TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
13 February
◆476 BCE Battle of the Cremera: The Veintines virtually annihilate the Roman clan Fabius.
◆1503 Tournament of Barletta: 13 Italian knights defeat 13 French knights.
◆1672 The Massacre of Glencoe: The Campbells slaughter the MacDonalds.
◆1706 Battle of Fraustadt: Swedes defeat a Russo-Saxon army.
◆1779 Battle of Kettle Creek: American militia defeats Tory militia.
◆1809 French take Zaragoza after a long and bloody siege.
◆1833 William Whedbee Kirkland (d.1915), Brig Gen (Confederate Army), was born.
◆1847 General Kearney acts on orders to establish a new government in Monterey while Freemont still acts a governor in Los Angeles.
◆1854 Admiral Perry anchors off Yokosuka, Japan to receive Emperor's reply to treaty proposal.
◆1891 David Dixon Porter (77), US rear admiral (Union), died.
◆1913 Naval Radio Station, Arlington, VA begins operations.
◆1920 The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
◆1923 Chuck Yeager is born. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager grew up in Myra, on the Mud River in West Virgina.★
◆1929 Congress passes the Cruiser Act authorizing the construction of 19 new cruisers and 1 aircraft carrier.
◆1942 The official cancellation of Operation Sea Lion-- the invasion of Britain -- is announced. Previously it had merely been postponed.
◆1943 The U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve was formed. On June 7, 1946, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Alexander A. Vandegrift approved the retention of a small number of women on active duty. They would serve as a trained nucleus for possible mobilization emergencies. The demobilization of the Marine Corps Womens Reserve, 17,640 enlisted and 820 officers, was to be completed by Sept. 1, 1946. Of the 20,000 women who joined the Marine Corps during World War II, only 1,000 remained in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve by July 1, 1946. Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter recommended the position of director of the Marine Corps Women's Reserve be strengthened and placed directly under the office of the commandant. On June 12, 1948, Congress passed legislation giving women regular military status, placing them on a par with their male counterparts in the U.S. armed forces.
◆1945 First naval units enter Manila Bay since 1942. US Navy forces begin operations in Manila Bay, clearing minefields and shelling landing grounds. Corregidor is bombarded. In the ground fighting, the US 11th Airborne Division takes Cavite and completes the capture of Nichols Field.
◆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).
◆1945 Hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descend on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany.★
◆1951 At the Battle of Chipyong-ni, in Korea, U.N. troops contain the Chinese forces' offensive in a four-day battle. Three CCF divisions surrounded UN troops, including members of the U.S. 23rd Regimental Combat Team and the French Battalion, at a crucial road junction at Chipyong-ni in central Korea. Twenty C-119s dropped supplies at night over a zone marked by burning gasoline-soaked rags. The surrounded troops held out until relieved by a friendly armored column. The 315th AD airlifted more than 800 sick and wounded U.S. troops from forward airstrips such as that at Wonju to Taegu and Pusan. This airlift used so many C-47s that they were not available for other airlift demands.
◆1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy states that President Eisenhower’s foreign policy is being subverted by the Voice of America radio network.
◆1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson decides to undertake the sustained bombing of North Vietnam that he and his advisers have been contemplating for a year.
◆1968 As an emergency measure in response to the 1968 communist Tet Offensive, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approves the deployment of 10,500 troops to cope with threats of a second offensive. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had argued against dispatching any reinforcements at the time because it would seriously deplete the strategic reserve, immediately sent McNamara a memorandum asking that 46,300 reservists and former servicemen be activated. Not wanting to test public opinion on what would no doubt be a controversial move, Johnson consigned the issue of the reservists to "study." Ultimately, he decided against a large-scale activation of the reserve forces.
◆1968 Operation Coronado XI begins in Mekong Delta.1971 - 12,000 South Vietnamese troops crossed into Laos.
◆1972 Enemy attacks, in Vietnam, declined for the third day as the U.S. continued its intensive bombing strategy.
◆1995 The Hague War Crimes Tribunal indicted 21 Serbs for atrocities against Croats and Muslims interned in a Bosnian prison camp. Zeljko Meakic, Bosnian Serb police officer, was charged with commanding the Serb Omarska camp in northwest Bosnia. Dusan Tadic, Bosnian Serb cafe owner, was charged for visiting Serb-run camps to beat and kill non-Serb inmates.