TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
24 December
◆1307 Battle of Barra Hill: Robert Bruce beats the Earl of Buchan.
◆1724 Benjamin Franklin arrived in London.
◆1782 The French Army sails for home from Boston, after 2.5 years in America.
◆1809 Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson, one of the most celebrated heroes of the American West, is born in Richmond, Kentucky.★
◆1814 The Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America is signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
◆1861 The USS Gem of the Sea destroyed the British blockade runner Prince of Wales off the coast at Georgetown, S.C.
◆1862 A Christmas present arrived a day early for the Federal troops at Columbus, Ky., in the way of artillery on board the USS New Era.
◆1864 A Union fleet under Admiral David Dixon Porter begins a bombardment of Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
◆1864 Rear Admiral Lee, commanding the Mississippi Squadron, arrived off Chickasaw, Alabama, in an attempt to cut off the retreat of Confederate General Hood's army from Tennessee.
◆1904 Herbert D Riley, US vice-admiral (WW II, Guadalcanal, Okinawa), was born.
◆1905 Today marks the birthday of Howard Hughes, the manufacturing magnate, Hollywood mogul, and record-setting aviator.
◆1906 Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
◆1941 About 7000 troops of the Japanese 16th Infantry Division land at Lamon Bay in southeast Luzon. In northern Luzon, the Allies have taken the first of five defensive positions designed to delay the Japanese movement toward the Bataan Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur still commands the forces.
◆1941 The 1st ships of Admiral Nagumo's (Pearl Harbor) fleet returned to Japan.1943 President Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord. Almost everyone had believed the position would go to American Chief of Staff George C. Marshall.
◆1943 An American task force of cruisers and destroyers bombards Buka Island and the Japanese base at Buin on Bougainville. These are diversionary attacks from the imminent landing on New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago.
◆1944 The German Ardennes offensive is exhausted by the end of the day. The furthest advance has been achieved by elements of the German 5th Panzer Army. The 2nd Panzer Division has reached the outskirts of Dinant with the 116th Panzer Division on the right flank near Hotten and the Panzer Lehr Division on the left flank to the west of St. Hubert. American forces in Bastogne continue to resist; some 260 Allied transports drop supplies to the defenders. Allied fighter-bombers fly over 600 sorties in the Ardennes.
◆1944 All beef products are again being rationed. New quotas are introduced for most other commodities as well.
◆1946 US General MacNarney gave 800,000 "minor Nazis" amnesty.
◆1950 In a major feat of naval arms, the U.S. amphibious fleet, Task Force 90, commanded by Rear Admiral James H. Doyle, completed evacuation of X Corps from Hungnam. Supported by the Seventh Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble aboard the battleship USS Missouri, TF 90 evacuated 105,000 U.S. and ROK Marines and soldiers, 17,500 vehicles, 350,000 tons of cargo and 91,000 Korean civilians in just over 190 ships. This enormously complex operation has been termed "Inchon in Reverse."
◆1950 In a daring helicopter rescue, the U.S. Air Force's 33rd Air Rescue Squadron snatched 35 U.S. and ROK soldiers from behind enemy lines.
◆1968 The 3 Apollo 8 astronauts (James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman), orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast. The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the Moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
◆1972 Hanoi barred all peace talks with the U.S. until the air raids are stopped.
◆1972 Comedian Bob Hope gives what he says is his last Christmas show to U.S. servicemen in Saigon.★
◆1972 President Nixon suspends Operation Linebacker II for 36 hours to mark the Christmas holiday. The bombing campaign against North Vietnam had been operating since December 18, when Nixon initiated the campaign to force the North Vietnamese back to the Paris peace negotiations. On December 28, the North Vietnamese announced that they would return to Paris if Nixon ended the bombing. The bombing campaign was halted and the negotiators met during the first week of January. They quickly arrived at a settlement--the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23, and a cease-fire went into effect five days later.
◆1979 Russia sent airborne troops into Afghanistan in a surprise attack.★
◆1980 Americans remembered the U.S. hostages in Iran by burning candles or shining lights for 417 seconds -- one second for each day of captivity.
◆1989 Charles Taylor, a member of the Gio tribe and a former cabinet minister under Samuel Doe, led a small group of fighters across the border from the Ivory Coast into Liberia. Within a few months he had looted and terrorized much of the countryside and reached the capital. Taylor led the NPFL or National Patriotic Front. The NPFL was composed mainly of the Mano and Gio tribes from northern Nimba County.
◆1989 Ousted Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega, who had succeeded in eluding U.S. forces, took refuge at the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City. It took weeks of negotiation and loud rock music played incessantly outside the embassy by American forces before Noriega agreed to give himself up.
◆1992 Pres. Bush had the US Embassy in Belgrade read to Pres. Milosevic the "Christmas Warning" cable: "In the event of conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action, the US will be prepared to employ military force against Serbians in Kosovo and in Serbia proper.
◆1992 President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
◆1997 From California it was reported that the Air Force agreed to sell McClellan Air Force Base to Sacramento County for a maximum of $90 million. Payments would begin in Dec 2008 and continue over 45 years.
◆1998 In Podujevo, Yugoslavia, Serb forces used tanks and armored vehicles against separatist guerrillas breaking a 2-month cease fire. Ignoring NATO warnings, Serb tanks and troops struck an ethnic Albanian stronghold in Kosovo.
◆1999 Ignoring NATO warnings, Serb tanks and troops struck an ethnic Albanian stronghold in Kosovo.