TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
17 August
◆1424 Battle of Vereuil: Greatly outnumbered English defeat the French.
◆1549 Battle of Sampford Courtney: Lord Russell defeats the Earl of Arundel.
◆1590 John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returned from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers was ever found.
◆1807 Robert Fulton's steamboat begins its first voyage from Albany to New York.
◆1812 Frigate President captures British schooner L'Adeline in North Atlantic.
◆1812 First Battle of Pulotsk (Day 1): French vs. Russians.
◆1812 US frigate 'President' captures British schooner 'L'Adeline'.
◆1846 CDR Robert F Stockton declares California annexed to the United States.
◆1862 Joint landing party from U.S.S. Ellis, Master Benjamin H. Porter, and Army boats destroyed Confederate salt works, battery, and barracks near Swansboro, North Carolina. This constant attack from the sea destroyed the South's resources and drained her strength.
◆1862 Minnesota erupts in violence as desperate Dakota Indians attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.★
◆1864 General Robert E. Lee, attempting to consolidate his position on the James River below Richmond, turned to the ships of Flag Officer Mitchell's squadron for gunfire support. The enemy is on Signal Hill, fortifying," he telegraphed. "Please try and drive him off. Our picket line is reestablished with the exception of Signal Hill." Ironclads C.S.S. Virginia II, Lieutenant Johnston, and C.S.S. Richmond, Lieutenant J. S. Maury, promptly steamed to a position above Signal Hill where they took the Union position under fire. Shortly thereafter scouts reported that Union forces had fallen back and that Lee's troops now commanded the hill.
◆1877 Asaph Hall discovered the Mars moon Phobos. Hall of the US Naval Observatory discovered the moons around Mars and named them Deimos (anxiety) and Phobos (fear), Homer’s names for the attendant’s of the god of war.
◆1896 A prospecting party discovered gold in Alaska, a finding that touched off the Klondike gold rush.
◆1914 Franklin D Roosevelt, Jr. was born, naval officer, died on this date in 1998.
◆1914 Battle of Stalluponen: Germans defeat the Russians in East Prussia.
◆1915 German troops overrun Kovno, Lithuania.
◆1918 British troops capture Baku, Azerbaijan.
◆1929 Francis Gary Powers was born, U-2 pilot, died in 1977.
◆1942 The first bombing raid flown by a completely American squadron bombs Rouen in France.
◆1942 Lt. Col. Evans F. Carlson and a force of Marine raiders come ashore Makin Island, in the west Pacific Ocean, occupied by the Japanese.★
◆1943 The USAAF bombs the ball-bearing manufacturing centers at Schweinfurt and Regensburg in a daylight raid. A total of 51 bombers are lost. During the night (August 17-18), the German rocket research center at Peenemunde is bombed by nearly 600 British bombers. A total of 41 bombers are lost in the raid. This bombing creates a significant delay in the German rocket program. Also noteworthy about the raid is the British use of "window," dropped by Mosquito bombers, which causes about 200 German fighters to concentrate over Berlin.
◆1943 A small number of Japanese reinforcements land on Vella Lavella. There is an inconclusive battle between American destroyers and the Japanese transport force.
◆1943 U.S. General George S. Patton and his 7th Army arrive in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his 8th Army, winning the unofficial "Race to Messina" and completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.★
◆1944 There is a few miles gap between the Canadian line and the American line to the south, held by US 1st Army with US 5th Corps forward. To the south and west, other American forces capture Dreux, Chateaudun and Orleans. In Brittany, the German defenders of the citadel at St. Malo surrender.
◆1944 There is little German resistance to the Allied advance of US 7th Army. St. Raphael, St. Tropez, Frejus, Le Luq and St. Maxime are captured during the day.
◆1944 Near Aitape, American forces extend their line in a general advance against light Japanese resistance. On Numfoor, the last significant Japanese force is brought to battle by American forces and destroyed.
◆1950 The bodies of 20 mortar men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division were recovered near Hill 303 in the vicinity of Waegwan. North Korean soldiers murdered the soldiers after they had surrendered.
◆1950 The 1st Marine Brigade battled North Koreans at Obong-ni Ridge.
◆1955 The Civil Affairs/Military Government Branch in the Army Reserve Branch was established on August 17, 1955.★
◆1958 World's 1st Moon probe, US's Thor-Able, exploded at T +77 sec.
◆1962 Navy's first hydrofoil patrol craft, USS High Point (PCH-1) launched at Seattle, WA.
◆1966 Pioneer 7 launched into solar orbit.
◆1973 The United States and Thailand agree to begin negotiations on the reduction of the 49,000-man American presence in Thailand.
◆1987 Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's former deputy, is found strangled to death in Spandau Prison in Berlin at the age of 93, apparently the victim of suicide.
◆1993 Random house agrees to pay Gen. Colin Powell an advance of about $6 million for the rights to his autobiography, My American Journey.
◆1998 NATO forces began a 5-day exercise in Albania as a threat to Serbia.
◆1998 It was reported that spy satellites had detected a secret underground complex in North Korea that was suspected of being involved in a nuclear weapons program.
◆1999 In Bosnia the Office of the High Representative, an int'l. agency for carrying out aspects of the Dayton peace agreement, reported that as much as a billion dollars disappeared from public funds from int'l. aid projects. Losses were triggered when USAID called in loans from the Bosnia and Herzegovina Bank that could not be covered.
◆1999 In Iraq US and British warplanes bombed missile sites in the north and south.
◆2001 In Macedonia NATO’s 1st advance troops of Operation Essential Harvest arrived in Skopje.