, of a Huguenot family that fled from France to New England in 1685. Abram Garfield moved his family to Ohio in 1830, and settled in what was then known as “The Wilderness”. Abram made a prosperous beginning as a farmer and a canal construction worker in his new home, but died at the age of thirty-three after a sudden illness. Eliza Garfield brought up her young family unaided in a lonely cabin and impressed on them he high standard of moral and intellectual worth. She displayed almost heroic courage. Hers was a life of struggle and poverty, but the poverty of her home differed from that of cities or settled communities – it was the poverty of the frontier and all shared it.

James A. Garfield started school at the age of three, attending classes in a log hut and learned to read and began a habit of reading that would only end with his life. At ten years of age he was helping out his mother’s meager income by working at home or on the farm of the neighbors. Labor was play to the healthy boy and he did it cheerfully, for his mother’s hymns and songs sent her children to their tasks with a feeling that the work was honorable. By the time he was fourteen, young Garfield was fairly knowledgeable in arithmetic and grammar and was particularly interested in the facts of American history, having eagerly gathered information from the meager treaties that circulated in that remote section of Ohio. In fact, he read and reread every book the scanty libraries of his part of the wilderness supplied, and many he learned by heart.

On November 11, 1858, James A. Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph, his fellow student at Geauga Academy. The couple had seven children: Eliza A. Garfield (1860-63); Harry A. Garfield (1863-1942); James R. Garfield (1865-1950); Mary Garfield (1867-1947); Irvin M. Garfield (1870-1951); Abram Garfield (1872-1958); and Edward Garfield (1874-76).

The Civil War came, and Garfield, who had been a farmer, carpenter, student, teacher, lawyer, preacher and legislator, was to show himself an excellent soldier. In August 1861, Governor William Dennison commissioned him lieutenant colonel in the 42nd regiment of Ohio volunteers. The men were his old pupils at Hiram College, whom he had persuaded to enlist. Promoted to the command of this regiment, he drilled it into military efficiency while awaiting orders to the front.

In December, 1861, he reported to General Buell in Louisville, Kentucky. General Buell was so impressed by the soldierly condition of the regiment that he gave Colonel Garfield a brigade, and assigned him the difficult task of driving the confederate general Humphrey Marshall from eastern Kentucky. Buell’s confidence was such that he allowed the young soldier to lay his own plans, though on their success hung the fate of Kentucky. The undertaking itself was difficult. General Marshall had 5,000 men, while Garfield had only half that number, and must march through a state where the majority of the people were hostile, to attack an enemy strongly entrenched in a mountainous country. Garfield, not daunted at all, concentrated his little force and moved it with such rapidity, sometimes here and sometimes there, that General Marshall was deceived by his moves and still more by false reports which were skillfully prepared for him. Marshall abandoned his position and many of his supplies at Paintville, and was caught in retreat by Garfield, who charged the full force of the enemy and maintained a hand-to-hand fight with it for five hours. The enemy had 5,000 men and 12 cannons; Garfield had no artillery and but 1,100 men. Garfield held his own until reinforced by Generals Graner and Sheldon, when Marshall gave way, leaving Garfield the victor at Middle Creek, January 10, 1862, one of the most important of the minor battles of the war. Shortly afterward the Confederates lost the state of Kentucky.

In recognition of his service, President Lincoln made the young Garfield a Brigadier General dating his commission from the battle of Middle Creek. During Garfield’s campaign of the Big Sandy, he was engaged in breaking up some scattered Confederate encampments, his supplies gave out and he was faced with starvation. Going himself to the Ohio River, Garfield seized a steamer, loaded it with provisions and on the refusal of any pilot to undertake a perilous voyage (the river was high and running very fast), he took the helm and for forty-eight hours piloted the craft through the dangerous channel. In order to surprise Marshall who was then entrenched in Cumberland Gap, Garfield marched his soldiers 100 miles in four days through a blinding snowstorm. Returning to Louisville, he found that Buell was away, and overtook him at Columbia Tennessee and was assigned to the command of the 20th Brigade. He reached Shiloh in time to take part in the second day’s fight, was engaged in all the operation in front of Corinth, and in June, 1862, rebuilt the bridges on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and exhibited noticeable engineering skill in repairing the fortifications of Huntsville. The unhealthfulness of this region overcame Garfield, and on July 30, 1862, he returned to Hiram, under leave of absence, where he lay ill for two months. After regaining his strength, Garfield reported to Washington and was ordered to court-martial duty, and gained a very respectful reputation in this practice. Garfield was retuned to duty under General Rosencrans who made him his chief of staff, with responsibilities beyond those usually given to this office.

After the Union loss at the Battle of Chickamauga, Garfield volunteered to take news of the defeat to General George H. Thomas, who held the left of the line. It was a bold ride, under constant fire, but he reached Thomas and gave the information that saved the Army of the Cumberland. For this action he was made a major general on September 19, 1863, promoted for gallantry on a field that was lost. With a future military career so bright before him, Garfield, always unselfish, yielded his own ambition to a request by Mr. Lincoln that he hasten to Washington to sit in Congress. Garfield had been chosen fifteen months before as the successor of Joshua R. Giddings. James A. Garfield was thirty-two years old when he entered congress. In December 1863, he started his first term as a representative for his home district. He was reelected for eight successive terms to the same office. His military reputation had preceded him and secured for him a place in the Committee on Military Affairs, then the most important in congress. Garfield was a loyal Republican. He favored a policy of “hard money” the principle that all paper money issued by the government should be secured by gold or silver.

After the Civil War he sided with the radical faction of the Republican Party, supporting seizure of the property of those who had served the Confederacy and demanding voting rights for blacks. In 1865, Garfield, at his own request, was changed from the Committee on Military Affairs to the influential Ways and Means Committee. He soon became a power in his party. In 1876, James G. Blaine of Massachusetts resigned his seat to serve in the Senate. James A. Garfield assumed the Republican leadership in the House. During his rise to power, Garfield was connected to two incidents that tarnished his record, one involving an alleged bribe to delay a congressional investigation of Credit Mobilier Company, which had made illegal profits fro government contracts. The other involved accepting fees from a company trying to obtain a paving contract for Washington, D.C. Garfield denied all charges but remained his own harshest critic that he had not shown his usual cautiousness in avoiding any connection with any matter which could come up for congressional review. His Ohio constituents knew both scandals in 1874, but he was reelected for another term. James A. Garfield was elected the United States Senator from Ohio in 1880. Before his term began, he became involved in the presidential campaign of 1880. He supported Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman, another Ohioan, and was head of his state’s delegation and manager of the Sherman campaign at the Republican national convention. He worked hard to win convention delegates for Sherman. He was chairman of the rules committee and he persuaded the convention to permit delegates to vote individually rather than in state blocks.

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{ Garfield...Continued }

This system freed many delegates from party dictated support, however, no candidate was able to muster a majority. Garfield addressed the convention on behalf of Sherman, but he spoke for 15 minutes before he mentioned Sherman’s name. Many suspected that Garfield was placing himself in nomination and he probably won more cheers for himself than for his candidate. There is no evidence to suggest that he was disloyal to Sherman but finally on the 36th ballot on the convention’s sixty day, Garfield himself was nominated for president. Chester A. Arthur, a former customs collector of the Port of New York was nominated for vice president. Garfield won the election but he did not have a majority of the popular vote. He received 214 electoral votes to Democrat Winfield S. Hancock’s 155, however, his electoral margin came mainly for Northern states as he received 4,454,416 popular votes compared to Hancock’s 4,444,952. After the election Garfield surrendered his Senate seat to which he had been elected and he resigned from the House. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. Once in office, Garfield took a stand against political corruption. In May he won a showdown with a powerful New York Senator, Roscoe Conkling, with his choice of Conkling’s rival to head the New York Customs House. The early summer came and peace and happiness and the growing strength and popularity of his administration cheered Garfield’s heart.

On the morning of July 2, 1881, the president was setting out on a trip to New England. He was passing through the waiting room of the Baltimore and Potomac railroad depot at nine o’clock in the morning with Mr. James G. Blaine, his close friend. Charles Guiteau, a lawyer who’s application to be the U. S. ambassador to France was denied, fired two shots at President Garfield. One bullet grazed the President’s arm but the other one had entered his back, fractured a rib and lodged itself somewhere inside Garfield’s body. Guiteau, a religious fanatic stated that he shot Garfield in order “to unite the Republican Party and save the Republic”. Guiteau readily gave himself up after the shooting – he reportedly had arranged to have a hansom cab wait for him outside to take him to jail because he was afraid that an angry mob would form and lynch him. The Washington police arrested him.

Garfield, who never lost consciousness, was taken to the White House. Under the highest medical skill of the day, Garfield lingered between life and death for more than ten weeks. There were two methods of treatment at the time for bullet wounds. First, if the bullet had penetrated an organ, it would mean certain death without surgery to remove it. Second if the bullet hadn’t penetrated an organ it would be better to delay surgery until the condition of the patient stabilized. The first doctor to see the President, Dr. Willard Bliss stuck his finger into the wound (unsterilized) trying to probe and find the bullet. He never found it but the passageway that he dug through the President later confused physicians as to the bullet’s path. They concluded that the bullet had penetrated the liver and surgery would be of no help. They were wrong.

In an effort to find the bullet, Alexander Graham Bell devised a crude metal detector. On July 26, Bell and his assistant, Tainter and Simon Newcomb (who originally had the idea of the metal detector) made their first attempt to locate the bullet in Garfield’s body. There were also five White House doctors and several aides present for the experiment. Garfield expressed fear of being electrocuted and Bell reassured him. The results of the experiment were inconclusive as there was a hum no matter where the wand was placed on the president’s body. Bell was unaware that the White House was one of the few that had a coil spring mattress that had just been invented. Very few people had even heard of them. If Bell had moved Garfield off the bed, their apparatus would have detected where the bullet was and likely, knowing this, the surgeons could have saved James A. Garfield’s life. In the end, the doctors had taken a three-inch wound and turned it into a twenty-inch gouge that was massively infected. On September 15, 1881, symptoms of blood poisoning appeared. Garfield lingered until September 19, 1881 when, after a few hours of unconsciousness, he died.

1835 – Fitzhugh Lee (d.1905), Major General (Confederate Army), was born. The son of a U.S. (and later Confederate) naval officer, Lee was born in Virginia. He attended the West Point Military Academy from 1852-1856, flirting with expulsion for pranks before graduating 45 out of a class of 49. Following graduation, Lee served as a cavalry officer in Texas for two and a half years before being appointed an assistant instructor of tactics at West Point in late 1860. While in Texas, Lee saw his first combat in battles against Indians. He was seriously wounded in a skirmish on May 19, 1859. Lee’s tenure as an instructor at his alma mater would last only 6 months. Like many Southern officers (including Lee’s famous uncle, Robert E. Lee) he resigned his commission in May, 1861 and was named a first lieutenant in the regular Confederate army shortly after. Promotion in the Confederate army was fast for young Lee (far faster than it would have been in a peacetime US Army!); he rose to lieutenant-colonel in August, then to brigadier-general the following July. His highest rank, major-general, would be attained in September, 1863; after achieving his greatest notoriety in the Battle of Chancellorsville where, leading the only full brigade of Confederate cavalry, he guarded the Confederate’s flanking march around Union General Hooker’s exposed right wing. Lee saw much more action throughout the war.

In September, 1864 he was wounded again and out of action for four months. By the time of his return, however, the Southern fate was all but certain. Lee surrendered on April 11, 1865. Following a short stint as a Union prisoner, Lee turned his efforts to farming, taking pride in his success in the endeavor. In addition to farming Lee wrote several books in this period. He also began improving his political skills. Lacking any boastfulness and quick-witted, with an excellent sense of humor, the above-average soldier was an even better politician. The unusual mix of abilities would serve him well. The public arena beckoned a return in 1885, as Lee’s famous name and popular personality gained him election as governor of Virginia. Though his single term was relatively uneventful, it served to cast him in the political arena.

In 1893 he was defeated for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate. The following year he wrote his finest book, a biography of Uncle Robert E. Lee. Democratic President Grover Cleveland, battling the continued economic woes of the 1890’s, diplomatic troubles with Spain and England, and harsh congressional critics such as conservative Henry Cabot Lodge, appointed Lee consul-general to Havana in 1896. Lee arrived in June to an island torn by civil war and mass poverty.

Three weeks after his arrival he informed the State Department that Cuban rebels did not have the strength to drive the Spanish out, but that the Spanish were equally unable to subdue the rebellion. He railed against the Spanish tactics to suppress the rebels and fought for the rights of American citizens in Cuba (including some suspected by the Spanish of aiding the rebels and held captive in Cuba, such as crewmen of the filibustering vessel COMPETITOR, and Dr. Ricardo Ruiz de Ugarrio y Salvador, a naturalized American citizen). Ironically, Lee won the praise of Cleveland’s staunchest critics, who used Lee’s strong stance against Spain as further fuel against the more benevolent President. Lodge wrote of Lee’s “good sense and firm courage,” while lamenting that Lee “was not sustained by the (Cleveland) Administration as he should have been.” December, 1897 saw more unrest in Havana. While much of the violence wasactually caused by the Cuban rebels (often directed toward American-owned sugar plantations), Lee’s concern was chiefly the safety of Americans in Cuba, thus causing him to exaggerate the threat he feared from Cubans loyal to Spain. Lee requested a warship be ready in Key West in case violence erupted. The MAINE was ordered to Florida in January, and Captain Sigsbee maintained steady communication with the consul-general’s office. Early that month, the situation appeared to Lee to have taken aturn for the worse. He sent a preliminary signal to Sigsbee, prompting him to ready his ship. Whether Lee felt he had over-estimated the danger or the situation calmed, he never sent a further call for the MAINE.

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{ Lee...Continued }

President McKinley and Navy Secretary John Long, however, did order MAINE to Havana. Though Lee was unnerved by the MAINE’s sudden arrival when he had specifically advised against it’s visit at that time, months later he would recall the arrival as “a beautiful sight and one long to be remembered.” Perhaps this underscored his own uncertainty of the situation. Adding to the uncertainty was the prospect of growing German influence in the Caribbean (which, some speculate, was McKinley’s motivation in sending the MAINE to Cuba). Whatever the reasoning, late 1897-early-1898 saw Lee take a step back from his earlier blatant criticism of the Spanish. Proponents of Lee in 1896-8 saw his actions as decisive and pro-American, leading nicely to the “splendid little war,” while later critics would charge that his misreading of the Cuban situation (which, some would believe was intentional) moved both sides closer to war. In spite of Lee’s misgivings, MAINE arrived in Havana on January 25. Lee and Sigsbee were treated to a bullfight by hosting Spanish officers as part of the “good will” visit.

Underneath it all, however, was an undeniable tension. Washington soon began to realize that the presence of the MAINE would only serve temporary goals, and many wondered how long she should remain in Havana. One of those who worried about overstaying his welcome was Secretary of Navy Long. Nearly the opposite of his fiery assistant, Theodore Roosevelt, Long openly considered pulling the MAINE out of Cuba. Upon that suggestion, Lee threw away earlier objections to the ships visit, and both he and Sigsbee strongly opposed withdrawing the MAINE, unless it was relieved by another warship. “Many will claim Spain demanded it should go,” Lee wrote Washington,” we are master of the situation here and I would not disturb or alter it.” The explosion of the MAINE on February 15 suddenly changed everything. While McKinley and Washington moved closer to war by the day, Lee’s chief concern was the safety and evacuation of Americans in Cuba. As threats and ultimatums grew more intense, Lee cabled the President for more time, stating that he could not assure the safety of all Americans by Tuesday, April 5, a deadline previously set for Spanish agreement to terms set forth by the White House. He requested McKinley delay any statements until at least Saturday the 9th. Under intense pressure McKinley stalled, delaying the message that would lead to war until Monday, April 11, a day after Lee’s arrival in Florida.

Following his return to a hero’s welcome in the U.S., Lee was commissioned major-general of volunteers and assigned the VII Army Corps. The appointment was largely political, as McKinley had made it a point to place a few well known former Confederate officers in key commands to unite the nation (Joe Wheeler was another). VII Corps trained in preparation of a major role in a fall offensive, though the war’s quick end (quicker than many thought, that is) kept VII Corps from any action. Lee’s logistical and planning abilities and previous military experience exhibited itself through the VII Corp’s few health and administrative problems; problems which plagued many of the other army corps. After the war he commanded what amounted to an army of occupation in Havana and was charged with the restoration of order on the island. Fitzhugh Lee retired a brigadier-general on March 2, 1901. He died four years later. Lee was buried in his U.S. Army uniform, which caused one ex-Confederate to say “What’ll Stonewall think when Fitz turns up in heaven wearing that!”

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most famous speeches in American history at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Using just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly articulated the meaning of the conflict for a war-weary public. For some time, Lincoln had been planning to make a public statement on the significance of the war and the struggle against slavery. In early November, he received an invitation to speak at the dedication of part of the Gettysburg battlefield, which was being transformed into a cemetery for the soldiers who had died in battle there from July 1 to 3, 1863. A popular myth suggests that Lincoln hastily scribbled his speech on the back of an envelope during his trip to Gettysburg, but he had actually begun crafting his words well before the trip. At the dedication, the crowd listened for two hours to Edward Everett before Lincoln approached the podium. His address lasted just two minutes, and many in the audience were still making themselves comfortable when he finished.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

1911 – New York received the first Marconi wireless transmission from Italy.

1919 – The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 55 in favor to 39 against, short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.

1923 – Oklahoma Governor Walton was ousted by state senate for anti-Ku Klux Klan measures. The conflict between the Klan and the Farmer-Labor Reconstruction League/Democratic Governor John “Our Jack ” Walton is near legendary in Oklahoma history. Between 1923 and 1925 the Klan’s rise dominated politics in Oklahoma. Outraged by Walton’s use of martial law to quell racial violence in Tulsa, putting down a riot in May 1921, Klansman and other reactionaries urged Walton’s impeachment, and were successful in obtaining it. Socialists increasingly became the objects of Klan scorn, spurred by conservative newspapers, which would publish the names of “undesirables”; giving the Klan a clue as to who to accost. Socialist-leaning papers put up valiant resistance and attacked the Klan and won a few skirmishes but ultimately lost the war when unprecedented social change would force them to migrate elsewhere.

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1942 – French forces at Medjez el Bab, Tunisia hold off the German attacks and are reinforced by British and American troops. The German are now led by General Nehring. French General Barre as planned turns his forces over to the Allies. Meanwhile in Libya, The British 8th Army enters Benghazi.

1942 – US troops coming from Pongani, New Guinea begin their attack on the well fortified Japanese positions at Buna, believing that it is lightly held. The Australians are closing on Gona and a mixed Allied force is moving toward the Japanese positions at Sanananda.

1943 – CG Air Station at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, designated as helicopter training base.

1943 – Carrier aircraft of US Task Force 50 (Admiral Pownall) raid Mili, Tarawa, Makin and Nauru as a prelude to landings. Four carrier groups are engaged in the operation. There are 11 carriers, 5 battleships and 6 cruisers in the American task force.

1943 – USS Nautilus (SS-168) enters Tarawa lagoon in first submarine photograph reconnaissance mission.

1944 – Forces of US 9th Army defeat a counterattack by German forces and occupy Geilenkirchen, north of Aachen. US 3rd Army completes the encirclement of Metz. Farther south, French 1st Army forces reach the outskirts of Belfort as well as the Swiss border north of Basle.

1944 – US Task Force 38 continues air strikes against targets on Luzon and shipping in Manila Bay. Japanese losses are claimed to be 1 cruiser and 3 other vessels.

1944 – It is estimated that the cost of the war is now about $250 million per day. Looking for ways to fund World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the 6th War Loan Drive on this day. The Loan Drive flooded the market with war bonds intended to meet Roosevelt’s goals of “immediately” raising $14 billion for the war.

1950 – US General Dwight D. Eisenhower became supreme commander of NATO.

1950 – X Corps First Marine Division commander, Major General O.P. Smith moved his units carefully northward toward the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

1953 – US VP Richard Nixon visited Hanoi. Nixon’s first of four visits to Vietnam, prior to his own presidency was part of his extensive Asian tour undertaken on behalf of President Eisenhower. The French colonial presence would soon end in defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Vice President Nixon came away convinced that the French failure to adequately train and inspire the Indochinese to defend themselves against Communist aggression would be their undoing.

1961 – At the request of President of Dominican Republic, U.S. Naval Task Force sails to Dominican Republic to bolster the country’s government and to prevent a coup.

1962 – Fidel Castro accepted the removal of Soviet weapons.

1963 – Cambodia declares an end to all US military and economic aid. Sihanouk charges that the CIA is trying to oust him from power.

1967 – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passes a resolution to curb the commitment of U.S. armed forces and a resolution urging the President Johnson to take the initiative to have the Vietnamese conflict brought before the United Nations Security Council.

1969 – Navy astronauts CDR Charles Conrad Jr. and CDR Alan L. Bean are 3rd and 4th men to walk on the moon. They were part of Apollo 12 mission. CDR Richard F. Gordon, Jr., the Command Module Pilot, remained in lunar orbit. During the mission lasting 19 days, 4 hours, and 36 minutes, the astronauts recovered 243 lbs of lunar material. Recovery by HS-4 helicopters from USS Hornet (CVS-12). Conrad not a tremendously tall person; the one-meter jump down from the bottom rung of the ladder was a bit intimidating, but now it gave him a chance to set the tone for the mission. The time for historic phrases had past; now it was time to have fun. “Whoopie!” he said as he made the plunge. “Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.” Bean soon joined Conrad on the surface and they got busy deploying the scientific gear. As on Apollo 11, there was a TV camera, a seismometer, and a laser reflector. And they also had a more-sophisticated solar-wind analyzer and a number of other physics packages that made up the ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) that had gotten bumped off Apollo 11.

Most of the equipment, together with a central power station and transmitter, was stowed in two compact packages tucked away in the Descent Stage. Bean lifted them down with a pulley and attached them to the ends of a carrying bar – which would double as a radio antenna mast – in dumbbell fashion. The complete ALSEP weighed 250 pounds on Earth, but only about 40 pounds on the Moon, and Bean had no particular trouble hauling the load to the deployment site about one hundred fifty meters west of the LM. The two experiment packages tended to bounce up and down as he walked and that made gripping the bar a little difficult; but, generally, he and Conrad had very few problems with this first major set of tasks.

1971 – Cambodians appeal to Saigon for help as communist forces move closer to Phnom Penh. Saigon officials revealed that in the previous week, an eight-person Cambodian delegation flew to the South Vietnamese capital to officially request South Vietnamese artillery and engineer support for beleaguered Cambodian government troops. Cambodian Premier Lon Nol and his troops were involved in a life or death struggle with the communist Khmer Rouge force and their North Vietnamese allies for control of the country.

1979 – Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

1984 – The Coast Guard accepts the new HH-65A Dolphin helicopter for service. The HH-65A is used to perform search and rescue; enforcement of laws and treaties (including drug interdiction), polar ice-breaking, marine environmental protection including pollution control, and military readiness missions. Though normally stationed ashore, the HH-65A can land and take-off from 210-foot WMEC, 270-foot WMEC, and 378-foot WHEC Coast Guard Cutters. These cutters are capable of refueling and supporting the helicopter for the duration of a cutter patrol.

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1985 – For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. Meeting in Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev produced no earth-shattering agreements. However, the meeting boded well for the future, as the two men engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a sincere and close relationship. The meeting came as somewhat of a surprise to some in the United States, considering Reagan’s often incendiary rhetoric concerning communism and the Soviet Union, but it was in keeping with the president’s often stated desire to bring the nuclear arms race under control. For Gorbachev, the meeting was another clear signal of his desire to obtain better relations with the United States so that he could better pursue his domestic reforms. Little of substance was accomplished. Six agreements were reached, ranging from cultural and scientific exchanges to environmental issues. Both Reagan and Gorbachev, however, expressed satisfaction with the summit, which ended on November 21. The next summit was held in October 1986 in Reykjavik and ended somewhat disastrously, with Reagan’s commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative (the so-called “Star Wars” missile defense system) providing a major obstacle to progress on arms control talks. However, by the time of their third summit in Washington, D.C. in 1987, both sides made concessions in order to achieve agreement on a wide range of arms control issues.

1990 – Leaders of 16 NATO members and the remaining six Warsaw Pact nations signed treaties in Paris making sweeping cuts in conventional arms throughout Europe and pledging non-aggression toward one another.

1994 – The U.N. Security Council, anxious to stop Serb attacks on the “safe area” of Bihac in northwest Bosnia, authorized NATO to bomb rebel Serb forces striking from neighboring Croatia.

1996 – The US voted alone against the other 14 members of the UN Security Council against the re-election of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

1996 – The space shuttle Columbia lifted off with the oldest crew member to date, 61-year-old Story Musgrave. STS-80 marked the third flight of the WSF that flew on STS-60 and STS-69 and the third flight to use the German-built Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph-Shuttle Pallet Satellite II (ORFEUS-SPAS II). The ASTRO-SPAS program was a cooperative endeavor between NASA and the German Space Agency, DARA. Both satellites were deployed and retrieved during the mission. STS-80 was the seventh and last Space Shuttle mission of 1996, the 21st flight of the orbiter Columbia and the 80th flight overall in NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Columbia’s previous mission was STS-78 in the summer of this year.

1997 – The space shuttle Columbia zoomed into orbit on a two-week science mission. STS-87 flew the United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4), the Spartan-201, the Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment (OARE), the EVA Demonstration Flight Test 5 (EDFT-05), the Shuttle Ozone Limb Sending Experiment (SOLSE), the Loop Heat Pipe (LHP), the Sodium Sulfur Battery Experiment (NaSBE), the Turbulent GAS Jet Diffusion (G-744) experiment and the Autonomous EVA Robotic Camera/Sprint (AERCam/Sprint) experiment. Two middeck experiments were the Middeck Glovbox Payload (MGBX) and the Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment (CUE).

1998 – The US Air Force tested the Centurion flying wing, a 206-foot battery powered robotic craft. Solar panels were planned to replace the batteries. Centurion was a unique remotely piloted, solar-powered airplane developed under NASA’s Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor (ERAST) Program at the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. Dryden joined with AeroVironment, Inc., Monrovia, California, under an ERAST Joint Sponsored Research Agreement, to design, develop, manufacture, and conduct flight development tests for the Centurion. The airplane was believed to be the first aircraft designed to achieve sustained horizontal flight at altitudes of 90,000 to 100,000 feet. Achieving this capability would meet the ERAST goal of developing an ultrahigh-altitude airplane that could meet the needs of the science community to perform upper-atmosphere environmental data missions.

1998 – The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.

2001 – President Bush signs the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, creating the Transportation Security Administration. It also required programs for the inspection of air travel checked baggage within 60 days and a requirement for security screeners to be US citizens within a year.

2001 – The United States accused Iraq and North Korea of developing germ warfare programs.

2001 – Some Taliban began secret negotiations for the surrender of Kandahar. They said outside forces had taken over their movement and named: the int’l. drug mafia, int’l. terrorists, the puritanical Wahabi school of Sunni Islam, and Pakistan intelligence.

2001 – Egypt and Syria confirmed the extradition of Rifai Ahmed Taha, a former aide to Osama bin Laden, from Syria to Egypt.

2002 – UN weapons inspectors wrapped up a two-day visit to Iraq.

2003 – An American guided missile frigate sailed into Ho Chi Minh City flying the US and Vietnamese flags, becoming the first US warship to dock in the communist country since the Vietnam War.

2008 – NASA successfully tests the first deep-space communications protocol to pave the way for Interplanetary Internet.

2011 – The United States successfully tests a new hypersonic weapon system, capable of striking targets 3,700 kilo metres (2,300 mi) away in under 30 minutes, as part of its Prompt Global Strike program.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*CROMWELL, JOHN PHILIP
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Navy. Born: 11 September 1901, Henry, Ill. Appointed from: Illinois. Other Navy award: Legion of Merit. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Commander of a Submarine Coordinated Attack Group with Flag in the U.S.S. Sculpin, during the 9th War Patrol of that vessel in enemy-controlled waters off Truk Island, 19 November 1943. Undertaking this patrol prior to the launching of our first large-scale offensive in the Pacific, Capt. Cromwell, alone of the entire Task Group, possessed secret intelligence information of our submarine strategy and tactics, scheduled Fleet movements and specific attack plans. Constantly vigilant and precise in carrying out his secret orders, he moved his underseas flotilla inexorably forward despite savage opposition and established a line of submarines to southeastward of the main Japanese stronghold at Truk. Cool and undaunted as the submarine, rocked and battered by Japanese depth charges, sustained terrific battle damage and sank to an excessive depth, he authorized the Sculpin to surface and engage the enemy in a gunfight, thereby providing an opportunity for the crew to abandon ship. Determined to sacrifice himself rather than risk capture and subsequent danger of revealing plans under Japanese torture or use of drugs, he stoically remained aboard the mortally wounded vessel as she plunged to her death. Preserving the security of his mission, at the cost of his own life, he had served his country as he had served the Navy, with deep integrity and an uncompromising devotion to duty. His great moral courage in the face of certain death adds new luster to the traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

FOSS, JOSEPH JACOB
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. Place and date: Over Guadalcanal, 9 October to 19 November 1942, 15 and 23 January 1943. Entered service at: South Dakota. Born: 17 April 1 915, Sioux Falls, S. Dak. Citation: For outstanding heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty as executive officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, at Guadalcanal. Engaging in almost daily combat with the enemy from 9 October to 19 November 1942, Capt. Foss personally shot down 23 Japanese planes and damaged others so severely that their destruction was extremely probable. In addition, during this period, he successfully led a large number of escort missions, skillfully covering reconnaissance, bombing, and photographic planes as well as surface craft. On 15 January 1943, he added 3 more enemy planes to his already brilliant successes for a record of aerial combat achievement unsurpassed in this war. Boldly searching out an approaching enemy force on 25 January, Capt. Foss led his 8 F-4F Marine planes and 4 Army P-38’s into action and, undaunted by tremendously superior numbers, intercepted and struck with such force that 4 Japanese fighters were shot down and the bombers were turned back without releasing a single bomb. His remarkable flying skill, inspiring leadership, and indomitable fighting spirit were distinctive factors in the defense of strategic American positions on Guadalcanal.

*MILLER, ANDREW
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company G, 377th Infantry, 95th Infantry Division. Place and date: From Woippy, France, through Metz to Kerprich Hemmersdorf, Germany, 1629 November 1944. Entered service at: Two Rivers, Wis. Birth: Manitowoc, Wis. G.O. No.: 74, 1 September 1945. Citation: For performing a series of heroic deeds from 1629 November 1944, during his company’s relentless drive from Woippy, France, through Metz to Kerprich Hemmersdorf, Germany. As he led a rifle squad on 16 November at Woippy, a crossfire from enemy machineguns pinned down his unit. Ordering his men to remain under cover, he went forward alone, entered a building housing 1 of the guns and forced S Germans to surrender at bayonet point. He then took the second gun single-handedly by hurling grenades into the enemy position, killing 2, wounding 3 more, and taking 2 additional prisoners. At the outskirts of Metz the next day, when his platoon, confused by heavy explosions and the withdrawal of friendly tanks, retired, he fearlessly remained behind armed with an automatic rifle and exchanged bursts with a German machinegun until he silenced the enemy weapon. His quick action in covering his comrades gave the platoon time to regroup and carry on the fight. On 19 November S/Sgt. Miller led an attack on large enemy barracks. Covered by his squad, he crawled to a barracks window, climbed in and captured 6 riflemen occupying the room. His men, and then the entire company, followed through the window, scoured the building, and took 75 prisoners.

S/Sgt. Miller volunteered, with 3 comrades, to capture Gestapo officers who were preventing the surrender of German troops in another building. He ran a gauntlet of machinegun fire and was lifted through a window. Inside, he found himself covered by a machine pistol, but he persuaded the 4 Gestapo agents confronting him to surrender. Early the next morning, when strong hostile forces punished his company with heavy fire, S/Sgt. Miller assumed the task of destroying a well-placed machinegun. He was knocked down by a rifle grenade as he climbed an open stairway in a house, but pressed on with a bazooka to find an advantageous spot from which to launch his rocket. He discovered that he could fire only from the roof, a position where he would draw tremendous enemy fire. Facing the risk, he moved into the open, coolly took aim and scored a direct hit on the hostile emplacement, wreaking such havoc that the enemy troops became completely demoralized and began surrendering by the score. The following day, in Metz, he captured 12 more prisoners and silenced an enemy machinegun after volunteering for a hazardous mission in advance of his company’s position. On 29 November, as Company G climbed a hill overlooking Kerprich Hemmersdorf, enemy fire pinned the unit to the ground. S/Sgt. Miller, on his own initiative, pressed ahead with his squad past the company’s leading element to meet the surprise resistance. His men stood up and advanced deliberately, firing as they went. Inspired by S/Sgt. Miller’s leadership, the platoon followed, and then another platoon arose and grimly closed with the Germans. The enemy action was smothered, but at the cost of S/Sgt. Miller’s life. His tenacious devotion to the attack, his gallant choice to expose himself to enemy action rather than endanger his men, his limitless bravery, assured the success of Company G.

*WATTERS, CHARLES JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Chaplain (Maj.), U .S. Army, Company A, 173d Support Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade. Place and date: Near Dak To Province, Republic of Vietnam, 19 November 1967. Entered service at: Fort Dix, N.J. Born: 17 January 1927, Jersey City, N.J. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Chaplain Watters distinguished himself during an assault in the vicinity of Dak To. Chaplain Watters was moving with one of the companies when it engaged a heavily armed enemy battalion. As the battle raged and the casualties mounted, Chaplain Watters, with complete disregard for his safety, rushed forward to the line of contact. Unarmed and completely exposed, he moved among, as well as in front of the advancing troops, giving aid to the wounded, assisting in their evacuation, giving words of encouragement, and administering the last rites to the dying. When a wounded paratrooper was standing in shock in front of the assaulting forces, Chaplain Watters ran forward, picked the man up on his shoulders and carried him to safety.

As the troopers battled to the first enemy entrenchment, Chaplain Watters ran through the intense enemy fire to the front of the entrenchment to aid a fallen comrade. A short time later, the paratroopers pulled back in preparation for a second assault. Chaplain Watters exposed himself to both friendly and enemy fire between the 2 forces in order to recover 2 wounded soldiers. Later, when the battalion was forced to pull back into a perimeter, Chaplain Watters noticed that several wounded soldiers were Lying outside the newly formed perimeter. Without hesitation and ignoring attempts to restrain him, Chaplain Watters left the perimeter three times in the face of small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire to carry and to assist the injured troopers to safety. Satisfied that all of the wounded were inside the perimeter, he began aiding the medics–applying field bandages to open wounds, obtaining and serving food and water, giving spiritual and mental strength and comfort. During his ministering, he moved out to the perimeter from position to position redistributing food and water, and tending to the needs of his men. Chaplain Watters was giving aid to the wounded when he himself was mortally wounded. Chaplain Watters’ unyielding perseverance and selfless devotion to his comrades was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

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20 November

1620 – Peregrine White was the first child born to the Pilgrims in the New World. His parents, William and Susanna White, had boarded the Mayflower with their young son Resolved. Susanna gave birth to Peregrine while the Mayflower was anchored in Provincetown Harbor. William White died the first winter, Susanna White married fellow Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow. In 1636, the family, now numbering 6 – Edward and Susanna White Winslow, Resolved and Peregrine White, and the two children born to Edward and Susanna, Josias and Elizabeth Winslow – moved to the new settlement of Marshfield, north of Plymouth. Peregrine had his first military experience at age 16 and continued to serve in the militia, first as a lieutenant and then a captain. Like most of the settlers, Peregrine was a farmer. He also served his community as a representative to the General Court. Peregrine married Sarah Basset about 1648. Sarah’s parents, William and Elizabeth Bassett, had been members of the Leiden Separatist community. They arrived in Plymouth in 1621 in the Fortune. Sarah was born after their arrival in Plymouth, sometime before 1627. The Bassets had considerable land in Marshfield and Peregrine moved onto his in-laws land, buying several adjacent pieces of property as the years progressed. Peregrine and Sarah had 7 children. At age 78, Peregrine officially joined the Marshfield church. He lived until July of 1704, dying at Marshfield.

1776 – British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.

1780 – Bloody Banastre Tarleton is defeated at the Battle of Blackstock’s in his first defeat at the hands of Americans. The battle followed in the wake of another American victory at Fishdam Ford. British General Charles Cornwallis was frustrated by the outcome at Fishdam Ford. The American victor, Brigadier General Thomas Sumter, was a constant thorn in Cornwallis’s side. He wanted Sumter caught, and he decided to send the much-feared Tarleton to accomplish this task. Fortunately, Sumter received a stroke of good luck: One of the British deserted and told Sumter what he knew about Tarleton’s plans and the size of his force. Sumter and his officers decided not to run. They would make a stand. The decision was not an easy one. Sumter had more men than Tarleton, but the British commander led a force of British regulars with a reputation for cruelty. By contrast, Sumter was leading a motley crew of militia. Nevertheless, Sumter prepared for battle. The spot chosen was a plantation owned by Captain William Blackstock. It was situated on a steep hill, with many sturdy buildings, railed fences, and wooded areas for posting riflemen. The men would be protected by a river at their back, and a ford behind the house was available if the men needed an escape route. Sumter placed his main force on the hill, while riflemen hid in plantation buildings. Militia hid in trees along the road.

Tarleton arrived late on November 20th. His initial attack went well at first. Americans shot their volleys too soon, and Tarleton’s men pursued the militia with bayonets. But as the Americans retreated, the British made the mistake of following them too far up the hill. They came in sight of the American riflemen, who began shooting at officers. Sumter soon noticed some British dragoons sitting on their horses, watching the fighting. Before they could join the fray, he sent Colonel Edward Lacey through the woods toward them. Lacey and his men were within roughly 50 yards of the dragoons and were able to begin taking shots before they were noticed. In the end, Tarleton was forced into retreat. As the British were leaving, Sumter made a mistake. He and a group of officers came too close and exposed themselves. The British fired, seriously wounding Sumter. Acting unfazed, Sumter rode away, still sitting erect in his saddle. He didn’t want his men to realize that he’d been wounded. He made it back to his command post, despite the fact that he couldn’t move one arm. He was eventually evacuated from the scene, leaving Colonel John Twiggs in charge. Tarleton was determined to return the next day, after his reinforcements arrived. But Twiggs fooled him. Decoy campfires were left behind as the American militia crossed the river and left. Tarleton decided that, since he had the field of battle the next day, he could tell Cornwallis that the British had won. By contrast, Americans knew that they had achieved an important feat: Bloody Tarleton, with his British regulars, had been beaten by a band of American militia.

1789 – New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1817 – 1st Seminole War began in Florida. After the American Revolution (1776-1783), Spain regained control of Florida from Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris. When the British evacuated Florida, Spanish colonists as well as settlers from the newly formed United States came pouring in. Many of these new residents were lured by favorable Spanish terms for acquiring property, called land grants. Even Seminoles were encouraged to set up farms, because they provided a buffer between Spanish Florida and the United States. Escaped slaves also entered Florida, trying to reach a place where their U.S. masters had no authority over them. Instead of becoming more Spanish, Florida increasingly became more “American.” The British often incited Seminoles against American settlers who were migrating south into Seminole territory. These old conflicts, combined with the safe-haven Seminoles provided black slaves, caused the U.S. army to attack the tribe in the First Seminole War (1817-1818), which took place in Florida and southern Georgia. Forces under Gen. Andrew Jackson quickly defeated the Seminoles.

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1864 –Nearly a week into the famous March to the Sea, the army of Union General William T. Sherman moves toward central Georgia, destroying property and routing small militia units it its path. Advanced units of the army skirmished with scattered Rebel forces at Clinton, Walnut Creek, East Macon, and Griswoldville, all in the vicinity of Macon. The march began on November 15 and ended on December 21, 1864. Sherman led 62,000 troops for 285 miles across Georgia and cut a path of destruction more than fifty miles wide. He divided his force into two columns and widened the swath of destruction. The Yankees cut away from their supply lines at Atlanta and generally lived off the land. What they did not consume, they destroyed. More than 13,000 cattle fell into Union hands, as well as 90,000 bales of cotton and numerous sawmills, foundries, cotton gins, and warehouses.

Sherman’s superiors, President Lincoln and General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant, endorsed his controversial tactic. Sherman planned, in his words, to “make Georgia howl.” Sherman argued that, although it would be brutal, destroying the resources of the South could bring the war to a speedy end. Though, officially, he did not permit violence against civilians or the wanton destruction of property, there seemed to be little enforcement of that policy. The Union troops moved nearly unopposed across the region until they reached Savannah on December 21. The March to the Sea devastated Southern morale and earned Sherman the lasting hatred of many Southerners.

1856 – CDR Andrew H. Foote lands at Canton, China, with 287 Sailors and Marines to stop attacks by Chinese on U.S. military and civilians. A fort at Canton had fired upon Footes ship during the Sino-British war in 1856. He demanded an apology; the incident may have been because the US ship had been taken for a British one. Receiving none, he attacked the four Chinese forts in the region, storming the largest when its walls had been breached and attacking in the face of gunfire across a rice paddy carrying — according to legend — a parasol over his head for protection from the hot Asian sun.

1861 – A secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky’s Confederate government.

1889 – Edwin Hubble (d.1953), American astronomer, was born. He proved that there are other galaxies far from our own.

1917 – USS Kanawha, Noma and Wakiva sink German sub off France.1933 – Navy crew (LCDR Thomas G. W. Settle, USN, and MAJ Chester I. Fordney, USMC) sets a world altitude record in balloon (62,237 ft.) in flight into stratosphere.

1941 – The Japanese government offer proposals for an interim settlement with the United States. American Secretary Hull rejects the proposals, but prepares a reply which will enable negotiations to continue. This response is not sent after Dutch and British authorities express concerns over the concessions offered to the Japanese in China. The British and Dutch are seen to be acting on concerns expressed by Chiang Kai-shek’s government in China.

1943 – Operation Galvanic, under command of Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, U.S. Army and Marines attacked Makin and Tarawa in the Central Pacific (part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands). On the Tarawa Atoll, the 2nd Marine Division (General J. C. Smith) lands on Betio Island. Task Force 53 (Admiral Hill) provides naval support with 3 battleships and 4 cruisers and air support from 4 escort carriers. Of the 5000 American troops in the initial landing 1500 become casualties. The Japanese garrison consists of 4800 troops under the command of Admiral Shibasaki, supported by 50 artillery pieces and 7 light tanks. On Makin Atoll, the US 27th Infantry Division (General RC Smith) lands on Butaritari. Task Force 52 (Admiral Turner) provides naval support with 4 battleships and 4 cruisers and air support from 3 escort carriers.

Meanwhile, the USS Independence from Task Force 50 is hit by a submarine torpedo. The Coast Guard-manned assault transport USS Leonard Wood, veteran of the landings made in the Mediterranean, participated. She landed 1,788 officers and men of the 165th Combat Team of the U.S. Army’s 27th Division, on Makin Island. Coast Guard-manned LST-20, LST-23, LST-69, LST-169, LST-205, and the USS Arthur Middleton, and the following Navy ships with partial Coast Guard crews: USSs Heywood, Bellatrix, and William P. Biddle, participated in the bloody assault of Tarawa.

1943 – American divisions continue to advance inland along the Numa-Numa trail, parallel to the Piva River.

1944 – The 1st Japanese suicide submarine attack was at Ulithi Atoll, Carolines. A Japanese Kaiten attack sinks the US naval tanker Mississinewa. The kaiten was aptly described by Theodore Cook as “not so much a ship as an insertion of a human being into a very large torpedo.” The guts of the beast was a standard Type-93 24″ torpedo, with the mid-section elongated to create the pilot’s space. He sat in a canvas chair practically on the deck of the kaiten, a crude periscope directly in front of him, and the necessary controls close to hand in the cockpit. Access to the kaiten was through hatches leading up from the sub and into the belly of the weapon. The nose assembly was packed with 3000+ pounds of high explosive; the tail section contained the propulsion unit.

1944 – To the east of Aachen, German forces resist US 19th Corps attacks near Julich. Elements of US 3rd Army continue the siege of Metz as other elements capture Dieuze to the east.

1945 – 24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. The International Military Tribunal begins trying German war criminals at Nuremberg. Following Germany’s defeat in World War II, Winston Churchill planned to shoot top German and Nazi military leaders without a trial, but Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, pushed President Roosevelt to consider holding an international court trial. Since the trial did not begin until after the death of President Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman appointed Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to head the prosecution team. The four countries pressing charges were Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and France. In his thoughtful opening remarks, Robert Jackson eloquently summarized the significance of the trial. “That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law,” said Jackson, “is one of the significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”

The trial, which lasted 78 days, attempted to hold Nazi and German military officials accountable for atrocities including the massacre of 30,000 Russians during the German invasion and the massacre of at least 50,000 people in the Warsaw Ghetto. Twenty-four defendants were tried, including Hermann Goering, the designated successor to Hitler, and Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s personal secretary. All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. When one of the defendants demanded that an anti-Semitic lawyer represent him, an ex-Nazi was assigned to his defense. Because of the mountains of evidence and the many languages spoken by the defendants and prosecutors, the trial was beset with logistical problems. During the proceedings, Rudolf Hess feigned amnesia to escape responsibility. Though many expected the most excitement to arise from the cross-examination of Hermann Goering, his testimony was a letdown: he was even attacked by his fellow defendants for refusing to take responsibility for anything. Twenty-one defendants were convicted: 12 were sentenced to hang, and the rest were sent to prison. One man escaped the hanging by remaining at large while Goering escaped by committing suicide first. On October 16, 1946, 10 Nazi officials were hanged.

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1948 – In what begins as a fairly minor incident, the American consul and his staff in Mukden, China, are made virtual hostages by communist forces in China. The crisis did not end until a year later, by which time U.S. relations with the new communist government in China had been seriously damaged. Mukden was one of the first major trade centers in China to be occupied by Mao’s communist forces in October 1948 during the revolution against the Nationalist Chinese government. In November, American Consul Angus Ward refused to surrender the consulate’s radio transmitter to the communists. In response, armed troops surrounded the consulate, trapping Ward and 21 staff members. The Chinese cut off all communication, as well as water and electricity. For months, almost nothing was heard from Ward and the other Americans. The U.S. response to the situation was to first order the consulate closed and call for the withdrawal of Ward and his staff. However, Ward was prevented from doing so after the Chinese communists, in June 1949, charged the consulate with being a headquarters for spies. With the situation worsening, the United States tried to exert diplomatic pressure by calling upon its allies to withhold recognition of the new communist Chinese government. Chinese forces thereupon arrested Ward, charging him and some of his staff with inciting a riot outside the consulate in October 1949.

President Harry Truman was incensed at this action and met with his military advisors to discuss the feasibility of military action. Secretary of State Dean Acheson bluntly and angrily informed the new People’s Republic of China that no U.S. recognition would ever be forthcoming until the Americans at Mukden were released. On November 24, 1949, Ward and his staff were allowed to leave the consulate. Ward and four other Americans had actually been found guilty of the inciting-to-riot charge and were ordered deported. Together with the other Americans, they left China in December. The Chinese actions, which are still difficult to explain or understand, no doubt damaged any possibilities that might have existed for U.S. recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Truman, already under heavy attacks at home for not “saving” the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, could ill-afford to show weakness in dealing with the Chinese communists, particularly after the arrest of Ward and the other Americans so angered the American public.

1950 – U.S. troops pushed to Yalu River within five miles of Manchuria.

1954 – Premier of France Mendes-France visits Washington. On his return to Paris he discloses the results of the Franco-American meetings: the end of French control of the economy, commerce, and finances of Vietnam; transfer of command of the national Army to the Vietnamese government; transfer of responsibility for training the Vietnamese Army to the United States; US aid to go directly to Saigon; and withdrawal of the French Expeditionary Corps.

1955 – The Maryland National Guard was ordered desegregated.

1962 – In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

1969 – A group of 80 Native Americans, all college students, seized Alcatraz Island in the name of “Indians of All Tribes.” The occupation lasted 19 months. They offered $24 in beads and cloth to buy the island, demanded an American Indian Univ., museum and cultural center, and listed reasons why the island was a suitable Indian reservation.

1970 – UN General Assembly accepted membership of the People’s Republic of China.

1979 – Surprising many who believed fundamentalism was not a strong force in Saudi Arabia, Sunni Islamic dissidents seized control of the Grand Mosque at Mecca, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The (200) armed dissidents charged that the Al Saud regime had lost its legitimacy due to corruption and its closer ties to Western nations. The standoff lasted for several weeks before the Saudi military succeeded in removing the dissidents. More than 200 troops and dissidents were killed at the mosque, and subsequently over 60 dissidents were publicly beheaded.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

1990 – The space shuttle “Atlantis” landed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after completing a secret military mission. November 20, 1990, 4:42:42 p.m. EST, Runway 33, Kennedy Space Center, FL. Rollout distance: 9,032 feet. Rollout time: 57 seconds. Mission extended one day due to unacceptable crosswinds at original planned landing site, Edwards. Continued adverse conditions led to decision to shift landing to KSC. First KSC landing for Atlantis, first end-of-mission landing at KSC since April 1985.

1990 – The Soviet Union again rebuffed President Bush’s efforts to rally support for a UN Security Council resolution authorizing military force against Iraq.

1994 – The most heavily mined country in the world was Afghanistan, with between 10 and 15 million deadly mines. In Angola, one third of the countryside was strewn with mines and the toll of nearly 25 people a day who were injured or killed by land mines has left 20,000 amputees. Cambodia’s 7 million mines amount to two for every single Cambodian child, and between 200 and 250 people became victims every month. In Somalia, the laying of mines rose to new heights of terror as civilian areas were deliberately targeted. Truck loads of mines were scattered in houses, wells, river-crossings, markets, and even cemeteries. Presently, the area being mined most heavily is the war zone of the former Yugoslavia, where 3 million mines have been laid in just a few years. The US State Dept. estimated that 25,000 people are killed or maimed each year by mines. About 1.5 to 2 million new mines go into the ground each year. There is a British Rapid Antipersonnel Minefield Breaching System (RAMBS) manufactured by Pains-Wessex Schermuly that is fired from a rifle and clears a path 60 meters long and one meter wide in less than a minute.

1997 – Iraq agreed to allow US arms inspectors back into the country after Russia agreed to help work to lift UN Security Council sanctions. Prodded by Russia, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein agreed to allow U.S. arms monitors back into his country, ending a three-week crisis that had raised fears of a military confrontation with the United States.

1998 – Iraq balked at handing over documents on chemical and biological weapons and missile systems.

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1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden “a man without a sin” in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

2000 – The EU began to build its own defense force, a 60,000 man, rapid reaction corps. EU defense chiefs pledged 100,000 soldiers, 400 planes and 100 ships for a rapid-reaction force.

2001 – In Afghanistan the Northern Alliance gave the Taliban in Kunduz 3 days to give up.

2001 – The alliance controlling Afghanistan’s capital and much of its countryside agreed to attend power-sharing talks in Germany the following week.

2001 – Abu Qatada (40), a Muslim cleric living in London, was named in a Spanish indictment as a pivotal figure in the al Qaeda network in Europe.

2002 – On the eve of a NATO summit in the Czech Republic, President Bush, recalling Europe’s grim history of “excusing aggression,” challenged skeptical allies to stand firm against Saddam Hussein.

2008– NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovers evidence of enormous underground deposits of water ice on Mars; one such deposit, under Hellas Planitia, is estimated to be the size of Los Angeles.

2008 – Five Guantánamo Bay detainees who successfully argued Boumediene v. Bush before the Supreme Court are ordered freed by Judge Richard J. Leon of the District Court for Washington, D.C. Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Guantanamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene’s detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

On June 12, 2008, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority, holding that the prisoners had a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of that right. The Court applied the Insular Cases, by the fact that the United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains “de facto” sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, to hold that the aliens detained as enemy combatants on that territory were entitled to the writ of habeas corpus protected in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The lower court had expressly indicated that no constitutional rights (not merely the right to habeas) extend to the Guantanamo detainees, rejecting petitioners’ arguments, but the Supreme Court held that fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution extend to the Guantanamo detainees as well.

2011 – Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old Dominican-American, is arrested in New York City after planning to detonate pipe bombs, according to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. The suspect is believed to have Al-Qaeda sympathies, although no wider conspiracy is suspected.

2014 – The President of the United States Barack Obama announces executive orders to defer the deportations of a certain group of illegal immigrants: parents whose children are already U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have lived in the United States for five years or more. (DACA Program)

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

FALCONER, JOHN A.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company A, 17th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., 20 November 1863. Entered service at: Manchester, Mich. Born: 1844, Wachtenaw, Mich. Date of issue: 27 July 1896. Citation: Conducted the “burning party” of his regiment at the time a charge was made on the enemy’s picket line, and burned the house which had sheltered the enemy’s sharpshooters, thus insuring success to a hazardous enterprise.

HADLEY, CORNELIUS M.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company F, 9th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At siege of Knoxville, Tenn., 20 November 1863. Entered service at: Adrian, Mich. Born: 27 April 1838, Sandy Creek, Oswego County, N.Y. Date of issue: 5 April 1898. Citation: With one companion, voluntarily carried through the enemy’s lines important dispatches from Gen. Grant to Gen. Burnside, then besieged within Knoxville, and brought back replies, his comrade’s horse being killed and the man taken prisoner.

KELLEY, ANDREW J.
Rank and organization: Private, Company E, 17th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Knoxville, Tenn., 20 November 1863. Entered service at: Ypsilanti, Mich. Born: 2 September 1845, Lagrange County, Ind. Date of issue: 17 April 1900. Citation: Having voluntarily accompanied a small party to destroy buildings within the enemy’s lines whence sharpshooters had been firing, disregarded an order to retire, remained and completed the firing of the buildings, thus insuring their total destruction; this at the imminent risk of his life from the fire of the advancing enemy.

SHEPARD, IRWIN
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company E, 17th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Knoxville, Tenn. 20 November 1863. Entered service at: Chelsea, Mich. Birth: Skaneateles, N.Y. Date of issue: 3 August 1897. Citation: Having voluntarily accompanied a small party to destroy buildings within the enemy’s lines, whence sharpshooters had been firing, disregarded an order to retire, remained and completed the firing of the buildings, thus insuring their total destruction; this at the imminent risk of his life from the fire of the advancing enemy.

AUER, JOHN F.
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman Apprentice, U.S. Navy. Born: 1866, New York. Accredited to: New York. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Lancaster, Marseille, France, 20 November 1883. Jumping overboard, Auer rescued from drowning a French lad who had fallen into the sea from a stone pier astern of the ship.

GILLICK, MATTHEW
Rank and organization: Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1852, Providence, R.I. Accredited to: Rhode Island. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Lancaster at Marseille, France, 20 November 1883. Jumping overboard from the Lancaster, Gillick rescued from drowning a French lad who had fallen into the sea from a stone pier astern of the ship.

WETHERBY, JOHN C.
Rank and organization: Private, Company L, 4th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: Near Imus, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 20 November 1899. Entered service at: Martinsville, Ind. Birth: Morgan County, Ind. Date of issue: 25 April 1902. Citation: While carrying important orders on the battlefield, was desperately wounded and, being unable to walk, crawled far enough to deliver his orders.

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*BORDELON, WILLIAM JAMES
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 25 December 1920, San Antonio, Tex. Accredited to: Texas. Citation: For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machinegun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall.

Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machinegun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon’s great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

BRILES, HERSCHEL F.
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Co. C, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Place and date: Near Scherpenseel, Germany, 20 November 1944. Entered service at: Fort Des Moines, lowa. Birth: Colfax, lowa. G.O. No.: 77, 10 September 1945. Citation: He was leading a platoon of destroyers across an exposed slope near Scherpenseel, Germany, on 20 November 1944, when they came under heavy enemy artillery fire. A direct hit was scored on 1 of the vehicles, killing 1 man, seriously wounding 2 others, and setting the destroyer afire. With a comrade, S/Sgt. Briles left the cover of his own armor and raced across ground raked by artillery and small-arms fire to the rescue of the men in the shattered destroyer. Without hesitation, he lowered himself into the burning turret, removed the wounded and then extinguished the fire.

From a position he assumed the next morning, he observed hostile infantrymen advancing. With his machinegun, he poured such deadly fire into the enemy ranks that an entire pocket of 55 Germans surrendered, clearing the way for a junction between American units which had been held up for 2 days. Later that day, when another of his destroyers was hit by a concealed enemy tank, he again left protection to give assistance. With the help of another soldier, he evacuated two wounded under heavy fire and, returning to the burning vehicle, braved death from exploding ammunition to put out the flames. By his heroic initiative and complete disregard for personal safety, S/Sgt. Briles was largely responsible for causing heavy enemy casualties, forcing the surrender of 55 Germans, making possible the salvage of our vehicles, and saving the lives of wounded comrades.

MABRY, GEORGE L., JR.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division Place and date: Hurtgen Forest near Schevenhutte, Germany, 20 November 1944. Entered service at: Sumter, S.C. Birth: Sumter, SC G.O. No.: 77, September 1945. Citation: He was commanding the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, in an attack through the Hurtgen Forest near Schevenhutte, Germany, on 20 November 1944. During the early phases of the assault, the leading elements of his battalion were halted by a minefield and immobilized by heavy hostile fire. Advancing alone into the mined area, Col. Mabry established a safe route of passage. He then moved ahead of the foremost scouts, personally leading the attack, until confronted by a booby trapped double concertina obstacle. With the assistance of the scouts, he disconnected the explosives and cut a path through the wire. Upon moving through the opening, he observed 3 enemy in foxholes whom he captured at bayonet point.

Driving steadily forward he paced the assault against 3 log bunkers which housed mutually supported automatic weapons. Racing up a slope ahead of his men, he found the initial bunker deserted, then pushed on to the second where he was suddenly confronted by 9 onrushing enemy. Using the butt of his rifle, he felled 1 adversary and bayoneted a second, before his scouts came to his aid and assisted him in overcoming the others in hand-to-hand combat. Accompanied by the riflemen, he charged the third bunker under pointblank small arms fire and led the way into the fortification from which he prodded 6 enemy at bayonet point. Following the consolidation of this area, he led his battalion across 300 yards of fire-swept terrain to seize elevated ground upon which he established a defensive position which menaced the enemy on both flanks, and provided his regiment a firm foothold on the approach to the Cologne Plain. Col. Mabry’s superlative courage, daring, and leadership in an operation of major importance exemplify the finest characteristics of the military service.

*CRESCENZ, MICHAEL J.
Rank and Organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company A, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. Place and date: Hiep Duc Valley area, Republic of Vietnam, 20 November 1968. Entered service at: Philadelphia, PA. Born: 14 January 1949, Philadelphia, Pa. Citation: Cpl. Crescenz distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as a rifleman with Company A. In the morning his unit engaged a large, well-entrenched force of the North Vietnamese Army whose initial burst of fire pinned down the lead squad and killed the 2 point men, halting the advance of Company A. Immediately, Cpl. Crescenz left the relative safety of his own position, seized a nearby machine gun and, with complete disregard for his safety, charged 100 meters up a slope toward the enemy’s bunkers which he effectively silenced, killing the 2 occupants of each.

Undaunted by the withering machine gun fire around him, Cpl. Crescenz courageously moved forward toward a third bunker which he also succeeded in silencing, killing 2 more of the enemy and momentarily clearing the route of advance for his comrades. Suddenly, intense machine gun fire erupted from an unseen, camouflaged bunker. Realizing the danger to his fellow soldiers, Cpl. Crescenz disregarded the barrage of hostile fire directed at him and daringly advanced toward the position. Assaulting with his machine gun, Cpl. Crescenz was within 5 meters of the bunker when he was mortally wounded by the fire from the enemy machine gun. As a direct result of his heroic actions, his company was able to maneuver freely with minimal danger and to complete its mission, defeating the enemy. Cpl. Crescenz’s bravery and extraordinary heroism at the cost of his life are in the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

*LOZADA, CARLOS JAMES
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company A, 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade. place and date: Dak To, Republic of Vietnam, 20 November 1967. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 6 September 1946, Caguas, Puerto Rico. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Lozada, U.S. Army, distinguished himself at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in the battle of Dak To. While serving as a machine gunner with 1st platoon, Company A, Pfc. Lozada was part of a 4-man early warning outpost, located 35 meters from his company’s lines. At 1400 hours a North Vietnamese Army company rapidly approached the outpost along a well defined trail. Pfc. Lozada alerted his comrades and commenced firing at the enemy who were within 10 meters of the outpost. His heavy and accurate machine gun fire killed at least 20 North Vietnamese soldiers and completely disrupted their initial attack. Pfc. Lozada remained in an exposed position and continued to pour deadly fire upon the enemy despite the urgent pleas of his comrades to withdraw.

The enemy continued their assault, attempting to envelop the outpost. At the same time enemy forces launched a heavy attack on the forward west flank of Company A with the intent to cut them off from their battalion. Company A was given the order to withdraw. Pfc. Lozada apparently realized that if he abandoned his position there would be nothing to hold back the surging North Vietnamese soldiers and that the entire company withdrawal would be jeopardized. He called for his comrades to move back and that he would stay and provide cover for them. He made this decision realizing that the enemy was converging on 3 sides of his position and only meters away, and a delay in withdrawal meant almost certain death. Pfc. Lozada continued to deliver a heavy, accurate volume of suppressive fire against the enemy until he was mortally wounded and had to be carried during the withdrawal. His heroic deed served as an example and an inspiration to his comrades throughout the ensuing 4-day battle. Pfc. Lozada’s actions are in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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21 November

1620– Leaders of the Mayflower expedition framed the “Mayflower Compact,” designed to bolster unity among the settlers. The Pilgrims reached Provincetown Harbor, Mass.

1789– North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west, Virginia to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet (2,037 m) at Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US. The climate of the coastal plains is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.

1794– Honolulu Harbor was discovered.

1817– Richard Brooke Garnett (d1863), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born. He died at Gettysburg. Richard Brooke Garnett, a member of Tidewater aristocracy, was born at “Rose Hill”, the family mansion in Essex County, Virginia. Garnett received his early education near home and in Norfolk. In 1841 he and his cousin, Robert Selden Garnett, inseparable in their boyhood, graduated in the same West Point class. Service in the army took him to Florida, fighting the Seminoles, then westward. For several years, during the Mexican War, he held a staff position in New Orleans. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1847, Garnett later commanded Fort Laramie against the sometimes troublesome Sioux, traveled as a recruiting officer, and, after his promotion to captain in 1855, served at various other points on the western frontier. In California during the winter of 1860-61, he learned from afar of the South’s secession, and the start of war in April. He resigned from the army effective May 17 to fight for his native Virginia and the South. Commissioned major in the Confederate army, Garnett soon suffered the loss of his cousin Robert, who was killed at Corrick’s Ford in western Virginia on July 13, 1861. Subsequently, Richard was appointed second-in-command of then Colonel Thomas R.R. Cobb’s Georgia Legion, and promoted to lieutenant colonel in early September. After brief service with the legion on the Peninsula, Garnett received his promotion to brigadier general and was immediately assigned to the Shenandoah Valley, coming under command of General Thomas J. Jackson.

By spring 1862, the new brigadier commanded Jackson’s old troops, now known as the Stonewall Brigade and composed of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th and 33rd Virginia Infantry Regiments. Garnett, like all future commanders of the brigade, assumed responsibility under the shadow of its former leader and would be closely watched by Jackson to see how he was handling his “Old Brigade”. As it turned out, Garnett’s personal attention to the men, combined with the brigade’s dedication to the Southern Cause, formed a comfortable bond between commander and commanded. The Stonewallers experienced something new under Garnett. They found him to be sympathetic to their problems both as units and as individuals. He took particular pains to look after the care and comfort of his charges, much to the dissatisfaction of “Old Blue Light”. Yet Jackson could find no fault in the military handling of the brigade, for it was the best in his Valley Army and he knew it. Then came the battle of Kernstown, Virginia… In late March Jackson received information from his cavalry commander, Brig. Gen. Turner Ashby, that the Federals were leaving the Valley. Fearful that this was a threat to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s force at Manassas, Jackson set his small army in motion to intercept the Yankees. After an exhausting march of 36 miles, they caught up to the retiring army of Brig. Gen. James Shields on March 23, a Sunday. The Sabbath was not a day the pious Stonewall desired for battle.

Acting on Ashby’s intelligence that a rear-guard of only four regiments were to their immediate front, Jackson sent orders to Garnett to prepare the Stonewall Brigade for action, along with other elements of the Valley Army who had survived the forced march. The engagement grew from skirmishing fire to a full blown battle. Instead of four regiments, Jackson was facing Shield’s entire army. The Stonewallers were in the thick of it from the outset as the unequal contest swayed back and forth. After two hours of unceasing combat, Garnett’s command began to run low on ammunition. None was at hand since the wagons had been left far behind on the forced march. The brigade now found itself beset by superior numbers attacking from three directions. Garnett made the only logical military decision that would save his fatigued and ammunition-less command. He wrote: “…had I not done so we would have run imminent risk of being routed by superior numbers, which would have resulted probably in the loss of part of our artillery and also endangered our transportation.” Noting a regiment advancing to his support (Jackson’s last reserve), he hurried a courier to have them stop and form a line upon which the brigade could fall back and rally. He then ordered the battered and bloody brigade to the rear, an action which was to cost Garnett his command and the stigma of court martial charges brought by the enraged army commander.

Relieved from command on April 1, he was ordered arrested and sent under guard to Harrisonburg. His men were furious and considered the action against their leader as a gross injustice. As for Garnett, he, whom Walter Harrison of Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s staff described as the “brave, proud and sensitive spirit,” it “was a cruel blow.” In August 1862, with only Jackson and his aide, Captain Alexander Pendleton, giving testimony, the trial was suspended due to the pressing duties of renewed campaigning. General Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign was underway and the services of a first-rate brigadier were sorely needed. By order of Lee, Garnett was released from arrest and assigned to Maj. Gen. James Longstreet’s First Corps. In early September, Garnett thus took command of a brigade of Virginians – the 8th, 18th, 19th, 28th, and 56th Infantry Regiments – with which he served creditably at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg. Garnett then took part in Longstreet’s Suffolk campaign, returning to Richmond after the fatal wounding of General Jackson, May 2. Richard Garnett always felt that his reputation had been wrongfully slighted by Jackson’s accusations following Kernstown. Yet, against Jackson personally, Garnett held no grudge. After learning that the great “Stonewall” was dead, Garnett went to the executive mansion in Richmond where Jackson’s body lay in state, Major Sandy Pendleton and Captain Kyd Douglas watched Garnett as he cried beside the casket. He then spoke so tenderly of Jackson that Pendleton asked if the general would serve as a pallbearer in Jackson’s funeral procession through the capital on the 12th. Garnett did so, joining Generals Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, and others in this solemn honor.

In Lee’s second invasion of the North during June 1863, Garnett’s five Virginia regiments marched northward as part of General Pickett’s division, Longstreet’s Corps. On July 3, 1863, Garnett’s brigade was in the front rank of the Pickett-Pettigrew charge at Gettysburg. Extremely ill, the general was wearing a heavy overcoat in spite of the heat. Garnett got to within twenty yards of the Federal lines when he disappeared in the gunsmoke and confusion. His riderless horse soon galloped toward the rear. Presumably, Federal soldiers stripped his dead body of its sword and other insignia before burying Garnett in one of the mass graves on the battlefield. The marker for General Richard Brooke Garnett in the Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery, reads: “Among the Confederate Soldiers’ Graves in this area is the probable resting place of Brigadier General Richard Brooke Garnett C.S.A. who was killed in action July 3, 1863, as he led his Brigade in the charge of Pickett’s Division on the final day of the battle of Gettysburg. First buried on the battlefield, General Garnett’s remains were likely removed to this area in 1872 along with other Confederate dead brought from Gettysburg by the Hollywood Memorial Association. Requiescat in Pace Richard Brooke Garnett 1817 – 1863.” Colonel Eppa Hunton, who was to succeed Garnett, said of him: “He was one of the noblest and bravest men I ever knew.” He had given his life to erase forever the one blight on his distinguished record.

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1818– Frenchman Hipolito Bouchard and Englishman Peter Corney led a 2-ship attack against the presidio at Monterey, Ca. Gov. Pablo de Sola and his soldiers and families fled as some 400 rebels pulled to shore. The presidio was ransacked and burned. Bouchard and Corney days later plundered Mission San Juan Capistrano and the rancho at El Refugio.

1836 – Marines and Soldiers took action against the Seminole Indians at Wahoo Swamp, Florida. General Call set out with a large force of 2500 regular Army soldiers, Florida militia, Tennessee militia, and a Creek Indian Regiment to destroy Seminole strongholds. The force left Fort Drane and went into the Cove of the Withlacoochee. They found no Indians, and the best they could do was burn three abandoned villages. The command split up with plans to meet at the Dade Battleground a few days later. On 17 November, the American force found a large Indian encampment. They charged it, the Indians fled, and the soldiers got stuck in the typical deep Florida swamp mud. On 18 November, Creek scouts found the Seminoles entrenched in a hammock. The area had been cleared out by the Seminoles, a typical strategy to trap the soldiers in the open area. After a hard but quick fight, Call’s forces were able to drive away the Seminole force, estimated at five to seven hundred.

A Creek Regiment fought at the Battle of Wahoo Swamp. There were 759 Creeks with the regiment, and they enlisted under a promise of favorable treatment from the government, but still ended up in Oklahoma like those they were employed against. They were employed a year in Florida and lost 110 men, mostly to sickness; a high casualty rate. They would also act as spies and would wear white turbans in the field so the Army could tell them apart from the Seminoles. The Seminoles especially hated them, considering them traitors, and would go out of their way during battle to kill a Creek Scout. On 21 November, the combined force of General Call left the Dade Battleground for the biggest battle that they would face; the Battle of Wahoo Swamp. The Seminoles made their stand in a dense hammock with an open field before them. General Call’s line that faced them extended a mile in length. The forces engaged when they were only fifty yards apart. They Seminoles fell back from their position. The Americans recognized Seminole leaders Yaholoochee (Cloud), Osuchee (Cooper), and a former slave leading fire.

The Florida Militia was especially shocked at the presence of a former slave leading an armed force against the Americans. The Army troops ran into trouble. The line became disorganized and ended up bogged down in the mud and thickly wooded hammock. The Creek scouts advanced on the Indian position and received heavy fire. The Seminoles would often make it a point to first attack the Creek Indians in any battle, since they considered the Creek Indians traitors who gave away their position. There was a small stream between the American and Seminole forces, and the Americans failed to cross this stream because they did not know the depth. This was one of the main failures that caused the American defeat, since they did not cross this stream which turned out to be only three feet deep.

One of the American officers, Major David Moniac, was shot and killed while trying to cross the stream. He was a Creek Indian, and the first Indian to graduate from West Point. He was related to both sides of the Fort Mims Massacre, and his wife is said to have been the cousin of Osceola. It is said that the Seminoles considered him a traitor and had specifically targeted him for death. Recently a marker has been erected in his honor at a nearby Veteran’s cemetery by his descendants. After a hard battle, the Army force decided to withdraw. They were low on supplies and decided against trying to cross the stream. No resupply point had been established. It was later discovered that if the Army had crossed the stream, they would have been able to capture a large Indian and Negro force of over 600 warriors, along with women and children.

1860 – The notorious hired killer Tom Horn is born on this day in 1860, in Memphis, Missouri. “Killing is my specialty,” Horn reportedly once said. “I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.” Horn was raised on a farm, and like many young farm boys, Horn loved to roam the woods with his dog and rifle, hunting for game and practicing his marksmanship. He was an unusually skilled rifleman, an ability that may have later encouraged him to gravitate towards a career as a professional killer. That his father was a violent man, who severely beat his son, might also explain how Horn came to be such a remorseless killer. However, the young Horn did not immediately begin his adult life as a professional murderer. Fleeing his home in Memphis after a particularly savage beating from his father, the 14-year-old boy first worked as a teamster in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he demonstrated a quick intelligence and learned Spanish. Horn’s packing and language skills later won him a job with the U.S. Army, where he served as an interpreter with the Apache Indians, learned to be a skilled scout and tracker, and tracked the cunning movements of the famous Apache warrior Geronimo.

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{ Tom Horn...Continued }

Ironically, Horn’s career as a hired gunman began legitimately when he signed up with the well-known Chicago-based Pinkerton Detective Agency, which supplied agents to serve as armed guards and private police forces. Though Pinkerton detectives generally stopped short of carrying out actual murders, they were sometimes called on to fight gun battles with everyone from striking miners to train robbers. Horn’s four-year stint with the Pinkertons doubtlessly impressed his next employer, the giant Wyoming ranching operation, Swan Land and Cattle Company. Swan and other big ranches funded Horn’s reign of terror in Wyoming, where he assassinated many supposed rustlers and other troublemakers. To take only one example, a Wyoming homesteader named William Lewis had stubbornly claimed his right to farm on what had previously been open range for cattle. He openly bragged about stealing and eating the cattle he found there. The big ranchers warned Lewis to leave the territory, but he refused to back down. In August 1895, he was shot to death with three bullets fired from a distance of at least 300 yards. Few doubted that the sharpshooting Horn killed Lewis. Horn’s reign of terror ended in 1903, when he was hanged for killing a 14-year-old boy.

1861 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis names Judah Benjamin the secretary of war. A Sephardic Jew from South Carolina, Judah Benjamin was an exception to the rule in the Protestant South. As a young man, he moved to New Orleans and lived in a largely Jewish community. He married the daughter of a wealthy Catholic couple, but the marriage was distant–Natalie Benjamin moved to Paris soon after the birth of their daughter and the couple spent little of their fifty-plus-year marriage together. Benjamin practiced law and bought a sugar plantation near New Orleans. He became a representative in the Louisiana state legislature in 1842, and he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1852. While there, he became a close friend of Jefferson Davis, who was then a Mississippi senator. Benjamin resigned during the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, even before Louisiana officially left the Union. Davis selected Benjamin as the Confederacy’s first attorney general, and he quickly became the president’s most trusted advisor.

After the Battle of First Bull Run, Secretary of War Leroy Walker resigned amid criticism that the Confederate army did not pursue the defeated Yankees. Davis appointed Benjamin to the position. Although Benjamin had no military experience, his appointment allowed Davis to dominate Confederate military affairs. Placing his trusted friend in the position of secretary of war ensured that Davis would not be challenged on important military decisions. Benjamin efficiently managed the day-to-day work of the war department, but he began to quarrel with some of the top generals who resented taking orders from a non-military bureaucrat. Benjamin also drew unfair criticism because of his religion–many openly questioned his loyalty because of his Jewish faith. When Roanoke Island fell to the Yankees in March 1862, criticism of Benjamin peaked. Many censured him for not sending men and supplies to the island’s garrison. Furthermore, the war was going badly for the Confederates in the West. Davis recognized that the storm of complaints was crippling Benjamin’s ability to perform his duty, so he appointed Benjamin secretary of state when Robert M. T. Hunter resigned that position.

As the outlook for the Confederacy grew bleaker in 1863 and 1864, Benjamin floated the idea that the South could obtain foreign recognition only by promising emancipation. This radical concept fell on deaf ears until the last weeks of the war. When the Confederacy finally collapsed, Benjamin fled with the rest of the Confederate government to Danville, Virginia. When President Lincoln was assassinated, it was discovered that Benjamin had ties to the Surratt family, which was implicated in the conspiracy. Fearing capture and prosecution, Benjamin fled the country. He settled in England and practiced law there, often visiting his wife and daughter in Paris. During the rest of his life, Benjamin rarely spoke of his service to the Confederacy. He died in Paris in 1884.

1864– From Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood launched the Franklin-Nashville Campaign into Tennessee. Hood led the Army of the Tennessee in its offensive into Tennessee, which was decisively broken in the battles of Franklin and Nashville. Hood, a graduate of West Point, had been in the U.S. Cavalry until the Civil War broke out. He was seriously wounded attacking Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg and later lost a leg at Chickamauga in September of that year. In 1864, he was appointed a Lieutenant General under Joseph E. Johnston‘s command in defense of Atlanta. In July, Confederate president Jefferson Davis put Hood in command who promptly attacked Sherman‘s Union army and was repulsed. Hood then attempted a long march to the north and west to assault Sherman‘s rear and ran into Union Army of the Cumberland. The November Battle of Franklin and December Battle of Nashville decisively defeated Hood‘s Army which was harassed and almost destroyed in its retreat. Hood‘s own request to end his command was granted the following month. After the war he lived in New Orleans.

1864 – Nov 21-22, Battle at Griswoldville, Georgia. Brig. Gen. Charles Walcutt was ordered to make a demonstration, with the six infantry regiments and one battery that comprised his brigade, toward Macon to ascertain the disposition of enemy troops in that direction. He set out on the morning of November 22, and after a short march he ran into some of Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry and drove them beyond Griswoldville. Having accomplished his mission, Walcutt retired to a position at Duncan’s Farm and fortified it with logs and rails to meet an expected Rebel attack force composed of three brigades of Georgia State Militia. The Georgia Militia had been ordered from Macon to Augusta, thinking the latter was Sherman’s next objective, and accidentally collided with Walcutt’s force. The Union force withstood three determined charges before receiving reinforcements of one regiment of infantry and two regiments of cavalry. The Rebels did not attack again and soon retired.

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1906– In San Juan, President Theodore Roosevelt pledged citizenship for Puerto Rican people.

1918 – U.S. battleships witness surrender of German High Seas fleet at Rosyth, Firth of Forth, Scotland, to U.S. and British fleets.

1921– The 1st mid-air refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.

1929 – Hoping to pick up the pieces after the stock market’s dramatic free-fall, President Herbert Hoover sat down for two closed-door meetings with the nation’s business leaders, as well as trade union representatives. Each session saw the president and respective groups hash out a broad plan for righting the economy and reassuring the panicked public. Two weeks later, both the business and labor factions gave the green light to a general directive that Hoover hoped would help steer the nation away from fiscal turmoil.

1938– Nazi forces occupied western Czechoslovakia and declared its people German citizens. This annexation of Sudetenland was the first major belligerent action by Hitler. The allies chose to sit still for it in return for a promise of “peace in our time,” which Hitler later broke.

1940 – The Dies report on German and Communist espionage and subversive activities is published. As in the similar investigations which have been made in Britain, the strength of these disruptive elements is wildly overestimated and accompanied with call for preventive measures. The Dies Commission will eventually become the House Un-American Activities Committee.

1943 – On Tarawa Atoll, more American troops (of the 2nd Marine Divison) land on Betio Island. There are heavy casualties initially. However, by noon some progress is being made in successfully landing more troops. Other American units land on Bairiki Island. On Makin Atoll, elements of the US 27th Infantry Division begin to advance on Butaritari Island.

1944 – On Leyte, the US 32nd Division, advancing from the north coast, is held in the Ormoc Valley by Japanese forces. US 7th Division begins attacks north from Baybay toward Ormoc.

1944 – Northeast of Formosa, the US submarine Sealion sinks the Japanese battleship Kongo and a destroyer.

1944 – US 1st and 9th Armies meet firm resistance from German forces west of the Roer River. The US 3rd Army continues the siege of Metz while other elements gain ground near Saarebourg. Metz has never been taken by siege.1945- The last residents of the US Japanese-American internment left their camps.

1945 – When World War II finally ended, business and labor resumed their own struggle over power, profits and better working conditions. The first blow in the renewed battle was struck on this day in 1945, as the United Auto Workers staged the first postwar strike at the General Motors plant in Detroit, Michigan.

1950 – The 17th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division reached the Yalu River near its source at Hyesanjin, “Ghost City of Broken Bridges.” This was the northernmost progress achieved by any U.S. unit operating in the east under X Corps.

1950 – The battleship USS New Jersey was re-commissioned and re-entered active service under the command of Captain David M. Tyree.

1952 – The USS New Jersey was relieved in the Korean Theater of operations.

1958– A Soviet-East German commission met in East Berlin to discuss the transfer to East German control of Soviet functions and end its occupation status in Berlin.

1963– President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, began a two-day tour of Texas. The trip would not end well for the president.

1967 – Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, tells U.S. news reporters: “I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.” Having been reassured by the general, most Americans were stunned when the communists launched a massive offensive during the Vietnamese Tet New Year holiday on January 30, 1968. During this offensive, communist forces struck 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 64 of 242 district capitals and about 50 hamlets. At one point during the initial attack on Saigon, ommunist troops actually penetrated the ground floor of the U.S. Embassy. The fighting raged all over South Vietnam and lasted almost until the end of February. Overcoming the initial surprise of the attack, the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces recovered and ultimately inflicted a major military defeat on the communists. Nevertheless, Hanoi won a great psychological victory by launching such a widespread attack after Westmoreland assured the American people that the corner had been turned in South Vietnam. As a result of the unexpected Tet Offensive, many Americans came out forcefully against the war.

1969 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree in Washington, D.C., on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.

1969 – The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.

1970– U.S. planes conduct widespread bombing raids in North Vietnam.

1970 – Two 378-foot cutters, USCGC Sherman and Rush combined with USS Endurance to sink a North Vietnamese trawler attempting to smuggle arms into South Vietnam.

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1970 – A combined Air Force and Army team of 40 Americans–led by Army Colonel “Bull” Simons–conducts a raid on the Son Tay prison camp, 23 miles west of Hanoi, in an attempt to free between 70 and 100 Americans suspected of being held there. Planning for the mission–code-named Operation Ivory Coast–began in June 1970. The plan called for Army Rangers to be flown to Son Tay by helicopter and crash-land inside the compound. The plan was for Rangers to pour out of the helicopter and neutralize any opposition while Rangers in other helicopters, landing outside the walls, would break in and complete the rescue operation. At 11:30 p.m. on November 20, the raiding force departed Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. As the force approached the camp, U.S. Air Force and Navy warplanes struck North Vietnamese troop installations and antiaircraft sites in the area. Part of the force initially landed at the wrong compound, but otherwise the mission came off without a hitch. Unfortunately, the Rangers could not locate any prisoners in the huts. After a sharp firefight with the North Vietnamese troops in the area, the order was given to withdraw–27 minutes after the raid began, the force was in the air headed back to Thailand. The raid was accomplished in a superb manner and all Americans returned safely, but it was learned later that the prisoners had been moved elsewhere in July. Despite that disappointment, the raid was a tactical success and sent a message to the North Vietnamese that the United States was capable of inserting a combat force undetected only miles from their capital. Stunned by the raid, high Hanoi officials ordered all U.S. POWs moved to several central prison complexes. This was actually a welcome change-the move afforded the prisoners more contact with each other and boosted their morale.

1973– President Nixon’s attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2- minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

1975 – A Senate committee issues a report charging that U.S. government officials were behind assassination plots against two foreign leaders and were heavily involved in at least three other plots. The shocking revelations suggested that the United States was willing to go to murderous levels in pursuing its Cold War policies. The Senate Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Senator Frank Church, alleged that U.S. officials instigated plots to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo. In addition, the U.S. officials “encouraged or were privy to” plots that led to the assassinations of Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, General Rene Schneider of Chile, and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. The attempts against Castro failed, but the other four leaders were killed. There was also evidence suggesting U.S. involvement in a number of other assassination plots against foreign leaders. The committee indicated that it had no specific evidence that an American president ever authorized an assassination.

However, it went on to declare that “whether or not the President in fact knows about the assassination plots, and even if their subordinates failed in their duty of full disclosure, it still follows that the President should have known about the plots.” The Central Intelligence Agency came in for special condemnation for its efforts to recruit Mafia hit men to kill Castro and mercenaries to assassinate Lumumba. In the report’s conclusion, the committee declared that, “We condemn the use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy [and] find that assassination violates moral precepts fundamental to our way of life.” President Gerald Ford criticized the decision to release the report, claiming that it would do “grievous damage to our country” and would be used by “groups hostile to the United States in a manner designed to do maximum damage to the reputation and foreign policy of the United States.”

1979– A mob attacked the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two Americans. Rumors that the United States had participated in the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca provoked the attack. Four people died, two of them U.S. nationals. The American Cultural Center in Lahore also was destroyed by fire.

1985- Jonathan Jay Pollard, a civilian U.S. Navy intelligence analyst and Jewish American, is arrested on charges of illegally passing classified U.S. security information about Arab nations to Israel. Pollard, an employee at the navy intelligence center in Suitland, Maryland, was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison under the recommendation of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. The Israeli government did not officially object to the sentencing and most of Israel regarded the incident as an unfortunate embarrassment. However, Israeli calls for Pollard’s release mounted during the next decade, and top Israeli officials complained that Pollard received a far stiffer sentence than other individuals found in the past to have been passing information to “friendly” nations.

1986– National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, begin shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to a rebel Nicaraguan group. On November 25, North was fired but Hall continued to sneak documents to him by stuffing them in her skirt and boots. The Iran-Contra scandal, as it came to be known, became an embarrassment and a sticky legal problem for the Reagan administration. Only six years earlier, Iran had become an enemy of the United States after taking hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. At the time, President Reagan had repeatedly insisted that the United States would never deal with terrorists. When the revelation surfaced that his top officials at the National Security Council had begun selling arms to Iran, it was a public relations disaster.

During the televised Iran-Contra hearings, the public learned that the money received for the arms was sent to support the Contras in Nicaragua, despite Congress’ Boland Amendment, which expressly prohibited U.S. assistance to the Contras. Though the communist Sandinistas had been legitimately elected in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration sought to oust them by supporting the Contras, an anti-Communist group. During the Iran-Contra hearings, North claimed that the entire Reagan administration had known about the illegal plan. After admitting that he had lied to Congress, he was convicted of shredding documents, obstruction of justice, and illegally receiving a security fence for his own residence. He received a light sentence of a fine and probation. A year later in July 1990, an appellate court voted 2-1 to overturn his conviction based on the possibility that some of the evidence may have come from testimony that Congress had immunized in their own hearings on the matter.

1987– An eight-day siege began at a detention center in Oakdale, La., as Cuban detainees, alarmed over the possibility of being returned to Cuba, seized the facility and took hostages.

1990– President Bush arrived in Saudi Arabia, where he conferred with Saudi King Fahd and Kuwait’s exiled emir.

1994– NATO retaliated for repeated Serb attacks on a U.N. safe haven by bombing an airfield in a Serb-controlled section of Croatia.

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1995– A Peace Pact, the Dayton Peace Accord, was initialed by the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. US Sec. of State, Warren Christopher and chief mediator Richard Holbrooke manage to keep the parties talking for over 3 weeks to reach this agreement to end three and a-half years of ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. One year deployment of 20,000 US troops as one-third of a NATO peace keeping force was estimated to cost about $1.5 bil. The US also planned to contribute $600 mil over three years to help rebuild Bosnia.

1995– Israel granted jailed US spy Jason Pollard, citizenship.

1997– U.N. arms inspectors returned to Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s three-week standoff with the United Nations over the presence of Americans on the team.

1998– President Clinton, visiting South Korea, warned North Korea to forsake nuclear weapons and urged the North to seize a “historic opportunity” for peace with the South.

2000– Pres. Clinton agreed not to punish China for exporting missile components to Iran and Pakistan after China promised to end future technological cooperation with countries seeking to develop missile weaponry.

2001– Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old resident of Oxford, Conn., died of inhalation anthrax in a case that baffled investigators.

2001– In Afghanistan the Taliban in Kandahar pledged to continue their fight.

2002– The United States and the Philippines signed a controversial agreement which would allow U.S. forces to use the Asian country as a supply point for military operations.

2002– The 19 NATO leaders demanded that Iraq “fully and immediately” comply with a U.N. resolution to disarm.

2002– The Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania joined former communist states Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia as the next wave of NATO states.

2002– Al-Qaida leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the network’s chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, was reported to have been captured earlier in the month.

2002– In Indonesia Imam Samudra (35), the suspected mastermind of last month’s devastating Bali bombings was arrested near Jakarta.

2002– In Sidon, Lebanon, Bonnie Witherall (31), an American missionary, was shot and killed at a Christian center that provides medical care and aid to Palestinian refugees.

2003– The Air Force conducted a 2nd test of the “Mother of All Bombs,” officially the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, in Florida. It was 1st tested March 11th.

2003– In northern Afghanistan at least 60 suspected Taliban and Taliban sympathizers were released from Shibergan jail in Jawzjan province.

2003– In Bolivia assailants shot and killed Jessica Nicole Borda (22), the daughter of an American consular official, during a carjacking attempt in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

2014 – The United States House of Representatives files a lawsuit against President Barack Obama for executive actions undertaken in relation to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CHANDRON, AUGUST
Rank and organization: Seaman Apprentice, Second Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 1866, France. Accredited to: New York. (Letter, Capt. N. Judlow, U.S. Navy, No. 8326B; 21 November 1885.) Citation: On board the U.S.S. Quinnebaug, Alexandria, Egypt, on the morning of 21 November 1885. Jumping overboard from that vessel, Chandron, with the aid of Hugh Miller, boatswain’s mate, rescued William Evans, ordinary seaman, from drowning.

MILLER, HUGH
Rank and organization: Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1859 Philadelphia, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. (Letter Capt. N. Judlow U.S. Navy, No. 8326/B; 21 November 1885.) Citation: For jumping overboard from the U.S.S. Quinnebaug, at Alexandria, Egypt, on the morning of 21 November 1885 and assisting in saving a shipmate from drowning.

*HAWKINS, WILLIAM DEAN
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 19 .April 1914, Fort Scott, Kans. Appointed from: El Paso, Tex. Citation: For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of a Scout Sniper Platoon attached to the Assault Regiment in action against Japanese-held Tarawa in the Gilbert Island, 20 and 21 November 1943. The first to disembark from the jeep lighter, 1st Lt. Hawkins unhesitatingly moved forward under heavy enemy fire at the end of the Betio Pier, neutralizing emplacements in coverage of troops assaulting the main beach positions. Fearlessly leading his men on to join the forces fighting desperately to gain a beachhead, he repeatedly risked his life throughout the day and night to direct and lead attacks on pillboxes and installations with grenades and demolitions.

At dawn on the following day, 1st Lt. Hawkins resumed the dangerous mission of clearing the limited beachhead of Japanese resistance, personally initiating an assault on a hostile position fortified by enemy machineguns, and, crawling forward in the face of withering fire, boldly fired pointblank into the loopholes and completed the destruction with grenades. Refusing to withdraw after being seriously wounded in the chest during this skirmish, 1st Lt. Hawkins steadfastly carried the fight to the enemy, destroying 3 more pillboxes before he was caught in a burst of Japanese shellfire and mortally wounded. His relentless fighting spirit in the face of formidable opposition and his exceptionally daring tactics served as an inspiration to his comrades during the most crucial phase of the battle and reflect the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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*MINICK, JOHN W.
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company I, 121st Infantry, 8th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Hurtgen, Germany, 21 November 1944. Entered service at: Carlisle, Pa. Birth: Wall, Pa. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life, above and beyond the call of duty, in action involving actual conflict with the enemy on 21 November 1944, near Hurtgen, Germany. S/Sgt. Minick’s battalion was halted in its advance by extensive minefields, exposing troops to heavy concentrations of enemy artillery and mortar fire. Further delay in the advance would result in numerous casualties and a movement through the minefield was essential. Voluntarily, S/Sgt. Minick led 4 men through hazardous barbed wire and debris, finally making his way through the minefield for a distance of 300 yards.

When an enemy machinegun opened fire, he signaled his men to take covered positions, edged his way alone toward the flank of the weapon and opened fire, killing 2 members of the guncrew and capturing 3 others. Moving forward again, he encountered and engaged single-handedly an entire company killing 20 Germans and capturing 20, and enabling his platoon to capture the remainder of the hostile group. Again moving ahead and spearheading his battalion’s advance, he again encountered machinegun fire. Crawling forward toward the weapon, he reached a point from which he knocked the weapon out of action. Still another minefield had to be crossed. Undeterred, S/Sgt. Minick advanced forward alone through constant enemy fire and while thus moving, detonated a mine and was instantly killed.

CARPENTER, WILLIAM KYLE
Rank and Organization: Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines. Place and Date: November 21, 2010, Marjah District, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Entered Service At: Columbia, SC. Born: 17 October, 1989, Flowood, MS. Departed: No. Entered Service At: Columbia, SC. G.O. Number: . Date of Issue: 06/19/2014. Accredited To: South Carolina. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an Automatic Rifleman with Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division (Forward), 1 Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on 21 November 2010. Lance Corporal Carpenter was a member of a platoon-sized coalition force, comprised of two reinforced Marine squads partnered with an Afghan National Army squad.

The platoon had established Patrol Base Dakota two days earlier in a small village in the Marjah District in order to disrupt enemy activity and provide security for the local Afghan population. Lance Corporal Carpenter and a fellow Marine were manning a rooftop security position on the perimeter of Patrol Base Dakota when the enemy initiated a daylight attack with hand grenades, one of which landed inside their sandbagged position. Without hesitation, and with complete disregard for his own safety, Lance Corporal Carpenter moved toward the grenade in an attempt to shield his fellow Marine from the deadly blast. When the grenade detonated, his body absorbed the brunt of the blast, severely wounding him, but saving the life of his fellow Marine. By his undaunted courage, bold fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of almost certain death, Lance Corporal Carpenter reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

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