TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
14 August
◆1040 Battle of Torfness: Thorfinn's Danes defeat King Duncan I of Scotland.
◆1119 Battle of Hab: Turks defeat the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
◆1224 Hubert de Burgh captures Bedford Castle after a two-month siege.
◆1281 A tremendous storm "The Divine Wind -- kamikaze" sinks the Mongol fleet off Japan.
◆1352 Battle of Mauron: The English & Bretons defeat the French.
◆1385 Battle of Aljubarotta: The Portuguese defeat the Castillians.
◆1559 Spanish explorer de Luna entered Pensacola Bay, Florida.
◆1598 Battle of Yellow Ford: Tyrone's Irish crush the English.
◆1607 The Popham expedition reached the Sagadahoc River in the northeastern North America (Maine), and settled there.
◆1665 Southwold Bay: The Duke of York [James II] overwhelms a Dutch fleet.
◆1756 French commander Louis Montcalm took Fort Oswego, New England, from the British.
◆1765 Massachusetts colonists challenged British rule by an Elm (Liberty Tree).
◆1784 On Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founds Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska.
◆1812 Marines help to capture British sloop "Alert" during the War of 1812.
◆1813 British warship Pelican attacked and captured US war brigantine Argus.
◆1824 General Lafayette returned to US.
◆1842 Seminole War ended and the Indians were moved from Florida to Oklahoma.
◆1848 The Oregon Territory was established.
◆1861 Martial Law was declared at St. Louis, MI.
◆1862 U.S.S. Pocahontas, Lieutenant George B. Balch, and steam tug Treaty, Acting Lieutenant Baxter, on an expedition up the Black River from Georgetown, South Carolina, exchanged fire with Confederate troops at close range along both banks of the river for a distance of 20 miles in an unsuccessful attempt to capture steamer Nina.
◆1862 Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith begins an invasion of Kentucky as part of a Confederate plan to draw the Yankee army of General Don Carlos Buell away from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and to raise support for the Southern cause in Kentucky.
◆1864 Confederate General Joe Wheeler besieged Dalton, Georgia.
◆1864 A Federal assault continued for a 2nd day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia.
◆1866 SECNAV establishes Naval Gun Factory at Washington Navy Yard
◆1870 David [James] Glasgow Farragut (b.1801), US admiral, died.
◆1900 During the Boxer Rebellion, an international force featuring British, Russian, American, Japanese, French, and German troops relieves the Chinese capital of Peking after fighting its way 80 miles from the port of Tientsin.
◆1912 The JUSTIN, carrying a US battalion of 354 men and its equipment, arrived at Corinto, Nicaragua, and anchored near the Annapolis. US forces remained until 1925.
◆1937 China declared war on Japan.
◆1940 Sir Henry Tizard heads a British scientific mission to the United States, carrying with him details of all of Britain's most advanced thinking in several vital fields. There are ideas on jet engines, explosives, gun turrets and above all a little device called the cavity magnetron. This valve is vital for the development of more advanced types of radar, including the versions used in proximity fuses later and the types working on centimetric wavelengths which will be vital at sea in the U-boat war. The US Official History will later describe this collection as the "most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores."
◆1942 Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.
◆1943 American and British forces converge on Randazzo and capture it. Allied advances are making rapid progress now.
◆1943 New draft regulations come into force. There is a revised list of reserved occupations and having dependents are now deciding factors in deferments.
◆1944 The US federal government allowed the manufacture of certain domestic appliances, such as electric ranges and vacuum cleaners, to resume on a limited basis.1944 US 15th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) begins to advance eastward from Argentan toward Dreux. Elements of US 1st Army move into position at Argentan. In Brittany, forces of US 3rd Army clear German resistance from most of St. Malo except for the ancient citadel in the port area.
◆1945 At a government meeting with Emperor Hirohito, the emperor states that the war should end. He records a radio message to the Japanese people saying that they must "bear the unbearable." During the night, begining about 2300 hours, a group of army officers lead forces number over 1000 in an attempt to steal the recording and prevent it being broadcast but fail to overcome the guards at the Imperial Palace. Coup leader, Major Kenji Hatanaka, who killed the commander of the imperial guard, commits suicide after its failure. The Japanese decision to surrender is transmitted to the Allies.
◆1945 In the last air raid of the war, during the night (August 14-15) US B-29 Superfortress bombers strike Kumagaya and Isezaki, northwest of Tokyo, and Akita-Aradi oil refinery.
◆1945 The American War Production Board removes all restrictions on the production of automobiles in the United States. Meanwhile, General Douglas MacArthur is appointed supreme Allied commander to accept the Japanese surrender. An immediate suspension of hostilities is ordered and Japan is ordered to end fighting by all its forces on all fronts immediately.
◆1964 Hanoi is reported to be holding air-raid drills for fear of more U.S. attacks in the wake of the Pierce Arrow retaliatory raids that had been flown in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
◆1965 The advance units of the Seventh Marines land at Chu Lai, bringing U.S. Marine strength in South Vietnam to four regiments and four air groups. The Marines were given the responsibility of conducting operations in southern I Corps and northern II Corps, just south of the Demilitarized Zone. Hanoi Radio broadcasted an appeal to American troops, particularly African Americans, to "get out." This was purportedly a message from an American defector from the Korean War living in Peking. In South Korea, the National Assembly approved sending troops to fight in South Vietnam; in exchange for sending one combat division to Vietnam, the United States agreed to equip five South Korean divisions.
◆1973 After several days of intense bombing in support of Lon Nol's forces fighting the communist Khmer Rouge in the area around Phnom Penh, Operations Arc Light and Freedom Deal end as the United States ceases bombing Cambodia at midnight.
◆1974 Congress authorized US citizens to own gold.
◆1984 IBM releases PC DOS version 3.0.
◆1990 Interrupting his vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, President Bush returned to Washington, where he told reporters he saw no hope for a diplomatic solution to the Persian Gulf crisis, at least until economic sanctions forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.
◆1990 Advance elements of the 1st MEF and 7th MEB arrived in Saudi Arabia, joining other U.N. forces against possible Iraqi aggression.
◆1992 The White House announced that the Pentagon would begin emergency airlifts of food to Somalia to alleviate mass deaths by starvation.
◆1994 Space telescope Hubble photographed Uranus with rings.
◆1994 Carlos the Jackal was captured in Khartoum, Sudan.
◆1995 Shannon Faulkner officially became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina's state military college. She quit the school less than a week later, citing the stress of her court fight, and her isolation among the male cadets.
◆2001 US warplanes attacked an Iraqi air defense system modernized with fiber optics by Chinese technicians.
◆2001 Helios, a remote-controlled, solar powered NASA plane, reached a record 96,500 feet.
◆2001 In Macedonia Albanian guerrillas agreed to disarm under NATO supervision and the government agreed to extend amnesty for the fighters.
◆2002 Aircraft from the U.S.-British coalition patrolling southern Iraq bombed two Iraqi air defense sites.
◆2003 Dozens of American troops landed at Liberia's main airport, increasing the U.S. presence to boost West African peacekeepers, as rebels began withdrawing from Monrovia. A "quick reaction" force of 150 combat troops were sent to back up Nigerian peacekeepers.