TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
8 February
◆1250 Battle of Mansura: Crusader crossbowmen defeat Mamluke cavalry, but lose to Baibars anyway.
◆1690 French and Indian forces attack Schnectady, New York during King William’s War.★
◆1698 English Major Robert Ingoldesby arrives in New York leading a military force.
◆1712 L. Joseph de Montcalm de Saint-Veran, French general in America, was born.
◆1743 Battle of Campo Santa: Austrians block Spanish from reinforcing the French in northern Italy.
◆1817 Richard Stoddert Ewell (d.1872(), Lt Gen (Confederate Army), was born.
◆1820 Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is born in Lancaster, Ohio.
◆1863 Confederate raider William Quantrill and men attacked a group of Federal wagons at New Market, Kentucky.
◆1865 Confederate Naval Officer Barton received orders from Secretary Mallory to return to the Confederacy. These orders symbolized the abandonment of the long cherished hopes of obtaining ironclad ships from Europe with which to break the ever-tightening blockade. Originally selected to be the flag officer in command of the turreted ironclads "294" and "295", Barton had arrived in England during October 1863. The Laird rams, however, had been seized by the British government on 9 October 1863 and Barton thereafter served the Confederacy in Paris.
◆1865 The first troops of General Schofield's Twenty-Third Army Corps were landed at Fort Fisher. By mid-month the entire Corps had moved by ocean-transport from Alexandria and Annapolis to North Carolina. The protection of the Federal Navy and the mobility of water movement had allowed the redeployment of thousands of troops from Tennessee to the eastern theater for the final great struggles of the war.
◆1890 USS Omaha sailors and marines assist Hodogary, Japan in subduing large fire
◆1910 The Boy Scouts of America are chartered in Washington, D.C., by William D. Boyce, who gets the idea from the English Boy Scouts established by Sir Robert Baden-Powell. In 1909, Boyce, a Chicago publisher, lost his way in a dense London fog. A boy came to his aid and, after guiding the man, refused a tip, explaining that as a Scout he would not take a tip for doing a Good Turn. This gesture by an unknown Scout inspired a meeting with Robert Baden-Powell, the British founder of the Boy Scouts. As a result, William Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910. He also created the Lone Scouts, which merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924.
◆1911 US helped overthrow President Miguel Devila of Honduras.
◆1918 The Army newspaper, “The Stars and Stripes”, begins publication for a second time.★
◆1922 President Harding had a radio installed in the White House.
◆1924 The first coast-to-coast radio broadcast takes place. Bell Telephone's vice president and chief of research spoke at a meeting of the Bond Men's Club in a Chicago hotel. The speech was broadcast in Providence, New York, Washington, Oakland, and San Francisco and was heard by some 50 million people.
◆1926 German Reichstag decided to apply for League of Nations membership.
◆1928 1st transatlantic TV image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
◆1928 Scottish inventor J. Blaird demonstrated color TV.
◆1940 "Harry Sawyer" (Sebold) arrives in New York to lead a German spy network in the USA. His special equipment includes "microdots". (Sebold is a double agent, working for the FBI).
◆1941 The Lend-Lease Bill is passed by the House by 260 votes to 165.
◆1942 Congress advised FDR that Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort.
◆1943 The last 2000 Japanese troops are evacuated from Guadalcanal by 18 destroyers.
◆1943 British General Wingate led a guerrilla force of "Chindits" against the Japanese in Burma.Detachment 101's support of Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate's Chindits and Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill's Marauders was crucial to the Allied success in Burma and to the eventual victory in Southeast Asia.
◆1944 At the Anzio beachhead, the British 1st Division continues to battle German forces advancing toward Aprilia and "The Factory".
◆1945 In the US 3rd Army sector, the US 8th Corps manages to advance beyond the Our.
◆1945 The US 1st Cavalry Division is heavily engaged in the eastern suburbs of Manila. The US 37th Division is also fighting in the city.
◆1945 American USAAF B-24 and B-29 bombers raid Iwo Jima in preparation for the landings later in the month. They drop a daily average of 450 tons of bombs over the course of 15 days (6800 tons).
◆1951 Superfortress bombers attacked the key bridges at Toksil-li, Komusan, and Chuuronjang and cratered the highway paralleling the east-coast rail route. Air Force B-26s, F-51s and F-80s damaged seven bridges and 11 tunnels located mostly near Kilchu. Further south, B-26s bombed boxcars stacked up in the marshaling yard at Hamhung.
◆1956 U.S. banned the launching of weather balloons because of Soviet complaints.
◆1957 The United States agrees to continue military support of Saudi Arabia in return for a 5 year lease extension of Dhahran airfield which had been built by the US in 1944. Negotiations for this arrangement are concluded by President Eisenhower and King Ibn Saud.
◆1959 William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan (76), Office Strategic Services, died.
◆1962 The Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), headed by Gen. Paul D. Harkins, former U.S. Army Deputy Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific, is installed in Saigon as the United States reorganizes its military command in South Vietnam.★
◆1965 South Vietnamese bombed the North Vietnamese communications center at Vinh Linh.
◆1971 South Vietnamese army forces invade southern Laos. Dubbed Operation Lam Son 719, the mission goal was to disrupt the communist supply and infiltration network along Route 9 in Laos, adjacent to the two northern provinces of South Vietnam.★
◆1980 President Carter unveils a plan to re-introduce draft registration. A system of conscription has been used during the Civil War and again during World War I with the draft mechanism in both instances being dissolved at the end of hostilities. In 1940, prior to U.S. entry into World War II, the first peacetime draft in our nation's history was enacted in response to increased world tension and the system was able to fill wartime manpower needs smoothly and rapidly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the end of the war the draft law was allowed to expire, but it was reenacted less than two years later to maintain necessary military manpower levels as a result of the Cold War. From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means. Induction authority expired in 1973, but the Selective Service System remained in existence in a "standby" posture to support the all-volunteer force in case an emergency should make it necessary for Congress to authorize a resumption of inductions. Registration was suspended early in 1975 and the Selective Service System entered into a "deep standby" posture. Beginning in late 1979, a series of "revitalization" efforts were begun in an effort to upgrade the System's capability for rapid mobilization in an emergency, and in the summer of 1980 the registration requirement was resumed. Presently, young men must register within 30 days of their 18th birthday.
◆1991 Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with American pilots in Saudi Arabia. Powell drew cheers as he described how allied troops would deal with the Iraqi force in Kuwait: "We’ll cut it off and kill it."
◆2003 Bell Helicopter, a subsidiary of Textron, Inc., announced that its tilt-rotor, Vertical-launch Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the "Eagle Eye," received a letter contract to commence concept and preliminary design work for the first phase of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle portion of the Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater System (ICGS) Program. The contract calls for Bell to design, develop and build three prototype Eagle Eyes for testing by 2005. LCDR Troy Beshears, the Coast Guard's UAV Program Manager, confirmed that the fleet plans to buy 69 Eagle Eyes if the aircraft meets the requirements and capabilities determined by the ICGS and the Coast Guard.