This Date in Military History:

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1989 – In Lebanon, the pro-Iranian group Organization for the Oppressed on Earth threatened to kill an American hostage, Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, unless Israel released Sheik Abdul-Karim Obeid, a cleric seized by Israeli commandos.

1991 – U.N. weapons inspectors report to the United Nation Security Council that Iraq has attempted to conceal aspects of its nuclear weapons program by destroying or burying essential equipment. The inspectors also reported identifying four times as many chemical weapons as Iraq had reported to be in its possession.

1994 – The first U.S. troops landed in the Rwandan capital of Kigali to secure the airport for an expanded international aid effort.

1997 – The US lifted a 12-year ban on US citizens visits to Lebanon.

1998 – The US Post Office began selling a 40-cent breast cancer stamp. Eight cents from every stamp will go to breast cancer research sponsored by the NIH and the Department of Defense.

1999 – In Serajevo Pres. Clinton pledged $700 million in aid in addition to $500 million for Kosovo as talks began to rebuild the Balkans.

1999 – The US agreed to pay $4.5 million to the injured and families of the victims of the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

2001 – Intel rolled out its new Pentium III-M processor based on .13 micron chip technology.

2002 – In the Philippines some 2,000 leftist protestors slammed a U.S.-led anti-terror exercise, ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell for talks on combating terrorism.

2003 – President Bush took personal responsibility for the first time for using disputed intelligence in his State of the Union address, but predicted he would be vindicated for going to war against Iraq.

2003 – Iraq’s interim government named its first president: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim from the Daawa party banned by Saddam Hussein.

2004 – Abdurahman Alamoudi pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to moving cash from Libya and involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Prince Abdullah.

2004 – In Iraq fierce overnight fighting between U.S. Marines backed by fighter aircraft and insurgents using small arms and mortars killed 13 insurgents in Fallujah overnight.

2004 – In Pakistan an attack on Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister designate, was a response to Pres. Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s transferring wanted militants to U.S. custody. 7 people were killed plus the suicide bomber. In 2005 police arrested 3 brothers for harboring suicide bombers, who made the attack on Aziz that left 9 bystanders dead.

2004 – Turkish authorities seized 200 pounds of plastic explosives hidden in a truck as it crossed into Turkey from Iraq.

2004 – In Uzbekistan suicide bombers hit the U.S. and Israeli embassies, killing at least two Uzbeks.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BATES, DELAVAN
Rank and organization: Colonel, 30th U.S. Colored Troops. Place and date: At Cemetery Hill, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Oswego County, N.Y. Born: 1840, Schoharie County, N.Y. Date of issue: 22 June 1891. Citation: Gallantry in action where he fell, shot through the face, at the head of his regiment.

CATLIN, ISAAC S.
Rank and organization: Colonel, 109th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Oswego, N.Y. Birth: New York. Date of issue: 13 January 1899. Citation: In a heroic effort to rally the disorganized troops was disabled by a severe wound. While being carried from the field he recovered somewhat and bravely started to return to his command, when he received a second wound, which necessitated amputation of his right leg.

COHN, ABRAHAM
Rank and organization: Sergeant Major, 6th New Hampshire Infantry. Place and date: At Wilderness, Va., 6 May 1864; At the mine, Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Campton, N.H. Birth: Guttentag, Silesia, Prussia. Date of issue: 24 August 1865. Citation: During Battle of the Wilderness rallied and formed, under heavy fire, disorganized and fleeing troops of different regiments. At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864, bravely and coolly carried orders to the advanced line under severe fire.

DODD, ROBERT F.
Rank and organization: Private, Company E, 27th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Hantramck, Mich. Born: 1844, Canada. Date of issue: 27 July 1896. Citation: While acting as orderly, voluntarily assisted to carry off the wounded from the ground in front of the crater while exposed to a heavy fire.

HAIGHT, SIDNEY
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company E, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. Place and dare: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Goodland, Mich. Born. 1846, Reading, Mich. Date of issue. 31 July 1896. Citation: Instead of retreating, remained in the captured works, regardless of his personal safety and exposed to the firing, which he boldly and deliberately returned until the enemy was close upon him.

HOGAN, FRANKLIN
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company A, 45th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: Front of Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Howard, Pa. Birth: Center County, Pa. Date of issue: 1 October 1864. Citation: Capture of flag of 6th Virginia Infantry (C.S.A.).

HOUGHTON, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company L, 14th New York Artillery. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864; 25 March 1865. Entered service at: Ogdensburg, N.Y. Born: 30 April 1842, Macomb, St. Lawrence County, N.Y. Date of issue: 5 April 1898. Citation: In the Union assault at the Crater (30 July 1864), and in the Confederate assault repelled at Fort Haskell, displayed most conspicuous gallantry and repeatedly exposed himself voluntarily to great danger, was 3 times wounded, and suffered loss of a leg.

JAMIESON, WALTER
Rank and organization: 1st Sergeant, Company B, 139th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864; At Fort Harrison, Va., 29 September 1864. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: France. Date of issue: 5 April 1898. Citation: Voluntarily went between the lines under a heavy fire at Petersburg, Va., to the assistance of a wounded and helpless officer, whom he carried within the Union lines. At Fort Harrison, Va., seized the regimental color, the color bearer and guard having been shot down, and, rushing forward, planted it upon the fort in full view of the entire brigade.

KNIGHT, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company I, 9th New Hampshire Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at Keene, N.H. Birth: Keene, N.H. Date of issue: 27 July 1896. Citation. In company with a sergeant, was the first to enter the exploded mine; was wounded but took several prisoners to the Federal lines.

MATHEWS, WILLIAM H.
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company E, 2d Maryland Veteran Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Baltimore, Md. Birth: England. Date of issue: 10 July 1892. Citation: Finding himself among a squad of Confederates, he fired into them, killing 1, and was himself wounded, but succeeded in bringing in a sergeant and 2 men of the 17th South Carolina Regiment (C.S.A.) as prisoners.
(Enlisted in 1861 at Baltimore, Md., under the name Henry Sivel, and original Medal of Honor issued under that name. A new medal was issued in 1900 under true name, William H Mathew.)

McALWEE, BENJAMIN F.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company D, 3d Maryland Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Washington, D.C. Date of issue: 4 April 1898. Citation: Picked up a shell with burning fuse and threw it over the parapet into the ditch, where it exploded; by this act he probably saved the lives of comrades at the great peril of his own.

SCHNEIDER, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company A, 3d Maryland Veteran Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Baltimore, Md. Date of issue: 27 July 1896. Citation: After the color sergeant had been shot down, seized the colors and planted them on the enemy’s works during the charge.

SIMONS, CHARLES J.
Rank and organization. Sergeant, Company A, 9th New Hampshire Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Exeter, N.H. Birth: India. Date of issue: 27 July 1896. Citation: Was one of the first in the exploded mine, captured a number of prisoners. and was himself captured, but escaped.

SWIFT, HARLAN J.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, Company H, 2d Mew York Militia Regiment. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: New York. Birth: New Hudson, N.Y. Date of issue: 20 July 1897. Citation: Having advanced with his regiment and captured the enemy’s line, saw 4 of the enemy retiring toward their second line of works. He advanced upon them alone, compelled their surrender and regained his regiment with the 4 prisoners.

THATCHER, CHARLES M.
Rank and organization: Private, Company B, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Eastmanville, Mich. Born: 1844, Coldwater, Mich. Date of issue: 31 July 1896. Citation: Instead of retreating or surrendering when the works were captured, regardless of his personal safety continued to return the enemy’s fire until he was captured.

WELSH, JAMES
Rank and organization: Private, Company E, 4th Rhode Island Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: Slatersville, R.I. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 3 June 1905. Citation: Bore off the regimental colors after the color sergeant had been wounded and the color corporal bearing the colors killed thereby saving the colors from capture.

WILKINS, LEANDER A.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company H, 9th New Hampshire Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Lancaster, N.H. Date of issue: 1 December 1864. Citation: Recaptured the colors of 21st Massachusetts Infantry in a hand_to_hand encounter.

WRIGHT, ALBERT D.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company G, 43d U.S. Colored Troops. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 30 July 1864. Entered service at:——. Born: 10 December 1844, Elkland, Tioga County, Pa. Date of issue: 1 May 1893. Citation: Advanced beyond the enemy’s lines, capturing a stand of colors and its color guard; was severely wounded.

REGAN, PATRICK
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1852, Ireland. Accredited to: New York. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Pensacola, Regan displayed gallant conduct in the harbor of Coquimbor, Chile, 30 July 1873.

O’NEIL, RICHARD W.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company D, 165th Infantry, 42d Division. Place and date: On the Ourcq River, France, 30 July 1918. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: New York, N.Y. G.O. No.: 30, W.D., 1921. Citation: In advance of an assaulting line, he attacked a detachment of about 25 of the enemy. In the ensuing hand-to-hand encounter he sustained pistol wounds, but heroically continued in the advance, during which he received additional wounds: but, with great physical effort, he remained in active command of his detachment. Being again wounded, he was forced by weakness and loss of blood to be evacuated, but insisted upon being taken first to the battalion commander in order to transmit to him valuable information relative to enemy positions and the disposition of our men.

*OZBOURN, JOSEPH WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 24 October 1919, Herrin, Ill. Accredited to: Illinois. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a Browning Automatic Rifleman serving with the 1st Battalion, 23d Marines, 4th Marine Division, during the battle for enemy Japanese-held Tinian Island, Marianas Islands, 30 July 1944. As a member of a platoon assigned the mission of clearing the remaining Japanese troops from dugouts and pillboxes along a tree line, Pvt. Ozbourn, flanked by 2 men on either side, was moving forward to throw an armed handgrenade into a dugout when a terrific blast from the entrance severely wounded the 4 men and himself. Unable to throw the grenade into the dugout and with no place to hurl it without endangering the other men, Pvt. Ozbourn unhesitatingly grasped it close to his body and fell upon it, sacrificing his own life to absorb the full impact of the explosion, but saving his comrades. His great personal valor and unwavering loyalty reflect the highest credit upon Pvt. Ozbourn and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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31 July

1498 – During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrived at the island of Trinidad.

1760 – In 1756 approximately 60 members of the South Carolina militia organized the Charles Town Artillery Company which was chartered on this date by the colonial government. By being chartered the men in the unit, all volunteers, agreed to undergo additional drilling over that normally expected by members of the enrolled militia. The charter also allowed the company to draw guns, powder and other supplies from the colony’s arms stores.

1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army.

1790 – The U.S. Patent Office granted its first patent to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont, developer of a new method the manufacture of pot and pearl ash, potash.

1813 – Marines landed at York, Lake Ontario, with soldiers to burn stores and barracks of the British.

1815 – Commodore Stephen Decatur concludes agreement with Bey of Tunis to compensate U.S. for seizure of merchant ships during the War of 1812.

1816 – Union General George H. Thomas, who deserves a share of the credit for the Union success in the west, is born in Southhampton County, Virginia. Thomas exemplified the difficulties that individuals who chose to break with their native states over the issue of secession faced. After graduating from West Point, Thomas served in the Seminole and Mexican-American Wars. During the 1850s, he served in Texas with the 2nd Cavalry alongside many prominent future Confederates such as Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Albert S. Johnston, and John Bell Hood. When Virginia seceded from the Union, Thomas chose to remain loyal to his country. For this decision, Thomas paid dearly. His family disowned him, and he found advancement in the Union army difficult. He often served under Northern-born men of lesser ability. Thomas was given command of Union forces in eastern Kentucky, and he distinguished himself with a key victory over the Confederates at Logan’s Cross Roads in January 1862.

After the Battle of Shiloh two months later, Thomas was given command of the Army of the Tennessee when Ulysses S. Grant became the second-in-command in the west to Henry Halleck. This command was given back to Grant during reorganization in 1862. Thomas commanded a corps at Stones River and became a Northern hero for his actions at Chickamauga in September 1863. When a gap appeared in the Union line at a crucial moment and Confederate troops began to pour through it, Thomas led a rally that saved the Federals from a serious defeat. He held the Union line together while the rest of the army, commanded by William Rosecrans, slipped back into Chattanooga. In 1864, Thomas commanded the Army of the Cumberland during William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. After the capture of Atlanta, Thomas’s army was sent to pursue the remnants of Confederate General John Bell Hood’s army back into Tennessee while Sherman marched across Georgia. Thomas scored two huge victories at Franklin and Nashville as Hood desperately flung his army at the Yankees, resulting in the near disintegration of the once great Rebel force. After the war, Thomas remained in the army. He was transferred to the Military Division of the Pacific, and he died of a stroke in 1870 at the age of 54.

1837 – William Clarke Quantrill (d.1865), Confederate raider, was born. He was known as one of the most vicious butchers of the American Civil war.

1849 – Benjamin Chambers patented a breech loading cannon.

1864 – Ulysses S. Grant was named General of Volunteers.

1865 – The Navy’s East India Squadron established to operate from Sunda Strait to Japan.

1874 – Commissioning of USS Intrepid, first U.S. warship equipped with torpedoes.

1875 – Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, died in Carter Station, Tenn., at age 66. He succeeded Abraham Lincoln and was the only president to that time to face impeachment proceedings.

1876 – Congress re-established the Revenue Cutter cadet training program after three years suspension and the institution of promotion by examination.

1912 – First attempt to launch an airplane by catapult made at Annapolis.

1914 – German Kaiser Wilhelm II threatened war and ordered Russia to demobilize.

1918 – The 42nd Division (26 states and DC) is ordered to capture Hill 177 in preparation for the Aisne Offensive to begin on August 1st. Elements of its 84th Infantry Brigade, including Alabama’s the 167th and Iowa’s 168th Infantry regiments supported by the 151st Machine Gun Battalion, seize the hill after being heavily engaged.

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1932 – The George Washington quarter went into circulation as a 200 year commemorative of Washington’s birth. It has been in use ever since.

1933 – USS Constitution commences tour of principal U.S. seaports.

1941 – Roosevelt establishes the Economic Defense Board under Vice-President Wallace.

1942 – The historical background of the Transportation Corps starts with World War I. Prior to that time, transportation operations were chiefly the responsibility of the Quartermaster General. The Transportation Corps, essentially in its present form, was organized on July 31, 1942.

1942 – American bombers attack targets on Tulagi and bomb the airfield the Japanese are building on Guadalcanal.

1943 – The US 45th Division occupies Santo Stefano. British and Canadian units move toward Regalbuto and Centuripe.

1944 – American 1st Army continues to advance. The US 4th Armored Division captures crossings over the Selune River near Pontaubault. The German counterattack on the left flank continues around Tessy and Percy.

1944 – An American battalion is landed west of Cape Sansapor from the offshore islands. At Aitape, American forces counterattack the Japanese forces along the Driniumor River.

1944 – On Tinian, American forces begin attacks on the last center of organized Japanese resistance, in the south of the island.

1945 – Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, surrenders to American authorities in Austria, who extradite him to France to stand trial. Laval, originally a deputy and senator of pacifist tendencies, shifted to the right in the 1930s while serving as minister of foreign affairs and twice as the French premier. A staunch anti-communist, he delayed the Soviet-Franco pact of 1935 and sought to align France with Fascist Italy. Hostile to the declaration of war against Germany in 1939, Laval encouraged the antiwar faction in the French government, and with the German invasion in 1940 he used his political influence to force an armistice with Germany. Henri Pýtain took over the new Vichy state, and Laval served as minister of state. Laval was dismissed by Pýtain in December 1940 for negotiating privately with Germany.

By 1942, Laval had won the trust of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and the elderly Pýtain became merely a figurehead in the Vichy regime. As the premier of Vichy France, Laval collaborated with the Nazi programs of oppression and genocide and increasingly became a puppet of Hitler. After the Allied liberation of France, he was forced to flee east for German protection. With the defeat of Germany in May 1945, he escaped to Spain but was expelled and went into hiding in Austria, where he finally surrendered to American authorities in late July. Extradited to France, Laval was convicted of treason by the High Court of Justice in a sensational trial. Condemned to death, he attempted suicide by poison but was nursed back to health in time for his execution on October 15, 1945.

1945 – US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, sends President Truman a memorandum on how to persuade Japan to surrender. As part of a package of measures which also includes conventional bombing, invasion and diplomacy, he takes for granted that America will use the atomic bombs now under production.

1945 – The Japanese are warned by the Americans that eight cities will be leveled if the government refuses to surrender.

1950 – The 5th Regimental Combat Team from Hawaii arrived in Korea.

1961 – General Lansdale submits a report on the ‘First Observation Group,’ the clandestine warfare unit ordered by President Kennedy in May. About to expand from 340 to 805 men, the group’s activities are soon to shift form actions against Vietcong in the South and focus entirely on North Vietnam.

1964 – Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon–4,308 in total–before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year–Ranger 6–but the probe’s cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface. Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA’s receiving station in California. The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon. In July 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.

1964 – All-nuclear task force with USS Long Beach, USS Enterprise, and USS Bainbridge leaves Norfolk, VA to begin voyage, Operation Sea Orbit, to circle the globe without refueling. They returned on 3 October.

1969 – The National Guard was mobilized due to racial disturbances in Baton Rouge, La.

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts (Dave Scott) took a drive on the moon in their land rover.

1972 – Hanoi challenges the Nixon administration on the dike controversy, claiming that since April there had been 173 raids against the dikes in North Vietnam with direct hits in 149 locations. On July 28, in response to claims by the Soviet Union that the United States had conducted an intentional two-month bombing campaign designed to destroy the dikes and dams of the Tonkin Delta in North Vietnam, a CIA report was made public by the Nixon administration. It stated that U.S. bombing at 12 locations had caused accidental minor damage to North Vietnam’s dikes, but the damage was unintentional and the dikes were not the intended targets of the bombings. The nearly 2,000 miles of dikes on the Tonkin plain, and more than 2,000 miles of dikes along the sea, made civilized life possible in the Red River Delta. Had the dikes been intentionally targeted, their destruction would have destroyed centuries of patient work and caused the drowning or starvation of hundreds of thousands of peasants. Bombing the dikes had been advocated by some U.S. strategists since the beginning of U.S. involvement in the war, but had been rejected outright by U.S. presidents sitting during the war as an act of terrorism.

1985 – The Coast Guard conducted a fleet dedication ceremony for the new 110-foot patrol boats in Lockport, Louisiana.

1989 – A pro-Iranian group in Lebanon released a grisly videotape purportedly showing the body of American hostage William R. Higgins dangling from a rope, a day after his kidnappers threatened to kill him.

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1990 – Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence.

1991 – President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow.

1991 – The US Senate voted to allow women to fly combat aircraft.

1992 – The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a problem-plagued scientific mission.

1994 – The U.N. Security Council voted 12-0 with 2 abstentions to authorize member states to use “all necessary means” to oust the military leadership in Haiti.

1997 – In New York City, police seized five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on city subways. 2 potential suicide bombers were shot and wounded in an explosives laden Brooklyn apartment. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer (23) and Lafi Khalil (22) were recovering from wounds. In 1998 Khalil was acquitted and Gazi Ibrahim Aby Mezer was convicted of plotting to bomb a subway station.

1998 – In Japan Asa Takii, the oldest person in the country and a survivor of the Hiroshima blast, died at age 114.

1999 – NASA controllers planned to send the $63 million Lunar Prospector crashing into the Mawson crater located in the south pole. They hoped to churn up some water vapor for possible detection. Evidence of the crash at 2:51 PDT was not detected.

1999 – The Ukraine and the US agreed to extend the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile dismantling program for 6 years.

2000 – US and British diplomats accused the Pres. Charles Taylor of Liberia and Pres. Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso of trading arms for diamonds 2003 – Two of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s daughters and their nine children were granted refuge in Jordan.

2001 – Richard Butler tells a U.S. Senate Committee that Iraq increased the production of chemical and biological weapons after U.N. inspections ended- and might even be close to developing a nuclear bomb. A former Iraqi nuclear engineer tells the Committee that Saddam Hussein will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005.

2003 – Five Taliban fighters, two Afghan soldiers and another person were killed on Thursday in separate incidents as hundreds of Afghan security forces were trying to flush out Taliban fighters in a new operation in southern Afghanistan.

2003 – Affordable Internet access makes its way to Afghanistan. The country, ravaged by 23 years of civil war, received what United Nations information technology workers called the first inexpensive public Internet service there. In August, five more Kabul post offices will be outfitted with Internet connections, where it costs the equivalent of $1 an hour to check e-mail and surf the Web.

2004 – US secretary of state Colin Powell said the United States would speed delivery to Iraq of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, as Nato countries agreed to send a 40-member team as soon as possible to begin training Iraqi security forces.

2004 – Thirteen fighters died in overnight clashes with U.S.-led forces in Fallujah while Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, sought additional pledges from neighboring Arab countries for help in stopping violence. The U.S. military battled the insurgents in Fallujah after a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol was attacked. No U.S. or Iraqi forces were killed.

2004 – About 170 members of an Illinois National Guard unit have been called for duty in Iraq. Members of the 1644th Transportation Company will be mobilized August 9th. The unit includes detachments based in both Springfield and Rock Falls. The company will train at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, before being deployed. Its mission is to transfer troops and cargo. This will be the second mobilization for the 1644th. About the same number of members were called to duty in March 2003 and served about four months.

2004 – Kabul police foiled a sophisticated and potentially deadly bomb plot in the Afghan capital. Police and NDS members arrested a man riding a motorcycle in which was hidden around 6.6 pounds of explosives connected to a timing device of a compact disc player to detonate it remotely. Further along the crowded Jalalabad road in the center of the city police found seven BM-12 rockets and 30 sticks of dynamite covered in gravel and scrap metal and rigged with two electronic detonators. The explosives were concealed in an apple vendor’s cart near a petrol filling station.

2006 – ISAF assumed command of the south of Afghanistan.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

MARSH, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 1st Connecticut Cavalry. Place and date: At Back Creek Valley, Va., 31 July 1864. Entered service at: New Milford, Conn.. Birth: Milford, Conn. Date of issue: 23 January 1865. Citation: Capture of flag and its bearer.

KISTERS, GERRY H.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant (then Sergeant), U.S. Army, 2d Armored Division. Place and date: Near Gagliano, Sicily, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Bloomington, Ind. Birth: Salt Lake City, Utah. G.O. No.: 13, 18 February 1944. Citation: On 31 July 1943, near Gagliano, Sicily, a detachment of 1 officer and 9 enlisted men, including Sgt. Kisters, advancing ahead of the leading elements of U.S. troops to fill a large crater in the only available vehicle route through Gagliano, was taken under fire by 2 enemy machineguns. Sgt. Kisters and the officer, unaided and in the face of intense small arms fire, advanced on the nearest machinegun emplacement and succeeded in capturing the gun and its crew of 4. Although the greater part of the remaining small arms fire was now directed on the captured machinegun position, Sgt. Kisters voluntarily advanced alone toward the second gun emplacement. While creeping forward, he was struck 5 times by enemy bullets, receiving wounds in both legs and his right arm. Despite the wounds, he continued to advance on the enemy, and captured the second machinegun after killing 3 of its crew and forcing the fourth member to flee. The courage of this soldier and his unhesitating willingness to sacrifice his life, if necessary, served as an inspiration to the command.

RAMAGE, LAWSON PATERSON
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Parche. Place and date: Pacific, 31 July 1944. Entered service at: Vermont. Born: 19 January 1920, Monroe Bridge, Mass. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Parche in a predawn attack on a Japanese convoy, 31 July 1944. Boldly penetrating the screen of a heavily escorted convoy, Comdr. Ramage launched a perilous surface attack by delivering a crippling stern shot into a freighter and quickly following up with a series of bow and stern torpedoes to sink the leading tanker and damage the second one. Exposed by the light of bursting flares and bravely defiant of terrific shellfire passing close overhead, he struck again, sinking a transport by two forward reloads. In the mounting fury of fire from the damaged and sinking tanker, he calmly ordered his men below, remaining on the bridge to fight it out with an enemy now disorganized and confused. Swift to act as a fast transport closed in to ram, Comdr. Ramage daringly swung the stern of the speeding Parche as she crossed the bow of the onrushing ship, clearing by less than 50 feet but placing his submarine in a deadly crossfire from escorts on all sides and with the transport dead ahead. Undaunted, he sent 3 smashing “down the throat” bow shots to stop the target, then scored a killing hit as a climax to 46 minutes of violent action with the Parche and her valiant fighting company retiring victorious and unscathed.

*YOUNG, RODGER W.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, 148th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: On New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Clyde, Ohio. Birth: Tiffin, Ohio. G.O. No.: 3, 6 January 1944. Citation: On 31 July 1943, the infantry company of which Pvt. Young was a member, was ordered to make a limited withdrawal from the battle line in order to adjust the battalion’s position for the night. At this time, Pvt. Young’s platoon was engaged with the enemy in a dense jungle where observation was very limited. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machinegun concealed on higher ground only 75 yards away. The initial burst wounded Pvt. Young. As the platoon started to obey the order to withdraw, Pvt. Young called out that he could see the enemy emplacement, whereupon he started creeping toward it. Another burst from the machinegun wounded him the second time. Despite the wounds, he continued his heroic advance, attracting enemy fire and answering with rifle fire. When he was close enough to his objective, he began throwing handgrenades, and while doing so was hit again and killed. Pvt. Young’s bold action in closing with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire, permitted his platoon to disengage itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.

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1 August

1498 – Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. Thinking it an island, he christened it Isla Santa and claimed it for Spain. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a sailing entrepreneur. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. Contrary to popular legend, educated Europeans of Columbus’ day did believe that the world was round, as argued by St. Isidore in the seventh century. However, Columbus, and most others, underestimated the world’s size, calculating that East Asia must lie approximately where North America sits on the globe (they did not yet know that the Pacific Ocean existed). With only the Atlantic Ocean, he thought, lying between Europe and the riches of the East Indies. Columbus died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506, without realizing the great scope of his achievement: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

1781 – English army under Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.

1789 – Already mindful of the markets, the freshly formed United States Government wheeled into action in 1789, passing the nation’s first tariff legislation. The tariff was designed to protect America’s burgeoning interests in foreign trade.

1790 – The first enumeration by the U.S. Census Bureau was completed. It showed a population of 3,939,326 located in 16 states and the Ohio territory with 697,624 slaves. Virginia was the most populous state with 747,610 inhabitants. The census compilation cost $44,377.

1799 – Secretary of Treasury described the ensign and pennant authorized to be flown by revenue cutters. They would be “consisting of 16 perpendicular stripes (one for each state in the Union at that time) alternate red and the Union of the Ensign to be the Arms of the United States in dark blue on a white field.”

1801 – The American schooner Enterprise captured the Barbary cruiser Tripoli.

1825 – William Beaumont, a US Army assistant surgeon at Fort Mackinac in the Michigan territory, began experiments to study the digestive system of Alexis St. Martin, a fur trader who was accidentally shot in the abdomen in 1822.

1861 – Captain John Baylor claims most of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico for the Confederacy after he routs a Union force at Fort Fillmore in southern New Mexico.

1863 – Confederate steamer Chesterfield, landing troops and ammunition at Cumming’s Point, Morris Island, Charleston harbor, was taken under fire by a Union gunboat. She was forced to seek safety at Fort Sumter before she completed the landing of her stores. Brigadier General Ripley noted that the Union was “for the first time, attempting to interrupt our communication with Morris Island.” Urging that some measures he taken to protect the Confederate transports, Ripley observed that if such actions continued, “our transportation, which is already of the weakest kind, will soon be cut up, and when that is gone our first requisite for carrying out the defense of Charleston is taken from us.” General Beauregard asked Flag Officer Tucker on 2 August to provide “at least one of the ironclad rams. . . to drive away such vessels as disturbed and interrupted our means of transportation last night.”

1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant appoints General Philip Sheridan commander of the Army of the Shenandoah. Within a few months, Sheridan drove a Confederate force from the Shenandoah Valley and destroyed nearly all possible sources of Rebel supplies, helping to seal the fate of the Confederacy. In the summer of 1864, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had sent part of his army at Petersburg, Virginia, commanded by Jubal Early, to harass Federal units in the area of the Shenandoah and threaten Washington, D.C. The Confederates had used the same strategy in 1862, when General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson effectively relieved Union pressure on Richmond with a campaign in the Shenandoah. In July, Early marched his army through the valley and down the Potomac to the outskirts of Washington, forcing Grant to take some of his troops away from the Petersburg defenses and protect the nation’s capital. Frustrated by the inability of Generals Franz Sigel and David Hunter to effectively deal with Early’s force in the Shenandoah, Grant turned to General Philip Sheridan, a skilled general who served with him in the west before Grant became the overall commander of Union forces in early 1864.

Surprisingly, Grant had placed Sheridan, an effective infantry leader, in charge of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry division for the campaign against Lee. Now Grant handed Sheridan command of the Army of the Shenandoah, comprising of 40,000 troops that included many demoralized veterans of the summer campaign. Sheridan wasted little time, beginning an offensive in September that routed Early’s army and then destroyed most of the agricultural resources of the region. Although this victory is not as famous as Union General William T. Sherman’s march through Georgia, which took place at the same time, it may have been even more complete. The Shenandoah Valley, so important throughout the war, was rendered useless to the Confederacy by the end of the fall.

1876 – Colorado was admitted as the 38th state. on July 1, 1876, Colorado voted 15,443 to 4,062 to adopt a state constitution proposed by a constitutional convention and to become a state. On August 1, 1876, President Ulysses Grant proclaimed Colorado the 38th state.

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1914 – Four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany and Russia declare war against each other, France orders a general mobilization, and the first German army units cross into Luxembourg in preparation for the German invasion of France. During the next three days, Russia, France, Belgium, and Great Britain all lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the German army invaded Belgium. The “Great War” that ensued was one of unprecedented destruction and loss of life, resulting in the deaths of some 20 million soldiers and civilians. On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austria-Hungary declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital of Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia’s ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the Germany army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium’s ally, to declare war against Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the “Schlieffen Plan,” which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France. The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris.

By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front–the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium–the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany.

In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies’ favor. Bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with an imminent invasion, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in November 1918. World War I was known as the “war to end all wars” because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict–the Treaty of Versailles of 1919–forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

1914 – The government of Belgium proclaims that it will maintain its armed neutrality in any conflict, a position guaranteed by Britain and France.

1914 – French President Raymond Poincare agrees to issue a general mobilization order.

1921 – Successful tests of gyroscopic high level bombsight (Norden Bombsight) at Torpedo Station, Yorktown, VA. Carl Norden developed the bombsight for the Bureau of Ordnance.

1933 – The US National Recovery Administration (NRA) formed.

1941 – Parade magazine called it “…the Army’s most intriguing new gadget…a tiny truck which can do practically everything.” During World War I, the U.S. Army began looking for a fast, lightweight all-terrain vehicle, but the search did not grow urgent until early 1940. At this time, the Axis powers had begun to score victories in Europe and Northern Africa, intensifying the Allies’ need for an all-terrain vehicle. The U.S. Army issued a challenge to automotive companies, requesting a working prototype, fit to army specifications, in just 49 days. Willy’s Truck Company was the first to successfully answer the Army’s call, and the new little truck was christened “the Jeep.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower said that America could not have won World War II without it. Parade was so enthusiastic about the Jeep, that, on this day, it devoted three full pages to a feature on the vehicle.

1941 – The Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo plane made its first flight.

1941 – President Roosevelt forbids the export of oil and aviation fuel from the United States except to Britain, the British Commonwealth countries and countries of the Western Hemisphere. This decision is aimed at Japan. Roosevelt’s decision confirms steps taken recently when Japanese assets were frozen (on July 26th).

1941 – As a consequence of the American restrictions on oil exports, Japan is left with only limited stocks of oil. The position is such that Japan must either change her foreign policy very radically or decide to go to war and try to secure access to oil from the East Indies.

1942 – Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American beaches.

1943 – Race-related rioting erupted in New York City’s Harlem section. The start of the event was the arrest of Private Robert Bandy, a 26-year-old black soldier He was charged with attacking a white policeman who was arresting a black woman in a Harlem hotel . Rumors soon spread that police officers had killed a black soldier who was trying to protect his mother. This caused a momentous outburst of rioting destroying much of Harlem. The statistics of the riot vary depending on the source, but around 500 persons were injured, five dead, 400-500 arrested, and property damage estimated at 500,000 to a million dollars.

1943 – Operation Tidal Wave: The American Eighth Air Force began staging a series of heavy bomber air raids against the oil fields and refineries around Ploesti. These fields furnished about 80% of the Nazis’ petroleum requirements and were a key military target. Of the 177 B-24 Liberator bombers, 50 are lost.

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1943 – A Japanese destroyer rams an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109, slicing it in two. The destruction is so massive other American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead. Two crewmen were, in fact, killed, but 11 survived, including Lt. John F. Kennedy. Japanese aircraft had been on a PT boat hunt in the Solomon Islands, bombing the PT base at Rendova Island. It was essential to the Japanese that several of their destroyers make it to the southern tip of Kolombangara Island to get war supplies to forces there. But the torpedo capacity of the American PTs was a potential threat. Despite the base bombing at Rendova, PTs set out to intercept those Japanese destroyers. In the midst of battle, Japan’s Amaqiri hit PT-109, leaving 11 crewmen floundering in the Pacific. After five hours of clinging to debris from the decimated PT boat, the crew made it to a coral island. Kennedy decided to swim out to sea again, hoping to flag down a passing American boat. None came.

Kennedy began to swim back to shore, but strong currents, and his chronic back condition, made his return difficult. Upon reaching the island again, he fell ill. After he recovered, the PT-109 crew swam to a larger island, what they believed was Nauru Island, but was in fact Cross Island. They met up with two natives from the island, who agreed to take a message south. Kennedy carved the distress message into a coconut shell: “Nauru Is. Native knows posit. He can pilot. 11 alive need small boat.” The message reached Lieutenant Arthur Evans, who was watching the coast of Gomu Island, located next to an island occupied by the Japanese. Kennedy and his crew were paddled to Gomu. A PT boat then took them back to Rendova. Kennedy was ultimately awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, for gallantry in action. The coconut shell used to deliver his message found a place in history-and in the Oval Office. PT-109, a film dramatizing this story, starring Clift Robertson as Kennedy, opened in 1963.

1944 – The US 3rd Army (General Patton) becomes operational on the right flank and is tasked with clearing Brittany. American forces are now organized under US 12th Army Group (Bradley) and include US 1st Army (Hodges) as well as 3rd Army.

1944 – After nine days of fighting in a battle termed “the perfect amphibious operation of World War II,” MajGen Harry Schmidt, commander of V Amphibious Corps, declared the island of Tinian secured. The combination of surprise, heavy preassault bombardment, and effective logistical support was responsible for Tinian’s recapture with a much lower casualty rate (344 killed and 1550 wounded) than had been experienced in previous landings.

1945 – Allied mines, dropped by air, bring Japanese shipping on the Yangtze river to a halt. The Japanese have lost 36 ships (with 11 others damaged, for a total loss of 35,000 tons) as a result of Allied aerial mines.

1945 – On Bougainville, Allied troops seal off Japanese forces at Buin, on the southern tip of the island.

1945 – The American aircraft carrier Cabot attacks Japanese positions on Wake Island.

1946 – President Truman established the Atomic Energy Commission. Physicist John Simpson (d.2000 at 83) helped develop the 1946 McMahon Act, which called for civilian control of atomic energy.

1946 – Office of Naval Research established.

1950 – Lead elements of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division arrived in Korea from the United States.

1950 – Control of Guam transferred from the Navy to the Department of Interior.

1950 – Yakov Malik, Soviet delegate to the United Nations, ended Moscow’s boycott of the organization and took over the presidency of the Security Council.

1950 – Shipments of winter clothing and equipment to the Far East Command began.

1952 – The U.S. Coast Guard released a photograph of unidentified aerial phenomena (i.e. a UFO), taken by a 21-year old Coast Guard photographer on 16 July at the Salem Coast Guard Air Station.

1956 – Captain Norma Parsons becomes the first woman to join the National Guard when she was sworn in as a nurse in the 106th Tactical Hospital, New York Air National Guard. Only two days earlier, and after much debate, Congress finally enacted Public Law 845 allowing the participation of women in the Guard. But there were serious restrictions. Only female officers were allowed and they could only serve as nurses or in medically-related specialties such as dietitians, physical therapists or laboratory technicians.

The Army Guard’s first female member was First Lieutenant Sylvia Marie Saint Charles Law who joined Alabama’s 109th Evacuation Hospital in January 1957. Not until November 1967 did Congress amend this law to allow the enlistment of women in Guard. Starting with just a few nurse-officers in the 1950s, women have steadily increased their numbers and job opportunities so that by the close of FY 2003 female soldiers in the Army Guard comprised 12.4% of its total strength while 17.4% of the Air Guard was female.

1957 – The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1958 – US atomic sub USS Nautilus 1st dove under the North Pole.

1962 – Marine helicopter unit Shoofly (HMM-362) is replaced by HMM-163 after flying 50 combat troop lifts involving 130 landings against the Vietcong. The Marines suffer no casualties this tour. HMM-163 relocates at Danang in September.

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1964 – The North Vietnamese government accuses South Vietnam and the United States of having authorized attacks on Hon Me and Hon Ngu, two of their islands in the Tonkin Gulf. The North Vietnamese were partly correct; the attacks, conducted just after midnight on July 30, were part of a covert operation called Oplan 34A, which involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under American orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

On August 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox which was conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened or not, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.

1966 – Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 16. Whitman, who had killed both his wife and mother the night before, was eventually shot to death after courageous Austin police officers, including Ramiro Martinez, charged up the stairs of the tower to subdue the attacker. Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, began to suffer serious mental problems after his mother left his father in February 1966. On March 29, he told a psychiatrist that he was having uncontrollable fits of anger. He purportedly even told this doctor that he was thinking about going up to the tower with a rifle and shooting people. Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t follow up on this red flag.

On July 31, Whitman wrote a note about his violent impulses, saying, “After my death, I wish an autopsy on me be performed to see if there’s any mental disorder.” The note then described his hatred for his family and his intent to kill them. That night, Whitman went to his mother’s home, where he stabbed and shot her. Upon returning to his own home, he then stabbed his wife to death. The following morning, Whitman headed for the tower with several pistols and a rifle after stopping off at a gun store to buy boxes of ammunition and a carbine. Packing food and other supplies, he proceeded to the observation platform, killing the receptionist and two tourists before unpacking his rifle and telescope and hunting the people below. An expert marksman, Whitman was able to hit people as far away as 500 yards. For 90 minutes, he continued firing while officers searched for a chance to get a shot at him. By the end of his rampage, 16 people were dead and another 30 were injured. The University of Texas tower remained closed for over 30 years before reopening in 1999.

1969 – The U.S. command in Saigon announces that 27 American aircraft were lost in the previous week, bringing the total losses of aircraft in the conflict to date to 5,690.

1975 – The United States, the Soviet Union, Canada and every European nation (except Albania) sign the Helsinki Final Act on the last day of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The act was intended to revive the sagging spirit of detente between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies. During Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, he and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger fashioned a foreign policy toward the Soviet Union that came to be known as “detente”–literally, a lessening of tensions between Russia and America. The policy enjoyed some success during the early 1970s, as Nixon visited the Soviet Union and discussions about arms reduction began. By the summer of 1975, however, the spirit of detente was flagging. Nixon resigned in disgrace in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal. The United States withdrew from Vietnam without securing victory; in April 1975, South Vietnam fell to communist forces. Progress on arms reduction talks with the Soviets came to a standstill.

In July 1975, however, the Soviet Union and the United States attempted to reinvigorate the policy of detente by calling the CSCE in Helsinki. On August 1, the attendees signed the Helsinki Final Act. The act established the CSCE as an ongoing consultative organization, and set out a number of issues (grouped together in what came to be known as “baskets”) to be discussed in the coming months and years. These included economic and trade issues, arms reduction, and the protection of human rights. For a brief moment, detente seemed to have been revived, but the CSCE soon became the cause for heated debates between the United States and the Soviet Union, primarily over the issue of human rights in Russia. By mid-1978, the CSCE ceased to function in any important sense. It was revived by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, and served as a foundation for his policy of closer and friendlier relations with the United States.

1977 – Francis Gary Powers (47), US U-2 pilot, died in fiery helicopter crash.

1985 – The 49-year old cutter Ingham gained the distinction of being the oldest commissioned cutter in service when her sister, the Duane, was decommissioned.

1989 – The Revolutionary Justice Organization, a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon which had threatened to kill American hostage Joseph Cicippio, extended its deadline a day after another group released a videotape showing a body said to be that of hostage William R. Higgins.

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1990 – An Iraqi delegation walks out of talks with its Kuwaiti counterparts without any agreement being reached. Iraq says that Kuwait was not dealing seriously with the problems between the two countries.

1995 – NATO threatened major air strikes if any more “safe areas” were attacked in Bosnia.

1997 – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan approves Iraq’s request to add the Iraqi-Syrian border as an entry point for food and humanitarian aid under the oil-for-food program. The request provides further evidence of re-established official ties between the two countries. Ties were severed after Syria supported Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, and this new link between Iraq and Syria follows the reopening in mid-June of three border points that were shut in 1980.

1999 – The CGC Hamilton attempted to seize the Russian fishing trawler Gissar in the Bering Sea for fishing in U.S. waters. The Gissar then attempted to return to Russian waters, whereupon a boarding team from the Hamilton boarded the trawler. Soon thereafter, up to 19 other Russian trawlers surrounded the two vessels, thereby prohibiting the Hamilton from taking the Gissar to a U.S. port. The Hamilton’s boarding crew was removed from the Gissar and the Gissar was turned over to the Russian Border Guard vessel Antius.

2000 – A US military court in Germany sentenced Army Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi to life in prison without parole for sexually assaulting and killing Merita Shabiu, an eleven-year-old ethnic Albanian girl, while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo.

2002 – The United States and a bloc of Southeast Asian nations signed a sweeping anti-terrorism treaty.

2002 – Iraq says the United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix, is welcome in Baghdad for “technical talks”.

2002 – Opponents of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein shot and wounded his younger son, Qusai (35), in an assassination attempt in Baghdad. The Iraqi National Congress opposition group reported the event 2 weeks later.

2003 – The Belgian Senate gave final approval to a scaled-down war crimes law that the government hopes will repair relations with Washington and preserve Belgium’s role as NATO headquarters.

2003 – North Korea eased its insistence on one-on-one talks with Washington and agreed to join U.S.-proposed multilateral talks, where it will find little sympathy for its suspected nuclear weapons programs.

2004 – A militant group claiming links to al Qaeda has given Italy a 15-day deadline to withdraw its troops from Iraq or face attacks.

2004 – A Kenyan government spokesman said 7 truck drivers taken hostage in Iraq have been released.

2004 – A Lebanese hostage was freed unharmed after Iraqi police raided his kidnappers’ hideout in an operation that ended with the arrest of three terror suspects.

2005 – The Battle of Haditha was a battle fought between U.S. forces and Ansar al-Sunna in early August 2005 on the outskirts of the town of Haditha, Iraq, which was one of the many towns that were under insurgent control in the Euphrates River valley during 2005. On the first day of the battle, a six-man United States Marine Corps sniper unit in Haditha was attacked and overrun by a large insurgent force. All six men were found dead after the battle.

2007 – MSD St. Paul responded when the I-35W bridge collapsed in the Twin Cities. The Coast Guard established a security zone around the collapsed bridge and maintained a presence for 20 days. Boat crews from St. Louis, Milwaukee, Two Rivers, Wis., Duluth, Minn., Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., MSST 91106 (New York), Sector Lower Mississippi River, Sector New Orleans, Station Gulfport and Station Aransas assisted during the three weeks following the bridges collapse.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*BAKER, ADDISON E. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Air Corps, 93d Heavy Bombardment Group. Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943. Entered service at: Akron, Ohio. Born: 1 January 1907, Chicago, Ill. G.O. No.: 20, 11 March 1944. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy on 1 August 1943. On this date he led his command, the 93d Heavy Bombardment Group, on a daring low-level attack against enemy oil refineries and installations at Ploesti, Rumania. Approaching the target, his aircraft was hit by a large caliber antiaircraft shell, seriously damaged and set on fire. Ignoring the fact he was flying over terrain suitable for safe landing, he refused to jeopardize the mission by breaking up the lead formation and continued unswervingly to lead his group to the target upon which he dropped his bombs with devastating effect. Only then did he leave formation, but his valiant attempts to gain sufficient altitude for the crew to escape by parachute were unavailing and his aircraft crashed in flames after his successful efforts to avoid other planes in formation. By extraordinary flying skill, gallant leadership and intrepidity, Lt. Col. Baker rendered outstanding, distinguished, and valorous service to our Nation.

*HUGHES, LLOYD H. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 564th Bomber Squadron, 389th Bomber Group, 9th Air Force. Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943. Entered service at: San Antonio, Tex. Born: 12 July 1921, Alexandria, La. G.O. No.: 17, 26 February 1944. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry in action and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. On August 1943, 2d Lt. Hughes served in the capacity of pilot of a heavy bombardment aircraft participating in a long and hazardous minimum-altitude attack against the Axis oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania, launched from the northern shores of Africa. Flying in the last formation to attack the target, he arrived in the target area after previous flights had thoroughly alerted the enemy defenses. Approaching the target through intense and accurate antiaircraft fire and dense balloon barrages at dangerously low altitude, his plane received several direct hits from both large and small caliber antiaircraft guns which seriously damaged his aircraft, causing sheets of escaping gasoline to stream from the bomb bay and from the left wing. This damage was inflicted at a time prior to reaching the target when 2d Lt. Hughes could have made a forced landing in any of the grain fields readily available at that time. The target area was blazing with burning oil tanks and damaged refinery installations from which flames leaped high above the bombing level of the formation. With full knowledge of the consequences of entering this blazing inferno when his airplane was profusely leaking gasoline in two separate locations, 2d Lt. Hughes, motivated only by his high conception of duty which called for the destruction of his assigned target at any cost, did not elect to make a forced landing or turn back from the attack. Instead, rather than jeopardize the formation and the success of the attack, he unhesitatingly entered the blazing area and dropped his bomb load with great precision. After successfully bombing the objective, his aircraft emerged from the conflagration with the left wing aflame. Only then did he attempt a forced landing, but because of the advanced stage of the fire enveloping his aircraft the plane crashed and was consumed. By 2d Lt. Hughes’ heroic decision to complete his mission regardless of the consequences in utter disregard of his own life, and by his gallant and valorous execution of this decision, he has rendered a service to our country in the defeat of our enemies which will everlastingly be outstanding in the annals of our Nation’s history.

*JERSTAD, JOHN L. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Army Air Corps, 9th Air Force. Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943. Entered service at: Racine, Wis. Born: 12 February 1918, Racine, Wis. G.O. No.: 72, 28 October 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. On 1 August 1943, he served as pilot of the lead aircraft in his group in a daring low-level attack against enemy oil refineries and installations at Ploesti, Rumania. Although he had completed more than his share of missions and was no longer connected with this group, so high was his conception of duty that he volunteered to lead the formation in the correct belief that his participation would contribute materially to success in this attack. Maj. Jerstad led the formation into attack with full realization of the extreme hazards involved and despite withering fire from heavy and light antiaircraft guns. Three miles from the target his airplane was hit, badly damaged, and set on fire. Ignoring the fact that he was flying over a field suitable for a forced landing, he kept on the course. After the bombs of his aircraft were released on the target, the fire in his ship became so intense as to make further progress impossible and he crashed into the target area. By his voluntary acceptance of a mission he knew was extremely hazardous, and his assumption of an intrepid course of action at the risk of life over and above the call of duty, Maj. Jerstad set an example of heroism which will be an inspiration to the U.S. Armed Forces.

JOHNSON, LEON W. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Army Air Corps, 44th Bomber Group, 9th Air Force. Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943. Entered service at: Moline, Kans. Born: 13 September 1904, Columbia, Mo. G.O. No.: 54, 7 September 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry in action and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 1 August 1943. Col. Johnson, as commanding officer of a heavy bombardment group, let the formation of the aircraft of his organization constituting the fourth element of the mass low-level bombing attack of the 9th U.S. Air Force against the vitally important enemy target of the Ploesti oil refineries. While proceeding to the target on this 2,400-mile flight, his element became separated from the leading elements of the mass formation in maintaining the formation of the unit while avoiding dangerous cumulous cloud conditions encountered over mountainous territory. Though temporarily lost, he reestablished contact with the third element and continued on the mission with this reduced force to the prearranged point of attack, where it was discovered that the target assigned to Col. Johnson’s group had been attacked and damaged by a preceding element. Though having lost the element of surprise upon which the safety and success of such a daring form of mission in heavy bombardment aircraft so strongly depended, Col. Johnson elected to carry out his planned low-level attack despite the thoroughly alerted defenses, the destructive antiaircraft fire, enemy fighter airplanes, the imminent danger of exploding delayed action bombs from the previous element, of oil fires and explosions, and of intense smoke obscuring the target. By his gallant courage, brilliant leadership, and superior flying skill, Col. Johnson so led his formation as to destroy totally the important refining plants and installations which were the object of his mission. Col. Johnson’s personal contribution to the success of this historic raid, and the conspicuous gallantry in action, and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty demonstrated by him on this occasion constitute such deeds of valor and distinguished service as have during our Nation’s history formed the finest traditions of our Armed Forces.

KANE, JOHN R. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Army Air Corps, 9th Air Force. Place and date: Ploetsi Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943. Entered service at: Shreveport, La. Birth: McGregor, Tex. G.O. No.: 54, 9 August 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry in action and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 1 August 1943. On this date he led the third element of heavy bombardment aircraft in a mass low-level bombing attack against the vitally important enemy target of the Ploesti oil refineries. En route to the target, which necessitated a round-trip flight of over 2,400 miles, Col. Kane’s element became separated from the leading portion of the massed formation in avoiding dense and dangerous cumulous cloud conditions over mountainous terrain. Rather than turn back from such a vital mission he elected to proceed to his target.

Upon arrival at the target area it was discovered that another group had apparently missed its target and had previously attacked ??and damaged the target assigned to Col. Kane’s element. Despite the thoroughly warned defenses, the intensive antiaircraft fire, enemy fighter airplanes, extreme hazards on a low-level attack of exploding delayed action bombs from the previous element, of oil fires and explosions and dense smoke over the target area, Col. Kane elected to lead his formation into the attack. By his gallant courage, brilliant leadership, and superior flying skill, he and the formation under his command successfully attacked this vast refinery so essential to our enemies’ war effort. Through his conspicuous gallantry in this most hazardous action against the enemy, and by his intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Col. Kane personally contributed vitally to the success of this daring mission and thereby rendered most distinguished service in the furtherance of the defeat of our enemies.

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2 August

1776 – In Philadelphia most members of the Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Harrison was one of the signers. His son and grandson later became the 9th and 23rd presidents of the US. Most of the 55 signatures were affixed on August 2, but Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire, who was not a member of Congress when the declaration was adopted, added his name in November.

1819 – The first parachute jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.

1832 – Some 1,300 Illinois militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men, women and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.

1861 – The United States Congress passes the first income tax to raise revenues for the war effort. Although never enacted, it was an important fiscal innovation that paved the way for growth of the government in the 20th century.

1862 – The US Army Ambulance Corps was established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.

1862 – Union General John Pope captured Orange Court House, Virginia.

1864 – After months of attempting to ready C.S.S. Rappahannock and negotiating her clearance from French authorities in Calais, Flag Officer Barron reluctantly concluded that she could not be taken to sea under the Confederate flag. This date, he received a letter from Lieutenant Charles M. Fauntleroy, commanding Rappahannock, informing him that while the French would now permit her put to sea, her crew could not exceed 35 men. Barron at once replied: “I agree with you in the “absolute impossibility of navigating the ship” with so small a complement as thirty-five, including yourself and officers. You will therefore proceed to pay off and discharge your officers and crew, keeping sufficient officers and men to look after the public property, and lay up the ship until we determine upon what course we shall pursue in regard to her.” Private agents acting for the Confederacy had purchased Rappahannock from the British in November, 1863, at Sheerness, where she was refitting.

Concerned that the British, suspecting that she was to be used as a cruiser, would detain her, the Confederates ran Rappahannock out of port on 24 November. Her officers joined in the channel, and intended to rendezvous with C.S.S. Georgia off the French coast, where she would take on armament. However, in passing out of the Thames estuary her bearings burned out and she ‘was taken across the channel to Calais for repairs. Though the South had entertained high hopes for her as a commerce raider, she was destined never to put to sea under the Stars and Bars”. Fauntleroy, disillusioned with the command which cost the South so much in time and effort, termed her “The Confederate White Elephant.”

1865 – The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war. The Shenandoah was the last major Confederate cruiser to set sail. Launched as a British vessel in September 1863, it was purchased by the Confederates and commissioned in October 1864. The 230-foot-long craft was armed with eight large guns and a crew of 73 sailors. Commanded by Captain James I. Waddell, the Shenandoah steered toward the Pacific and targeted Yankee whaling ships. Waddell enjoyed great success, taking six ships in the South Pacific before slipping into Melbourne, Australia, for repairs in January 1865.

Within a month, the Shenandoah was back on the loose, wreaking havoc in the waters around Alaska. The Rebel ship captured 32 additional Union vessels, most of which were burned. The damage was estimated at $1.6 million, a staggering figure in such a short period of time. Although the crew heard rumors that the Confederate armies had surrendered, Waddell continued to fight. He finally accepted an English captain’s report on August 2, 1865. The Shenandoah pulled off another remarkable feat by sailing from the northern Pacific all the way to Liverpool, England, without stopping at any ports. Arriving on November 6, Waddell surrendered his ship to British officials.

1887 – Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.

1909 – The 1st Lincoln head pennies were minted. It was 95% copper and was the first US coin to depict the likeness of a president.

1909 – What will become the US Army Air Corps formed as the Army Signal Corps took 1st delivery from the Wright Brothers.

1914 – German troops occupy neutral Luxembourg and delivers an ultimatum to Belgium at 1900 hours demanding that German forces be allowed to move through Belgian territory unhindered to pre-empt a French attack on Germany. The ultimatum expires in 12 hours.

1914 – War Minister of Turkey, Enver Pasha, an aggressive nationalist and eager to restore Turkey’s fortunes as a major regional power, arranges a secret military alliance with Germany as a means of protecting his country from a possible Russian attack.

1923 – In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58. Harding was returning from a presidential tour of Alaska and the West Coast, a journey some believed he had embarked on to escape the rumors circulating in Washington of corruption in his administration. Harding, a relatively unremarkable U.S. senator of Ohio, won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 after the party deadlocked over several more prominent candidates. Harding ran pledging a “return to normalcy” after World War I and in November was elected the 29th U.S. president in a landslide election victory. Conscious of his own limitations, Harding promised to appoint a cabinet representing the “best minds” in America, but unfortunately he chose several intelligent men who possessed little sense of public responsibility.

In the summer of 1923, as Washington began discussing rumors of corruption in the departments of the Interior and Justice and in the Veterans Bureau, Harding departed on a speaking tour of Alaska and the West. On August 2, he died of an embolism, perhaps brought on by worry over the political scandals about to explode on the national stage. Early the next morning, Vice President Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as president by his father, a notary public, in his family home in Plymouth, Vermont. For the rest of his first term, one of President Coolidge’s principal duties was responding to public outrage over the Teapot Dome oil-leasing scandals, the revelations of fraudulent transactions in the Veterans Bureau and Justice Department, and the reports of his predecessor’s multiple extramarital affairs.

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1934 – With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Reichsführer, or “Imperial Leader.” The German army took an oath of allegiance to its new commander-in-chief, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled to make way for Hitler’s Third Reich. The Führer assured his people that the Third Reich would last for a thousand years, but Nazi Germany collapsed just 11 years later. Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, in 1889. As a young man he aspired to be a painter, but he received little public recognition and lived in poverty in Vienna. Of German descent, he came to detest Austria as a “patchwork nation” of various ethnic groups, and in 1913 he moved to the German city of Munich in the state of Bavaria. After a year of drifting, he found direction as a German soldier in World War I, and was decorated for his bravery on the battlefield. He was in a military hospital in 1918, recovering from a mustard gas attack that left him temporarily blind, when Germany surrendered. He was appalled by Germany’s defeat, which he blamed on “enemies within”–chiefly German communists and Jews–and was enraged by the punitive peace settlement forced on Germany by the victorious Allies. He remained in the German army after the war, and as an intelligence agent was ordered to report on subversive activities in Munich’s political parties. It was in this capacity that he joined the tiny German Workers’ Party, made up of embittered army veterans, as the group’s seventh member. Hitler was put in charge of the party’s propaganda, and in 1920 he assumed leadership of the organization, changing its name to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ party), which was abbreviated to Nazi.

The party’s socialist orientation was little more a ploy to attract working-class support; in fact, Hitler was fiercely right-wing. But the economic views of the party were overshadowed by the Nazis’ fervent nationalism, which blamed Jews, communists, the Treaty of Versailles, and Germany’s ineffectual democratic government for the country’s devastated economy. In the early 1920s, the ranks of Hitler’s Bavarian-based Nazi party swelled with resentful Germans. A paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung (SA), was formed to protect the Nazis and intimidate their political opponents, and the party adopted the ancient symbol of the swastika as its emblem. In November 1923, after the German government resumed the payment of war reparations to Britain and France, the Nazis launched the “Beer Hall Putsch”–an attempt at seizing the German government by force. Hitler hoped that his nationalist revolution in Bavaria would spread to the dissatisfied German army, which in turn would bring down the government in Berlin. However, the uprising was immediately suppressed, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for treason. Imprisoned in Landsberg fortress, he spent his time there dictating his autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a bitter and rambling narrative in which he sharpened his anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist beliefs and laid out his plans for Nazi conquest. In the work, published in a series of volumes, he developed his concept of the Fýhrer as an absolute dictator who would bring unity to German people and lead the “Aryan race” to world supremacy.

Political pressure from the Nazis forced the Bavarian government to commute Hitler’s sentence, and he was released after nine months. However, Hitler emerged to find his party disintegrated. An upturn in the economy further reduced popular support of the party, and for several years Hitler was forbidden to make speeches in Bavaria and elsewhere in Germany. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 brought a new opportunity for the Nazis to solidify their power. Hitler and his followers set about reorganizing the party as a fanatical mass movement, and won financial backing from business leaders, for whom the Nazis promised an end to labor agitation. In the 1930 election, the Nazis won six million votes, making the party the second largest in Germany. Two years later, Hitler challenged Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency, but the 84-year-old president defeated Hitler with the support of an anti-Nazi coalition. Although the Nazis suffered a decline in votes during the November 1932 election, Hindenburg agreed to make Hitler chancellor in January 1933, hoping that Hitler could be brought to heel as a member of his cabinet. However, Hindenburg underestimated Hitler’s political audacity, and one of the new chancellor’s first acts was to exploit the burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building as a pretext for calling general elections. The police under Nazi Hermann Goering suppressed much of the party’s opposition before the election, and the Nazis won a bare majority. Shortly after, Hitler took on dictatorial power through the Enabling Acts. Chancellor Hitler immediately set about arresting and executing political opponents, and even purged the Nazis’ own SA paramilitary organization in a successful effort to win support from the German army. With the death of President Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, Hitler united the chancellorship and presidency under the new title of Führer.

As the economy improved, popular support for Hitler’s regime became strong, and a cult of Führer worship was propagated by Hitler’s capable propagandists. German remilitarization and state-sanctioned anti-Semitism drew criticism from abroad, but the foreign powers failed to stem the rise of Nazi Germany. In 1938, Hitler implemented his plans for world domination with the annexation of Austria, and in 1939 Germany seized all of Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, finally led to war with Germany and France. In the opening years of World War II, Hitler’s war machine won a series of stunning victories, conquering the great part of continental Europe. However, the tide turned in 1942 during Germany’s disastrous invasion of the USSR. By early 1945, the British and Americans were closing in on Germany from the west, the Soviets from the east, and Hitler was holed up in a bunker under the chancellery in Berlin awaiting defeat. On April 30, with the Soviets less than a mile from his headquarters, Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun, his mistress whom he married the night before. Hitler left Germany devastated and at the mercy of the Allies, who divided the country and made it a major battlefield of Cold War conflict. His regime exterminated nearly six millions Jews and an estimated 250,000 Gypsies in the Holocaust, and an indeterminable number of Slavs, political dissidents, disabled persons, homosexuals, and others deemed unacceptable by the Nazi regime were systematically eliminated. The war Hitler unleashed upon Europe took even more lives–close to 20 million people killed in the USSR alone. Adolf Hitler is reviled as one of history’s greatest villains.

1939 – Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

1941 – Lend-Lease aid begins to be sent to the Soviet Union.

1942 – US troops are now being transported to the UK in the passenger liners Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Nieuw Amsterdam. These vessels are too fast for standard escorts. Their routes across the Atlantic are based on Admiralty intelligence on U-boat concentrations.

1943 – The 10-day allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.

1943 – American naval forces bombard Kiska Island, unaware that the Japanese garrison has been evacuated.

1943 – On New Georgia, American forces have advanced to the edge of Munda airfield. The Japanese have decided not to reinforce the garrison on New Georgia. Some of its garrison are withdrawn to Kolombangara where the Japanese intend to make their next stand.

1944 – The US 3rd Army advances. The 8th Corps reaches Dinan and the outskirts of Rennes, in Brittany. To the left, elements of US 1st Army capture Villedieu in an attack around Tessy toward Mortain.

1944 – On Guam, US forces make progress in attacks on the west side of the island but American attacks on the east side are repulse by the Japanese garrison.

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1945 – The last wartime conference of the “Big Three”–the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain–concludes after two weeks of intense and sometimes acrimonious debate. The conference failed to settle most of the important issues at hand and thus helped set the stage for the Cold War that would begin shortly after World War II came to an end. The meeting at Potsdam was the third conference between the leaders of the Big Three nations. The Soviet Union was represented by Joseph Stalin, Britain by Winston Churchill, and the United States by President Harry S. Truman. This was Truman’s first Big Three meeting. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died in April 1945, attended the first two conferences–in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in February 1945. At the Potsdam meeting, the most pressing issue was the postwar fate of Germany. The Soviets wanted a unified Germany, but they also insisted that Germany be completely disarmed. Truman, along with a growing number of U.S. officials, had deep suspicions about Soviet intentions in Europe. The massive Soviet army already occupied much of Eastern Europe.

A strong Germany might be the only obstacle in the way of Soviet domination of all of Europe. In the end, the Big Three agreed to divide Germany into three zones of occupation (one for each nation), and to defer discussions of German reunification until a later date. The other notable issue at Potsdam was one that was virtually unspoken. Just as he arrived for the conference, Truman was informed that the United States had successfully tested the first atomic bomb. Hoping to use the weapon as leverage with the Soviets in the postwar world, Truman casually mentioned to Stalin that America was now in possession of a weapon of monstrously destructive force. The president was disappointed when the Soviet leader merely responded that he hoped the United States would use it to bring the war with Japan to a speedy end. The Potsdam Conference ended on a somber note. By the time it was over, Truman had become even more convinced that he had to adopt a tough policy toward the Soviets. Stalin had come to believe more strongly that the United States and Great Britain were conspiring against the Soviet Union. As for Churchill, he was not present for the closing ceremonies. His party lost in the elections in England, and he was replaced midway through the conference by the new prime minister, Clement Attlee. Potsdam was the last postwar conference of the Big Three.

1945 – During the night (August 1-2), 820 US B-29 Superfortress bombers drop a record total of 6632 tons of bombs on five Japanese cities including Hachioji, Nagaoka, Mito, Toyama and the petroleum center of Kawasaki. Most of Toyama is obliterated. Also, Americans claim to have sunk 26 ships in the raids.

1950 – Amphibious force ships land Marine First Provisional Brigade at Pusan, Korea helping to save this last area of South Korea from capture.

1950 – Korea suffered its worst winter of the century.

1950 – By early August, 134 National Guard units had received activation orders.

1950 – The Ford Motor Company created the Defense Products Division in order to handle the large number of government contracts related to the Korean War. The conversion from automobile manufacture to weapons production had already been made several times in history, including during World War II, when civilian automobile production in the U.S. virtually ceased as manufacturers began turning out tanks instead.

1956 – Albert Woolson (109), last veteran US Union Army, died.

1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731). The American ship had been cruising around the Tonkin Gulf monitoring radio and radar signals following an attack by South Vietnamese PT boats on North Vietnamese facilities on Hon Me and Hon Nhieu Islands (off the North Vietnamese coast) under Oplan 34A. U.S. crews interpreted one North Vietnamese message as indicating that they were preparing “military operations,” which the Maddox’s Captain John Herrick assumed meant some sort of retaliatory attack. His superiors ordered him to remain in the area. Early that afternoon, three North Vietnamese patrol boats began to chase the Maddox. About 3 p.m., Captain Herrick ordered his crew to commence firing as the North Vietnamese boats came within 10,000 yards of his ship; at the same time he radioed the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga for air support. The North Vietnamese boats each fired one torpedo at the Maddox, but two missed and the third failed to explode. U.S. gunfire hit one of the North Vietnamese boats, and then three U.S. Crusader jets proceeded to strafe them. Within 20 minutes, Maddox gunners sunk one of the boats and two were crippled; only one bullet hit the Maddox and there were no U.S. casualties. The Maddox was ordered to withdraw and await further instructions.

In Washington, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed by this situation, at first rejected any reprisals against North Vietnam. In his first use of the “hot line” to Russia, Johnson informed Khrushchev that he had no desire to extend the conflict. In the first U.S. diplomatic note ever sent to Hanoi, Johnson warned that “grave consequences would inevitably result from any further unprovoked offensive military action” against U.S. ships “on the high seas.” Meanwhile, the U.S. military command took several critical actions. U.S. combat troops were placed on alert and additional fighter-bombers were sent to South Vietnam and Thailand. The carrier USS Constellation was ordered to the South China Sea to join the USS Ticonderoga. Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, commander of the Pacific Fleet, ordered a second destroyer, the USS C. Turner Joy, to join the Maddox on station and to make daylight approaches to within eight miles of North Vietnam’s coast and four miles of its islands to “assert the right of freedom of the seas.”

1965 – Newsman Morley Safer filmed the destruction of a Vietnamese village by U.S. Marines.

1971 – The Nixon administration officially acknowledges that the CIA is maintaining a force of 30,000 ‘irregulars’ fighting the Communist Pathet Lao in Laos. The CIA trained and equipped this force of mountain tribesman, mostly from the Hmong tribe, to fight a secret war against the Communists and to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. According to a once top-secret report released this date by the U.S. Defense and State Departments, U.S. financial involvement in Laos had totaled $284,200,000 in 1970.

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1989 – NASA confirmed Voyager 2’s discovery of 3 more moons of Neptune designated temporarily 1989 N2, 1989 N3 and 1989 N24.

1990 – Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. The day came to be known in Kuwait as “Black Thursday.” 330 Kuwaitis died during the occupation and war. Sadam Hussein, leader of Iraq, took over Kuwait. G. Bush led an inter-national coalition for sanctions and a demand for withdrawal. The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert Storm.

1990 – By a vote of 14-0, the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and demanded in Resolution 660 the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

1990 – Yasser Arafat supported Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. This resulted in the PLO’s isolation.

1991 – UNSCOM uncovers a major Iraqi biological weapons program, including seed stocks of three biological warfare agents and three potential warfare strains.

1995 – China ordered the expulsion of two US Air Force officers it said were caught spying on military sites.

1996 – In Somalia Mohamed Farrah Aidid was buried after dying from wounds received during fighting in Mogadishu. Followers named his son, Hussein, as their new leader.

1999 – The US Army THAAD missile, Theater High-Altitude Air Defense, was tested successfully over New Mexico for a 2nd time following a string of failures dating to 1995.

1999 – In Bosnia NATO troops arrested Radomir Kovac, former Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader, for enslaving and raping Muslim women in 1992-1993.

2001 – The UN war crimes tribunal found Radislav Krstic, former Bosnian Serb general, guilty for the 1995 genocide of some 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica. He was sentenced to 46 years in prison.

2001 – On Vieques, Puerto Rico, the US Navy used tear gas and foam rubber projectiles to clear protesters and journalists.

2002 – A federal judge ruled the U.S. government had to reveal the names of people detained in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; an appeals court later sided with federal authorities.

2002 – Facing an increasing possibility of U.S. military action, Iraq gave the first solid indication in nearly four years that it will allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return and invited the chief inspector to Baghdad for talks.

2003 – Saddam Hussein’s two elder sons and a grandson were buried as martyrs near the deposed Iraqi leader’s hometown of Tikrit, where insurgents afterward attacked U.S. troops with three remote-controlled bombs.

2003 – In Liberia Pres. Charles Taylor agreed to cede power on August 11th.

2003 – Afghan troops backed by U.S. warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong battle near the Pakistani border.

2004 – Pres. Bush proposed creating a national intelligence director in line with the Sep 11 Commission recommendations.

2004 – Masked gunmen killed a Turkish hostage with three gunshots to the head, according to a video posted on the Internet, and the Turkish truckers’ union said it would stop bringing supplies to U.S. forces in Iraq.

2004 – A car bomb in Baquba killed at least 3 Iraqi national guardsmen.

2014 – ISIS and its Al-Nusra Front allies invade Lebanon in and around the town of Arsal, sparking a five day battle between them and the Lebanese army, who push them back across the border into Syria. Over a hundred fighters are killed and scores of civilians are killed or wounded.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

None for this Day in history

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3 August

1492 – From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail in command of three ships–the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina–on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century. During his lifetime, Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the New World, discovering various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South and Central American mainland, but never accomplished his original goal–a western ocean route to the great cities of Asia. Columbus died in Spain in 1506 without realizing the great scope of what he did achieve: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.

1678 – Robert LaSalle built the 1st ship in America, the Griffon.

1804 – US Commodore Edward Prebble’s squadron bombarded Tripoli inflicting heavy damages on the city though this engagement would be indecisive. In the late summer of 1804 President Thomas Jefferson sent Commodore Edward Preble and Captain Stephen Decatur with the Constitution, three brigs, three schooners, two bombs and six gunboats, manned by only 1,060 men to attack Tripoli. That Moorish city, at that time, was well walled, protected by judiciously constructed batteries mounting 115 pieces of heavy cannon, and defended by 25,000 Arabs and Turks. Besides, the harbor was encircled by 19 Moorish gunboats, two gallies, two schooners of eight guns each and a brig carrying 10 guns, forming a strong line of defense at secured moorings and extending more than two miles in length. Although energetically executed, Preble’s attacks highlighted the difficulty of winning with bombardment. First, he had no intelligence on how the defenders were holding up under the attacks. More fundamentally, lacking any ground force to put ashore and compel capitulation, Preble had to hope that the enemy would decide to give in rather than endure.

1812 – US Frigate Essex captures British brig ship Brothers.

1823 – Union General Thomas Francis Meagher, designer of the Irish tricolor, the Irish Republic’s current flag, is born in Waterford, Ireland. A Catholic, Meagher was educated by Jesuits, and studied law in Dublin. As a young man, he became deeply involved in Young Ireland, a nationalistic organization that opposed British rule in Ireland. Meagher was a fiery orator, and directed his invective against Ireland’s British overseers. After participating in the aborted Irish rebellion of 1848, Meagher was convicted of high treason. Authorities commuted his death sentence to hard labor and exiled him, like many Irish nationalists of his day, to Tasmania. After four years, he escaped and made his way to New York City. He married into a prosperous merchant’s family and became a leader within the Irish-American community. When the war broke out, Meagher became a captain in the 68th New York militia, an Irish unit that became the nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. In February 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of the unit. Meagher served in all of the army’s major campaigns in Virginia, and the Irish brigade distinguished itself at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. However, he was criticized for his unit’s high casualty rates, which were rumored to be a result of his heavy drinking. Meagher resigned his commission in 1863 when General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, refused his request to return to New York and recruit Irish replacements for the brigade. He continued his work in the New York Irish-American community, but he returned to duty and served in the Army of the Tennessee in early 1865. After the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed Meagher secretary of Montana Territory. He died mysteriously at Fort Benton, Montana, on July 1, 1867, after falling from the deck of a riverboat on the Missouri River. His body was never recovered. Meagher is honored today with a statue in front of the Montana capitol in Helena.

1861 – Construction of USS Monitor authorized.

1861 – First manned ascent in a balloon from a ship, gunboat USS Fanny, to observe Confederate artillery position at Hampton Roads, VA.

1863 – Governor Seymour asked Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.

1864 – Lieutenant J. C. Watson and his boat crew made a final night expedition into the waters of Mobile Bay under the guns of Fort Morgan. Although they were constantly in danger of being discovered by the lights of the Fort, the bold sailors worked all night to deactivate and sink Confederate torpedoes in the channel preparatory to Farragut’s dash into Mobile Bay.

1864 – U.S.S. Miami, Acting Lieutenant George W. Graves, engaged Confederate batteries at Wilcox’s Landing, Virginia. Proceeding toward heavy firing, Graves had discovered batteries at Wilcox’s Landing firing on Union transports. He immediately opened a brisk cannonade, and after an hour the Confederates withdrew. Next day, Miami, accompanied by U.S.S. Osceola, Commander Clitz, drove off batteries which were firing on another group of transports near Harrison’s Landing, on the James River. Throughout the embattled South, Union gunboats kept communications and supply lines open despite the dogged determination of the Confederates to sever them.

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1914 – The Belgian government rejects the German ultimatum demanding unhindered passage through Belgian territory. Belgium receives confirmation from Britain and France that they will provide armed support to combat any German attack.

1914 – Great Britain signs an order of general mobilization.

1914 – Germany declares war on France.

1914 – Turkey declares its armed neutrality and mobilizes.

1923 – Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding. It took several hours for the news of President Warren G. Harding’s death in California to reach the small town of Plymouth, Vermont, where he was enjoying a short vacation, but by 2 a.m., Coolidge was told that Harding was dead. Traditionally, the president is sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court–but he slept 500 miles away. At 2:30 a.m. on August 3, 1923, Coolidge’s father, a notary public, administered the oath of office to his son by the light of a kerosene lamp.

1936 – The State Department urged Americans in Spain to leave because of that country’s civil war.

1941 – Although the U.S. had not yet entered World War II at this time, gasoline rationing began in parts of the eastern United States on this day in 1941. The rationing would spread to the rest of the country as soon as the U.S. joined the Allied forces, and the production of cars for private use halted completely in 1942. Measures of a similar sort had already taken place in most European countries.

1942 – Mildred McAfee of Wellesley College was chosen to head the Women’s Reserve. She took a one-year leave of absence from her position and was sworn in as the first female Lieutenant Commander US Naval Reserve.

1943 – News of the heavy American bomber losses in the Ploesti oil field raid is made public.

1943 – Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.

1944 – A joint Sino-American force under American General Joseph Stilwell captures Myitkyina, in the northeast. Most of the Japanese garrison has successfully withdrawn.

1944 – On Guam, the US 77th Division (part of US 3rd Amphibious Corps) advances on the east side of the island after the Japanese fall back. The Japanese defensive positions on Mount Santa Rosa are shelled by American warships.

1944 – Elements of the US 8th Corps (Middleton), part of US 3rd Army, engage German defenders in Rennes while other elements by-pass the city. To the left, advancing forces of US 1st Army capture Mortain.

1945 – An American communique announces that US B-29 Superfortress bombers dropping mines over Japan have now sealed off all of the main ports, leaving the country totally blockaded. In a report by the US 20th Air Force, it is noted that every harbor of consequence in Japan and all those in Korea have been mined and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping have been sunk or damaged since the mining program began in March.

1948 – In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Whittaker Chambers accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. The accusation set into motion a series of events that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of Hiss for perjury. Chambers was a little known figure prior to his 1948 appearance before HUAC. He was a self-professed former member of the Communist Party. Chambers also admitted to having served as a spy for the Soviet Union. He left the Communist Party in 1938 and offered his services to the FBI as an informant on communist activities in the United States. By 1948, he was serving as an editor for Time magazine. At that time, HUAC was involved in a series of hearings investigating communist machinations in the United States. Chambers was called as a witness, and he appeared before the committee on August 3, 1948. He dropped a bombshell during his testimony. Chambers accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been a communist and a spy during the 1930s. Hiss was one of the most respected men in Washington. He had been heavily involved in America’s wartime diplomacy and attended the Yalta and Potsdam conferences as an American representative.

In 1948, he was serving as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hiss angrily denied the charges and declared that he did not even know Whittaker Chambers. He later admitted that he knew Chambers, but at the time he had been using a different name–George Crosley. In the weeks that followed Chambers’ appearance before HUAC, the two men exchanged charges and countercharges and their respective stories became more and more muddled. Finally, after Chambers publicly declared that Hiss had been a communist “and may be one now,” Hiss filed a slander suit. During the course of that trial, Chambers produced microfilmed copies of classified State Department documents from the 1930s, which he had hidden in hollowed-out pumpkins on his farm. The “Pumpkin Papers” were used as evidence to support his claim that Hiss had passed the papers to him for delivery to the Soviets. Based on this evidence, Hiss was indicted for perjury for lying to HUAC and a federal grand jury about his membership in the Communist Party. The statute of limitations had run out for other charges related to his supposed activities in the 1930s. After the first trial ended with a hung jury, Hiss was convicted in January 1950 and served 44 months in jail. Hiss always maintained his complete innocence. For his part, Chambers remained equally adamant in his accusations about Hiss.

1950 – Congress removed the existing limitations on the size of the Army. The Army issued an involuntary recall of 30,000 enlisted men, mostly from the Volunteer and Inactive Reserve, to report in September.

1950 – South Koreans recaptured Yongdok.

1950 – A US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 35 men arrives in Vietnam to teach troops receiving US weapons how to use them.

1950 – Eight Corsairs of VMF-214, the famed “Black Sheep” squadron of World War II, led by squadron executive officer, Major Robert P. Keller,launched from the USS SICILY and executed the first Marine aviation mission in the Korean War in a raid against enemy installations near Inchon. After the F4Us delivered their incendiary bombs and rockets on their targets, the Marines concluded their greeting to the Communist troops with a series of strafing runs.

1950 – Elements of Marine Corps squadron VMO-6, equipped with HO3S helicopters and OY observation aircraft began operations in Korea.

1951 – Lieutenant General W. M. Hoge dedicated the longest highway bridge of the Korean War. The 62nd Engineer Construction Battalion built the bridge in the IX Corps area.

1954 – The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.

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1958 – U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe. The USS Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus’ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut.

Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955. Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots. In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and on July 23, 1958, departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on “Operation Northwest Passage”–the first crossing of the North Pole by submarine.

There were 116 men aboard for this historic voyage, including Commander William R. Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and four civilian scientists. The Nautilus steamed north through the Bering Strait and did not surface until it reached Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Beaufort Sea, though it did send its periscope up once off the Diomedes Islands, between Alaska and Siberia, to check for radar bearings. On August 1, the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap. The submarine traveled at a depth of about 500 feet, and the ice cap above varied in thickness from 10 to 50 feet, with the midnight sun of the Arctic shining in varying degrees through the blue ice.

At 11:15 p.m. EDT on August 3, 1958, Commander Anderson announced to his crew: “For the world, our country, and the Navy–the North Pole.” The Nautilus passed under the geographic North Pole without pausing. The submarine next surfaced in the Greenland Sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland on August 5. Two days later, it ended its historic journey at Iceland. For the command during the historic journey, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decorated Anderson with the Legion of Merit. After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.

1965 – CBS-TV news shows pictures of men from the First Battalion, Ninth Marines setting fire to huts in the village of Cam Na, six miles west of Da Nang, despite reports that the Viet Cong had already fled the area. The film report sparked indignation and condemnation of the U.S. policy in Vietnam both at home and overseas. At the same time, the Department of Defense announced that it was increasing the monthly draft call from 17,000 in August to 27,400 in September and 36,000 in October. It also announced that the Navy would require 4,600 draftees, the first such action since 1956.

1966 – U.S. Marine units commence Operation Prairie, a sequel to an earlier operation in the area (Operation Hastings), which involves a sweep just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) against three battalions of the North Vietnamese 324B Division. An additional 1,500 Marines from Seventh Fleet ships off Quang Tri Province conducted amphibious landings on September 15 to assist in the operation, which lasted until September 19 and resulted in a reported 1,397 communist casualties.

1970 – USS James Madison (SSBN-627) conducts first submerged launching of Poseidon nuclear missile off Cape Kennedy.

1977 – Radio Shack issued a press release introducing the TRS-80 computer. 25 existed and within weeks thousands were ordered.

1980 – Closing ceremonies were held in Moscow for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, which had been boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States.

1987 – The Iran-Contra congressional hearings ended, with none of the 29 witnesses tying President Reagan directly to the diversion of arms-sales profits to Nicaraguan rebels.

1988 – Soviet authorities free Mathias Rust, the daring young West German pilot who landed a rented Cessna on Moscow’s Red Square in 1987. Rust was serving a four-year sentence at a labor camp when the Soviets approved his extradition as a goodwill gesture to the West. On May 28, 1987, Rust, a 19-year-old with less than 40 hours of flying time, flew the light plane from Helsinki, Finland, to Red Square, the site of the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, and frequent Soviet patriotic demonstrations. He had not been detected once during the 500-mile flight. Rust said his flight was in the interest of world peace, and he signed autographs in Red Square until he was arrested. His seemingly effortless penetration of Soviet air space raised serious questions about the USSR’s ability to defend itself from air attack.

1989 – Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon suspended their threat to execute another American hostage, three days after the purported hanging of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins.

1990 – US announced the commitment of Naval forces to Gulf regions.

1990 – Radio Kuwait went off the air due to the Iraqi invasion.

1990 – A day after Iraq invaded Kuwait, thousands of Iraqi soldiers pushed to within a few miles of the border with Saudi Arabia, heightening world concerns that the invasion could spread.

1992 – The Senate voted to sharply restrict and eventually end U.S. testing of nuclear weapons.

1995 – A Palestinian, Eyad Ismoil, was flown to the United States from Jordan to face charges he’d driven a bomb-laden van into New York’s World Trade Center. The 1993 explosion killed six people and injured more than one-thousand; Ismoil is serving a life sentence.

1998 – The UN approved plans for a NATO action in Kosovo to counter the Serb offensive.

1999 – Arbitrators ruled the government had to pay the heirs of Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder $16 million for his movie film that captured the assassination of President Kennedy.

1999 – An Iraqi military doctor, who had defected to Jordan, reported that 400 Iraqi dissidents, wounded in recent clashes with security forces, were executed. Maj. Saad Khazal Jabbar said 120 people were killed in the anti-government riots in Baghdad.

2002 – Philippine troops captured seven suspected members of the Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group said to be linked to al Qaeda.

2004 – At Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Delta II rocket lifted the spacecraft Messenger on a 6 ½ year journey toward Mercury.

2004 – In London 13 Asian men were arrested. One known as Moussa (or al-Hindi) was later said to be the head of al-Qaeda in Britain.

2005 – The Battle of Haditha continues. Two days after the deaths of six Marine snipers in Haditha, Marine forces launched Operation Quick Strike to disrupt insurgent presence in the Haditha area. Around 1000 Marines from the Regimental Combat Team 2 (RCT-2) and Iraqi soldiers started “Operation Quick Strike”, which included efforts to find the insurgents responsible, however the primary intent was to interdict and disrupt militants’ presence in the Haditha, Haqliniyah, and Barwanah areas. The operation began when Marines and Iraqi soldiers moved into Haqliniyah, about seven kilometers southwest of Haditha. 40 insurgents were killed, including four in a Super Cobra helicopter attack. On the second day of the operation, a Marine amphibious assault vehicle, which was transporting Marines to the initial assault, hit a huge roadside bomb. The vehicle was completely destroyed and 15 out of the 16 people that were inside it were killed, with only one Marine surviving. The lone surviving Marine was a young man from Mississippi. Among the killed was also an Iraqi civilian interpreter.

2014 – IS fighters occupied the city of Zumar and an oilfield in the north of Iraq, after a battle against Kurdish forces.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

LAWTON, HENRY W.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company A, 30th Indiana Infantry. Place and date: At Atlanta, Ga., 3 August 1864. Entered service at: Ft. Wayne, Allen County, Ind. Birth: Ohio. Date of issue: 22 May 1893. Citation: Led a charge of skirmishers against the enemy’s rifle pits and stubbornly and successfully resisted 2 determined attacks of the enemy to retake the works.

*WITEK, FRANK PETER
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: December 1921, Derby, Conn. Accredited to: Illinois. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division, during the Battle of Finegayen at Guam, Marianas, on 3 August 1944. When his rifle platoon was halted by heavy surprise fire from well-camouflaged enemy positions, Pfc. Witek daringly remained standing to fire a full magazine from his automatic at point-blank range into a depression housing Japanese troops, killing 8 of the enemy and enabling the greater part of his platoon to take cover. During his platoon’s withdrawal for consolidation of lines, he remained to safeguard a severely wounded comrade, courageously returning the enemy’s fire until the arrival of stretcher bearers, and then covering the evacuation by sustained fire as he moved backward toward his own lines. With his platoon again pinned down by a hostile machinegun, Pfc. Witek, on his own initiative, moved forward boldly to the reinforcing tanks and infantry, alternately throwing handgrenades and firing as he advanced to within 5 to 10 yards of the enemy position, and destroying the hostile machinegun emplacement and an additional 8 Japanese before he himself was struck down by an enemy rifleman. His valiant and inspiring action effectively reduced the enemy’s firepower, thereby enabling his platoon to attain its objective, and reflects the highest credit upon Pfc. Witek and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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4 August

1790 – Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s proposal to build ten cutters to protect the new nation’s revenue (Stat. L. 145, 175). Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service in 1863. The cutters were placed under the control of the Treasury Department. This date marks the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard.

1830 – Plans for the city of Chicago were laid out.

1846 – Sailors and Marines from USS Congress capture Santa Barbara.

1855 – In the Battle of Ty-Ho Bay, China, Marines from the USS Powhatan captured 17 pirate junks near Hong Kong.

1858 – First Trans-Atlantic cable completed by USS Niagara and British ship Agamemnon.

1863 – Four boat crews under Lieutenants Alexander F. Warley and John Payne from C.S.S. Chicora and Palmetto State and a Confederate Army detachment captured a Union picket station and an un-finished battery at Vincent’s Creek, Morris Island. The sharp engagement took place at night, after Confederates discovered that the Union men, under Acting Master John Haynes, USN, had been observing Southern movements at Cumming’s Point and signaling General Gillmore’s batteries so that effective artillery fire could be thrown on transports moving to the relief of Fort Wagner.

1864 – A Union operation against Confederate defenses around Atlanta, Georgia, stalls when infighting erupts between Yankee generals. The problem arose when Union General William T. Sherman began stretching his force—consisting of the Army of the Ohio, the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of the Cumberland—west of Ezra Church, the site of a major battle on July 28, to Utoy Creek, west of Atlanta. The Confederate army inside of Atlanta, commanded by General John Bell Hood, had attacked Sherman’s army three times in late July and could no longer mount an offensive operation. Sherman now moved General John Schofield, who commanded the Army of the Ohio, from the east side of Atlanta to the west in an attempt to cut the rail lines that supplied the city from the south and west. Schofield’s force arrived at Utoy Creek on August 3. The Army of the Cumberland’s Fourteenth Corps, commanded by General John Palmer, had also been sent by Sherman to assist Schofield.

But on August 4, the operation came to a standstill because Palmer refused to accept orders from anyone but General George Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland. Although Schofield was the director of the operation, Palmer felt that Schofield was his junior. The two men had been promoted to major general on the same day in 1862, but Schofield’s appointment had expired four months later. Schofield had been reappointed with his original date of promotion, November 29, 1862, but Palmer insisted that the reappointment placed Schofield behind him in seniority. Agreeing only to relay Schofield’s order to his division commanders, Palmer refused even to accept Sherman’s orders. On August 5, Sherman declared that Schofield was senior to Palmer, upon which Palmer resigned and returned to his Illinois home. The delay provided the Confederates ample time to extend their defenses and protect their western rail links. An example of how generals’ egos could be both large and fragile, the incident would be laughable if it were not for the event’s consequences. When the Yankees attacked on August 6, they were repulsed with the loss of 300 casualties, which might have been prevented if the squabble had not occurred.

1864 – Federal troops fail to capture Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, one of the Confederate forts defending Mobile Bay.

1864 – Landing party under Commander George M. Colvocoresses, composed of 115 officers and men, raided a meeting of civilians forming a coastal guard at McIntosh Court House, Georgia. Colvocoresses marched his men overland after coming ashore during the night of 2 August, destroyed a bridge to prevent being cut off by Confederate cavalry, and captured some 26 prisoners and 22 horses before making his way safely back to U.S.S. Saratoga. Rear Admiral Dahlgren, amused at the circumstances of the expedition and pleased with its results, reported to the men of his squadron: “Captain Colvocoresses having been favored with a sight of the notice in a Savannah paper, and feeling considerable interest in the object of the meeting, concluded that he would attend it also, which he did, with a number of United States citizens serving at the time on board the U.S.S. Saratoga as officers, seamen, and marines. . . . When the appointed time arrived, Mr. Miller [Boatswain Philip J. Miller] set fire to the bridge [outside the town] and at the signal the main body rushed out and joined the meeting. . . . Captain Colvocoresses then read to the meeting from the newspaper the order of Colonel Gaulden [CSA] for their assembling, and, regretting that the Colonel had failed to attend, he invited the meeting to accompany him, which they did, and arrived safely on board the Saratoga, where they meet daily under the United States flag.” The Admiral later reported to Secretary Welles of the prisoners: “. . . . it is hoped that under the old flag the deliberations may be of a more beneficial tendency, as the parties are now relieved of their proposed responsibility as a coast guard.”

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1873 – While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, Custer and his 7th Cavalry clash for the first time with the Sioux Indians, who will defeat them three years later at Little Big Horn. During the previous two years, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry had not fought a single battle against the hostile Indians of the western Plains. Hungry for action, Custer was pleased when the 7th Cavalry was ordered to help protect a party of surveyors laying out the route for the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad. The new transcontinental railroad (the third in the United States) was to pass through territory controlled by hostile Sioux Indians. Custer was optimistic that the assignment would give him a chance to improve his reputation as an Indian fighter. Initially, the military escort saw little action. The hostile Indians seemed to be avoiding or ignoring the survey party. For Custer, the mission turned into something of a lark. He spent much of his time shooting buffalo, antelope, elk, and other animals. To find good hunting, he often led the 7th Cavalry far away from the survey party and the main body of the military escort.

On this day in 1873, Custer was far ahead of the rest of the force, camping along the Tongue River in southeastern Montana. Suddenly, a large band of Sioux warriors appeared on the horizon and attacked. The Indians were led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but the young braves seemed to have attacked impetuously and with little planning. Custer, who had been taking an afternoon nap, reacted quickly and mounted an effective defense. After a brief skirmish, the Indians withdrew. Since only one soldier and one Indian were killed in the skirmish, Custer’s short battle along the Tongue River seemed relatively insignificant at the time. However, Custer’s easy escape in his first encounter with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse may have given him a dangerously scornful view of their fighting abilities. It helped to confirm his belief that the Plains warriors tended to flee rather than fight. As a result, when Custer again encountered Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn River three years later, his greatest fear was that they would withdraw before he could attack, and he rushed in without proper reconnaissance. That time, though, the Indians stood and fought, leaving Custer and more than 200 of his men dead.

1912 – The 1st detachment of American forces requested by President Diaz, arrived at Managua, Nicaragua, from Corinto. It was a handful of seamen from the USS ANNAPOLIS.

1914 – Britain declares war on Germany at 2300 hours as the Germans reject a British ultimatum demanding that they leave Belgian soil.

1914 – Germany declares war on Belgium and its armies invade in force. Leading the main attack are the First Army commanded by General Alexander von Kluck and General Karl von Buelow’s Second Army.

1914 – As World War I erupts in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson formally proclaims the neutrality of the United States; a position a vast majority of Americans favored. However, Wilson’s hope that America could be “impartial in thought as well as in action” was soon compromised by Germany’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Britain was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension arose between the United States and Germany when several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines. In February 1915, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.

One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool.

On May 7th, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. It was revealed that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as further justification for the attack. The United States eventually sent three notes to Berlin protesting the action, and Germany apologized and pledged to end unrestricted submarine warfare. In November, however, a U-boat sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare. The United States broke off relations with Germany, and on February 22 Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. Two days later, British authorities gave the U.S. ambassador to Britain a copy of the “Zimmermann Note,” a coded message from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

On March 1, the U.S. State Department published the note, and American public opinion was galvanized against Germany. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally entered World War I. On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of these men had lost their lives.

1916 – The United States purchased the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million.

1918 – America’s second highest-scoring ace, Frank Luke, begins his short but distinguished career. He downs 14 observation balloons and four aircraft in a few weeks. He is forced down behind German lines in late September, and refusing to surrender, will be shot.

1933 – The New York Stock Exchange was shut down again, this time when gas bombs exploded near the Exchange building in downtown New York. Though the blasts didn’t deter trading, safety concerns led officials to close shop at 12:30.

1937 – Marine Corps League incorporated by Congress.

1943 – On New Georgia, Americans capture Munda and the air field.

1943 – American forces continue to fight for Troina, Sicily.

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1944 – German forces in Brittany, elements of the 25th Corps (General Farmbacher), fall back on the major ports: St. Malo, Brest, Lorient and St. Nazaire. The US 12th Army Group continues offensive operations. The US 8th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) occupies Rennes and continues to advance toward Vannes. The US 5th and 14th Corps (both part of US 1st Army) also advance.

1944 – A group from Task Force 38 (Admiral Clark) attacks Japanese positions on the island of Iwo Jima causing substantial damage.

1945 – American aircraft drop leaflets warning of air attacks on 12 more cities.

1945 – In Singapore, Japanese guards execute seven captured American airmen.

1945 – American bombers attack Japanese positions at Surabaya on Java.

1945 – The area of command under General MacArthur is extended to include the Ryukyu Islands, south of Kyushu.

1947 – Birthdate of the Navy Medical Service Corps

1949 – Congress approved Public Law 207, which revised, codified and enacted into law title 14 of the United Stated Code. This set forth for the first time a clear, concise statutory statement of the duties and functions of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Act confirmed that the Coast Guard was a branch of the armed forces of the United States, confirmed it in its general functions of marine safety, maritime law enforcement, and military readiness to operate as a service in the Navy upon declaration of war or when the president directs.

1950 – Fleet Air Wing 6 was established in Tokyo, Japan, under the acting command of Captain John C. Alderman. The wing was assigned operational control over all U.S. and British patrol squadrons in the Japan-Korea area.

1950 – Eighth Army established a defensive line along the Naktong River just 50 miles short of the sea. Journalists labeled this line as the Pusan Perimeter.

1952 – Helicopters from the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service landed in Germany, completing the first transatlantic flight by helicopter in 51 hours and 55 minutes of flight time.

1953 – Speaking before the Governor’s Conference in Seattle, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns that the situation in Asia is becoming “very ominous for the United States.” In the speech, Eisenhower made specific reference to the need to defend French Indochina from the communists. By 1953, U.S. officials were becoming increasingly concerned with events in Asia and elsewhere in the so-called “Third World.” During the early years of the Cold War (1945 to 1950), the focus of America’s anticommunist foreign policy was on Europe. With the outbreak of war in Korea in 1950, however, the American government began to shift its focus to other areas of the globe, particularly Asia. During the presidential campaign of 1952, Eisenhower was harshly critical of President Harry S. Truman’s foreign policy, declaring that too little attention had been paid to Asia and that the Korean War was the result of ignoring communist intentions in that corner of the world. Shortly after taking office in early 1953, the victorious Eisenhower adopted a “get tough” policy toward the situation in Korea, even hinting that nuclear weapons might be employed to break the military stalemate between U.S. and communist forces.

On July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed, bringing the Korean War to an end. Just over a week later, Eisenhower addressed the Governor’s Conference and suggested that the communist danger in Asia was far from over. He specifically noted the communist threat in French Indochina, where the French military was battling Vietnamese revolutionaries for control of Vietnam. Eisenhower defended his decision to approve a $400 million aid package to help the French in their effort as “the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurrence that would be of most terrible significance to the United States.” According to Eisenhower, communist victory in Indochina would have far-reaching consequences. “Now let us assume that we lose Indochina. If Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malay Peninsula, that last little bit of land hanging on down there, would be scarcely defensible. The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming.” One by one, other Asian nations would be toppled. “So you see, somewhere along that line, this must be blocked and it must be blocked now.” Eisenhower’s speech marked the first appearance of what would come to be known as the “domino theory”–the idea that the loss of Indochina to communism would lead to other Asian nations following suit, like a row of dominos. The speech also indicated that the United States was fully committed to the defense of Indochina to prevent this possibility. After the defeat of the French in 1954, America took France’s place in fighting the Vietnamese communist revolutionaries, thus beginning its slow but steady immersion into the Vietnam War.

1955 – Eisenhower authorized $46 million for the construction of CIA headquarters.

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1964 – At 8 p.m., the destroyers USS Maddox and USS C. Turner Joy, operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, intercept radio messages from the North Vietnamese that give Captain John Herrick of the Maddox the “impression” that Communist patrol boats are planning an attack against the American ships, prompting him to call for air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Eight Crusader jets soon appeared overhead, but in the darkness, neither the pilots nor the ship crews saw any enemy craft. However, about 10 p.m. sonar operators reported torpedoes approaching. The U.S. destroyers maneuvered to avoid the torpedoes and began to fire at the North Vietnamese patrol boats. When the action ended about two hours later, U.S. officers reported sinking two, or possibly three of the North Vietnamese boats, but no American was sure of ever having seen any enemy boats nor any enemy gunfire. Captain Herrick immediately communicated his doubts to his superiors and urged a “thorough reconnaissance in daylight.” Shortly thereafter, he informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp, commander of the Pacific Fleet, that the blips on the radar scope were apparently “freak weather effects” while the report of torpedoes in the water were probably due to “overeager” radar operators. Because of the time difference, it was only 9:20 a.m. in Washington when the Pentagon received the initial report of a potential attack on the U.S. destroyers. When a more detailed report was received at 11 a.m. there was still a lot of uncertainty as to just what had transpired. President Johnson, convinced that the second attack had taken place, ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to select targets for possible retaliatory air strikes.

At a National Security Council meeting, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, recommended to the president that the reprisal strikes be ordered. Johnson was cautious at first, but in a follow-up meeting in the afternoon, he gave the order to execute the reprisal, code-named Pierce Arrow. The President then met with 16 Congressional leaders to inform them of the second unprovoked attack and that he had ordered reprisal attacks. He also told them he planned to ask for a Congressional resolution to support his actions. At 11:20 p.m., McNamara was informed by Admiral Sharp that the aircraft were on their way to the targets and at 11:26, President Johnson appeared on national television and announced that the reprisal raids were underway in response to unprovoked attacks on U.S. warships. He assured the viewing audience that, “We still seek no wider war.” However, these incidents proved to be only the opening moves in an escalation that would eventually see more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam.

1969 – The first secret negotiating session takes place between Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy, at the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris. Kissinger reiterated an earlier proposal put forth on May 14 for a mutual withdrawal of North Vietnamese and U.S. troops and also warned that if no progress was made by November 1 toward ending the war, the United States would consider measures of “grave consequences.” Xuan Thuy responded with the standard North Vietnamese line that the United States would have to withdraw all its troops and abandon the Thieu government before there would be any “logical and realistic basis for settling the war.” The negotiations ended with only an agreement to keep open the new secret channel of communications. These secret talks would continue, but would not bear fruit until late 1972, after the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive had failed and President Nixon had launched Operation Linebacker II, the “Christmas bombing” of North Vietnam.

1981 – Oliver North was assigned to White House duty.

1988 – US Congress voted $20,000 to each Japanese-American interned during WW II.

1989 – Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani offered to help end the hostage crisis in Lebanon, prompting President Bush to say he was “encouraged.”

1990 – The European Community imposed an embargo on imports of oil from Iraq and Kuwait to protest the Baghdad government’s invasion of its oil-rich neighbor.

1992 – The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis encountered difficulties as they tried to reel out a satellite attached to miles of thin cord as part of an electricity-producing experiment.

1993 – Two GIs are WIA in a convoy ambush near Bale Dogle, Somalia.

1997 – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan approves a revised Iraqi aid distribution plan under the U.N. oil-for-food program. Since late May, Iraq has refused to sell any oil until the U.N. approved the revised aid distribution plan which is designed to speed up the procedure for approving shipments of humanitarian goods.

1998 – The US Air Force announced plans to group its combat aircraft into ten teams over the next 2 years.

1998 – The Egyptian Jihad under Dr. Zawahri denounced the CIA-led arrests in Albania and said Americans should soon receive a response “in the only language that they understand.”

2001 – Philippine soldiers rescued 13 hostages of the 36 seized by Abu Sayyaf rebels on August 2nd.

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

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*WILSON, ROBERT LEE
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 24 May 1921, Centralia, Ill. Accredited to: Illinois. Citation For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 2d Battalion, 6th Marines, 2d Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces at Tinian Island, Marianas Group, on 4 August 1944. As 1 of a group of marines advancing through heavy underbrush to neutralize isolated points of resistance, Pfc. Wilson daringly preceded his companions toward a pile of rocks where Japanese troops were supposed to be hiding. Fully aware of the danger involved, he was moving forward while the remainder of the squad, armed with automatic rifles, closed together in the rear when an enemy grenade landed in the midst of the group. Quick to act, Pfc. Wilson cried a warning to the men and unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, heroically sacrificing his own life that the others might live and fulfill their mission. His exceptional valor, his courageous loyalty and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of grave peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Wilson and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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5 August

1664 – After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British, who would rename it New York. The citizens of New Amsterdam petitioned Peter Stuyvesant to surrender to the English. The “Articles of Capitulation” guaranteed free trade, religious liberty and a form of local representation.

1815 – A peace treaty with Tripoli–which followed treaties with Algeria and Tunis–brought an end to the Barbary Wars.

1832 – Frigate Potomac is first U.S. Navy ship to entertain royalty, King and Queen of Sandwich Islands, Honolulu.

1861 – The government handed down the first Income Tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861. The tax, 3% which was levied on incomes over $800, was designed to help fund the Civil War. However, the measure was short-lived, as the government rescinded it in 1872.

1861 – US Army abolished flogging.

1862 – In an indecisive battle on the Mississippi River, the Confederates gain some breathing room after driving a Union force back into Baton Rouge from the north.

1863 – U.S.S. Commodore Barney, Acting Lieutenant Samuel Hose, was severely damaged when a 1,000-pound electric torpedo was exploded near her above Dutch Gap, Virginia. The explosion, reported Captain Guert Gansevoort, senior officer present, produced “a lively concussion” and washed the decks ‘with the agitated water.” “Some 20 men,” he added, “Were either swept or jumped overboard, two of whom are missing and may have been drowned.” Had the anxious Confederate torpedoman waited another moment to close the electrical circuit, Commodore Barney surely would have been destroyed. The incident took place during a joint Army-Navy reconnaissance of the James River which had begun the previous day. “This explosion…,” wrote Lieutenant Hunter Davidson, CSN, in charge of the Submarine Battery Service, “effectively arrested their progress up the river. . . ” On 6 August U.S.S. Sangamon, Cohasset, and Com-modore Barney were taken under fire by Confederate shore artillery’ and Commodore Barney was again disabled, this time by a shot through the boilers. Returning downstream, the expedition was subjected to a heavy shorefire, Commodore Barney receiving more than 30 hits.

1863 – A detachment of Marines arrived at Charleston harbor to augment Union forces. Rear Admiral Dahlgren quickly cut the number of Marines on board the ships of his squadron to a minimum and sent the resulting total of some 500 Marines, under Major Jacob Zeilin, ashore on Morris Island. Dahlgren ordered that the Marines be ready “to move on instant notice; rapidity of movement is one of the greatest elements of military power.

1864 – Rear Admiral Farragut took his squadron of 18 ships, including four monitors, against the heavy Confederate defenses of Mobile Bay. Soon after 6 a.m., the Union ships crossed the bar and moved into the bay. The monitors Tecumseh, Manhattan, Winnebago, and Chickasaw formed a column to starboard of the wooden ships in order to take most of the fire from Fort Morgan, which they had to pass at close range. The seven smaller wooden ships were lashed to tile port side of the larger wooden screw steamers, as in the passage of Port Hudson, Mississippi River. Shortly before 7 o’clock, Tecumseh, Commander T.A.M. Craven, opened fire on Fort Morgan. The action quickly became general. The Confederate squadron under Admiral Buchanan, including the heavy ram Tennessee (6 guns) and the smaller ships Gaines (6 guns), Selma (4 guns), and Morgan (6 guns), moved out to engage the attackers. Craven headed Tecumseh straight at Tennessee, bent on engaging her at once. Suddenly, a terrific explosion rocked the Union monitor. She careened violently and went down in seconds, the victim of one of the much-feared torpedoes laid by the Confederates for harbor defense. Amidst the confusion below decks as men struggled to escape the sinking ship, Craven and the pilot, John Collins, arrived at the foot of the ladder leading to the main deck. The captain stepped back. “After you, pilot,” he said. Collins was saved, but there was no afterwards for the heroic Craven. He and some 90 officers and men of Tecumseh’s crew of 114 went down with the ship. Captain Alden called them “intrepid pioneers of that death-strewed path.” Alden, in Brooklyn, was to Tecumseh’s port when the disaster occurred; the heavy steamer stopped and began backing to clear “a row of suspecious-looking buoys” directly under Brooklyn’s bow. The entire line of wooden vessels was drifting into confusion immediately under the guns of Fort Morgan. Farragut, lashed in the rigging to observe the action over the smoke billowing from the guns, acted promptly and resolutely, characteristic of a great leader who in war must constantly meet emergencies fraught with danger. The only course was the boldest through the torpedo field. “Damn the torpedoes,” he ordered; “full speed ahead ” (Flag Lieutenant John C. Watson later recalled that Farragut’s exact words were: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead, Drayton! Hard astarboard; ring four bells! Eight bells! Sixteen bells!”) His flagship Hartford s wept past Brooklyn into the rows of torpedoes; the fleet followed. The torpedoes were heard bumping against the hulls but none exploded. The Union force steamed into the bay.

Hardly past one hazard, Farragut was immediately faced with another: Buchanan attempted to ram Hartford with Tennessee. The Union ship slipped by her slower, clumsier antagonist, returning her fire but also being raked by the fire of gunboat C.S.S. Selma, Lieutenant Peter U. Murphey. Wooden double-ender U.S.S. Metacomet, Lieutenant Commander Jouett, engaged Selma and, though sustaining considerable damage, compelled her to strike her colors shortly after 9 a.m. Meanwhile, Tennessee also attempted in vain to ram Brooklyn. C.S.S. Gaines, Lieu-tenant John W. Bennett, advanced to engage the Union ships as they entered the bay, but she suffered a steering casualty early in the action. “. . . subjected to a very heavy concentrated fire from the Hartford, Richmond, and others at short range . . . , Bennett soon found his command in a sinking condition. He ran her aground near Fort Morgan and salvaged most of the ammuni-tion and small arms before she settled in two fathoms. C.S.S. Morgan, Commander George W. Harrison, briefly engaged Metacomet to assist Selma prior to her surrender, but as the action took place at high speed, Morgan could not maintain her position and faced the possibility of being cut off and captured by two Union ships. Harrison determined to take her under Fort Morgan’s guns and later he saved her by boldly running the gauntlet of Federal ships to Mobile. Meanwhile, 300-ton side-wheeler U.S.S. Philippi, Acting Master James T. Seaver, “wishing to be of assistance to the fleet in case any vessels were disabled,” grounded near Fort Morgan attempting to get into the bay. The fort’s heavy guns quickly found the range and riddled Philippi with shot and shell, forcing Seaver and his crew to abandon ship. A boat crew from C.S.S. Morgan completed her destruction by setting her afire.

The Union fleet, having steamed up into the bay, anchored briefly. Buchanan heroically carried the fight to his powerful opponents alone. Farragut reported: “I was not long in comprehending his intention to be the destruction of the flagship. The monitors and such of the wooden vessels as I thought best adapted for the purpose were immediately ordered to attack the ram, not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed, and then began one of the fiercest naval combats on record.” For more than an hour the titanic battle raged. Steam sloop of war Monongahela struck Tennessee a heavy blow but succeeded only in damaging herself. Lackawanna rammed into the Confederate ship at full speed but, said Farragut, “the only perceptible effect on the ram was to give her a heavy list.” A shot from Manhattan’s 15-inch gun, however, made a greater impression on those on board Tennessee. Lieutenant Wharton, CSN, reported: “The Monongahela was hardly clear of us when a hideous-looking monster came creeping up on our Port side, whose slowly revolving turret revealed the cavernous depths of a mammoth gun. ‘Stand clear of the Port side!’ I shouted. A moment after a thundrous report shook us all, while a blast of dense, sulpherous smoke covered our port-holes, and 440 pounds of iron, impelled by sixty pounds of powder, admitted daylight through our side, where, before it struck us, there had been over two feet of solid wood, covered with five inches of solid iron. This was the only 15-inch shot that hit us fair. It did not come through; the inside netting caught the splinters, and there were no casualties from it. I was glad to find myself alive after that shot.” Hartford struck a glancing blow and poured a broadside into Tennessee from a distance of ten feet Chickasaw pounded the ram with heavy shot; steam sloops Lackawanna and Hartford had collided, but had regained position and, with Ossipee and Monongahela, were preparing to run down Buchanan’s ship. The intrepid Confederate Admiral had been seriously wounded and relinquished command to Commander James D. Johnston. The rain of shells knocked out the ironclad’s steering. Unable to maneuver and taking on water, Tennessee struggled on against her overwhelmingly superior foes despite the terrible cannonade that pounded her mercilessly. Ultimately, Buchannan and Johnston concurred that Tennessee must surrender to prevent loss of life to no fruitful end. At 10 o’clock a white flag was hoisted. Farragut acknowledged the tenacity and ability with which the Confederate seamen had fought: “During this contest with the rebel gunboats and Tennessee . . . we lost many more men than from the fire of the batteries of Fort Morgan.”

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1858 – After several unsuccessful attempts, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean is completed, a feat accomplished largely through the efforts of American merchant Cyrus West Field. The telegraph was first developed by Samuel F. B. Morse, an artist-turned-inventor who conceived of the idea of the electric telegraph in 1832. Several European inventors had proposed such a device, but Morse worked independently and by the mid 1830s had built a working telegraph instrument. In the late 1830s, he perfected Morse Code, a set of signals that could represent language in telegraph messages. In May 1844, Morse inaugurated the world’s first commercial telegraph line with the message “What hath God wrought,” sent from the U.S. Capitol to a railroad station in Baltimore. Within a decade, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph cable crisscrossed the country. The rapid communication it made possible greatly aided American expansion, making railroad travel safer as it provided a boost to business conducted across the great distances of a growing United States. In 1854, Cyrus West Field conceived the idea of the telegraph cable and secured a charter to lay a well-insulated line across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Obtaining the aid of British and American naval ships, he made four unsuccessful attempts, beginning in 1857. In July 1858, four British and American vessels–the Agamemnon, the Valorous, the Niagara, and the Gorgon–met in mid-ocean for the fifth attempt. On July 29, the Niagara and the Gorgon, with their load of cable, departed for Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, while the Agamemnon and the Valorous embarked for Valentia, Ireland.

By August 5, the cable had been successfully laid, stretching nearly 2,000 miles across the Atlantic at a depth often of more than two miles. On August 16, President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria exchanged formal introductory and complimentary messages. Unfortunately, the cable proved weak and the current insufficient and by the beginning of September had ceased functioning. Field later raised new funds and made new arrangements. In 1866, the British ship Great Eastern succeeded in laying the first permanent telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean. Cyrus West Field was the object of much praise on both sides of the Atlantic for his persistence in accomplishing what many thought to be an impossible undertaking. He later promoted other oceanic cables, including telegraph lines that stretched from Hawaii to Asia and Australia.

1882 – The first US Navy steel warships (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Dolphin), were authorized by Congress, beginning the “New Navy.” Subsequently known as the A, B, C, D ships, they were built at Chester, Pennsylvania. Dolphin was commissioned first in 1885, followed by Atlanta (1886), Boston (1887), and Chicago (1889). Note: all four ships were designed with the ability to rig sails on the mast as a backup propulsion system. Along with the additional steel warship USS Yorktown, the ships were established as the “Squadron of Evolution,” operating in the Atlantic and Mediterranean through the early 1890s.

1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor.

1889 – The U.S. Life-Saving Service issued a circular prescribing an appropriate outfit for the keepers and surfmen. This was the first time that uniforms were required in the Service.

1892 – Harriet Tubman received a pension from Congress for her work as a nurse, spy and scout during the Civil War.

1914 – Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia at 1200 hours.

1917 – The entire membership of the National Guard was drafted into federal service for World War I. After war was declared in April, 1917, National Guard units were first called into federal service by President Wilson under the militia clause of the Constitution. Most of these units mobilized at their local armories or in state military camps, and they began actively recruiting up to full wartime strength while conducting local patrols to defend against suspected German saboteurs. Guardsmen could not be deployed overseas as militia, however, since the Constitution stipulated that the militia could only be used to “execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasions.” To circumvent this restriction, the Army’s Judge Advocate General determined that it would be necessary to draft each Guardsman into federal service, thus severing his ties to the state militia and freeing him for service overseas. Just over 379,000 Guardsmen were drafted on August 5, 1917, more then doubling the size of the U.S. Army with the stroke of a pen. Despite the fact that the military would swell to over 4 million men during the war, the brunt of the fighting in the trenches in France would be borne by the Guard. All 18 Guard divisions served overseas as part of the 43 division American Expeditionary Forces; 12 of the 29 divisions that saw combat were from the Guard (the rest of the divisions were broken up and the men used as replacements).

1918 – U.S.A. Man-power Bill introduced into Congress; military age from 18 to 45.

1921 – Yangtze River Patrol Force established as command under Asiatic Fleet.

1930 – Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was born in Ohio.

1935 – Congress passed the Anti-Smuggling Act, which broadened the jurisdiction of Coast Guard.

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1944 – Elements of US 8th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) take Vannes. Other elements attack toward St. Malo and Brest. The US 15th Corps (also part of US 3rd Army) is advancing southeast from the Selune River, reaching Mayenne and Laval. To the left, US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) is advancing beyond Mortain.

1945 – On Tinian, at about 0210 hours, seven American aircraft take off for Japan. One of the aircraft is the specially modified B-29 Superfortress — the Enola Gay — carrying the “Little Boy” atomic bomb and heading for Hiroshima.

1945 – Aircraft from the US 5th and 7th Air Forces, based in Okinawa, raid Tarumizu in the south. About 325 planes take part in the attack. Another 12 Japanese cities have leaflets dropped on them by B-29 bombers, warning of coming raids. During the night, American bombers strike Imabari, Ube, Mayobashi, Saga, Nishinomiya and Mikage, fulfulling the threat made by leaflet drops.

1950 – The USS Philippine Sea arrived in Korean waters – the second carrier to enter the war.

1950 – Major Kenneth L. Reusser was awarded a gold star in lieu of a second Navy Cross and became the first Marine to be decorated for valor during the Korean War.

1951 – The United Nations Command suspended armistice talks with the North Koreans when armed troops are spotted in neutral areas.

1952 – In LA, Ca., 14 Communist leaders were convicted of conspiring to overthrow the US government. 6 of the defendants were from SF, one was from Oakland.

1952 – USAF Major Robinson Risner scored his first aerial victory of the Korean War. He later became a POW during the Vietnam War and retired as a brigadier general.

1953 – Exchange of prisoners of war of Korean Conflict (Operation Big Switch) begins.

1963 – Representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater, or in the atmosphere. The treaty was hailed as an important first step toward the control of nuclear weapons. Discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning a ban on nuclear testing began in the mid-1950s. Officials from both nations came to believe that the nuclear arms race was reaching a dangerous level. In addition, public protest against the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons was gaining strength. Nevertheless, talks between the two nations (later joined by Great Britain) dragged on for years, usually collapsing when the issue of verification was raised. The Americans and British wanted on-site inspections, something the Soviets vehemently opposed.

In 1960, the three sides seemed close to an agreement, but the downing of an American spy plan over the Soviet Union in May brought negotiations to an end. The Cuban Missile Crisis provided a major impetus for reinvigorating the talks in October 1962. The Soviets attempted to install nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba, bringing the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of a nuclear war. Cooler heads prevailed and the crisis passed, but the other possible scenarios were not lost on U.S. and Russian officials. In June 1963, the test ban negotiations resumed, with compromises from all sides. On August 5, British, American, and Russian representatives signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. France and China were asked to join the agreement but refused. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was a small but significant step toward the control of nuclear weapons. In the years to come, discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union grew to include limits on many nuclear weapons and the elimination of others.

1964 – F-8 Crusaders, A-1 Skyraiders, and A-4 Skyhawks, from the carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation stationed in the South China Sea, fly 64 sorties against North Vietnamese coastal targets as part of Operation Pierce Arrow in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August 2 and 4. The U.S. warplanes destroyed or damaged 25 North Vietnamese PT boats (claimed by U.S. officials to be about one-half of the North Vietnamese Navy) at bases at Hon Gai, Loc Ghao, Phuc Loi, and Quang Khe; destroyed seven anti-aircraft installations at Vinh; and severely damaged an oil storage depot at Phuc Loi. Two U.S. planes were shot down. One pilot, Lieutenant j.g. (or “junior grade”) Everett Alvarez, parachuted to safety, but broke his back in the process and was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He was the first of some 600 U.S. airmen who would be captured during the war and not released until the cease-fire agreement was signed in 1973.

1967 – Operation Coronado III begins in Rung Sat Zone, Vietnam.

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1969 – The U.S. space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data. It returned 127 images of the South Polar icecap and southern hemisphere. Mariner 6 also flew past Mars this year and returned 75 images of the Martian equator along with the surface temperature, atmospheric pressure and composition.

1974 – President Richard Nixon admitted that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate break-in for political as well as national security reasons. He was forced to release tapes that proved he had ordered a cover-up, which became know as the “smoking gun.”

1974 – Congress places a $1 billion ceiling on military aid to South Vietnam for fiscal year 1974. This figure was trimmed further to $700 million by August 11. Military aid to South Vietnam in fiscal year 1973 was $2.8 billion; in 1975 it would be cut to $300 million. Once aid was cut, it took the North Vietnamese only 55 days to defeat the South Vietnamese forces when they launched their final offensive in 1975.

1986 – US Senate voted for the SDI-project, better known as Star Wars.

1987 – President Reagan announced his administration had reached a “general agreement” with leaders of Congress on a new Central America peace plan. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered to discuss the U.S. proposal.

1990 – An angry President Bush again denounced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, telling reporters, “This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.”

1990 – Navy and Marine Task Force (USS Saipan, USS Ponce, and USS Sumter) begin evacuation of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals from Liberia during civil war.

1991 – Democratic congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay release of American hostages until after the presidential election. A task force later concluded there was “no credible evidence” of such a deal.

1993 – Three GIs are WIA in mortar/RPG attacks in Mogadishu.

1995 – Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, to “build a bridge of cooperation.” Christopher was the first US secretary of state to visit Vietnam since the war and the first ever to go to Hanoi.

1996 – US President Bill Clinton signed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. It held that foreign companies with investments of more than $40 million in the oil and gas sectors of these nations to be subject to US imposed sanctions.

1997 – Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of world trade center bombing, went on trial.

1998 – In protest against economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, President Saddam Hussein freezes cooperation with UN weapons inspectors. U.N. weapons inspectors have been searching suspected weapons sites in Iraq since 1991 in an attempt to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

2001 – The spacecraft Galileo flew as close as 120 miles above Io’s north pole and captured wisps of volcanic gas largely composed of sulfur dioxide.

2002 – The coral-encrusted gun turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised from the floor of the Atlantic, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a storm.

2002 – The U.S. energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, urges Britain and other allies to emulate the Americans in building up oil reserves to help prevent global economic disruption in the event of war in the Middle East.

2003 – A powerful car bomb exploded in an apparent suicide attack outside the Marriott hotel in downtown Jakarta, killing 10 people and wounding 149, including two Americans. The head of Asmar Latin Sani (28), the suicide bomber, landed on the 5th floor of the hotel.

2004 – Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters to rise against US-led security forces. Fighting quickly spread to other Shiite areas, threatening a shaky two-month-old truce. Insurgents blew up a bomb in a minibus and opened fire on a crowd outside a police station south of Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 21.

2005 – The US military begins a major offensive in Anbar Province in Western Iraq.

2013 – In the culmination of a siege on a Syrian Air base that had lasted just over a year, a final rebel assault, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) group, was launched. By this point, 70 government soldiers had remained, holding out in a small section of the complex. The attack started when two foreign suicide bombers, one of them a Saudi, drove an armored personnel carrier right up to the airport’s command center and blew themselves up, destroying the building and killing or scattering the defenders. Scattered fighting continued, however, by the morning of the next day, rebel forces had full control of the airport. During the final battle, 32 government soldiers and at least 19 rebels were killed. According to the insurgents on the morning of the final attack, 10 soldiers defected to the rebels and claimed to had attempted but failed to kill the base commander, who was later captured as he attempted to retreat with his men.
2014 – An IS offensive in the Sinjar area of northern Iraq had forced 30,000–50,000 Yazidis to flee into the mountains fearing they would be killed by the IS. They had been threatened with death if they refused conversion to Islam. A UN representative said that “a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar”.

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