TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
15 February
◆1645 Parliament creates "The New Model Army," insuring the defeat of Charles I, and the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell.
◆1762 The British capture Fort Martiniqe, the main French port in the West Indies, and then St. Lucia and Grenada. Later in the year, Britain will also overrun the Spanish colonial outposts of Cuba and of Manila in the Philippines.
◆1764 The city of St. Louis was established as a French trading post. Pierre Laclede Ligue and stepson Auguste Chouteau notched a couple of trees that marked the site for Laclede’s Landing that became St. Louis.
◆1798 The first serious fist fight occurred in Congress.
◆1834 In Madrid, the Van Ness Convention settles disputes between the US and Spain.
◆1847 The House of Representatives approves a bill for negotiations to purchase occupied territory from Mexico. The bill includes the Wilmot Proviso. David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The amended bill was passed in the House, but the Senate adjourned without voting on it. In the next session of Congress (1847), a new bill providing for a $3-million appropriation was introduced, and Wilmot again proposed an antislavery amendment to it. The amended bill passed the House, but the Senate drew up its own bill, which excluded the proviso.
◆1856 USS Supply, commanded by LT David Dixon Porter, sails from Smyrna, Syria, bound for Indianola, Texas, with a load of 21 camels intended for experimental use in the American desert west of the Rockies.
◆1861 Ft. Point was completed & garrisoned. It never fired cannon in anger.
◆1862 Grant [on his 3rd day there] launched a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.
◆1862 Four Confederate gunboats under Commodore Tattnall attacked Union batteries at Venus Point, on Savannah River, Georgia, but were forced back to Savannah. Tattnall was attempting to affect the passage of steamer Ida from Fort Pulaski to Savannah.
◆1888 A fishing dispute between the US and Canada comes to an end with the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty signed in Washington. The Senate refuses to ratify the treaty, partly because it provides for reciprocal tariffs, which are anathema to high-tariff industrialists, but the two countries proceed on an amicable basis, generally following the provisions of the treaty anyway.
◆1892 First head of the Defense Department, James V. Forrestal born in Matteawan (now Beacon), New York.
◆1898 A massive explosion sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba's Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard.★
◆1911 Congress transferred Fort Trumbull, New London, CT from War Department to Treasury Department for the use of the USRCS.
◆1915 "Sepoy Mutiny" at Singapore: c. 800 Indian troops run amok until subdued by loyal troops and police.
◆1918 The 1st WW I US army troopship was torpedoed & sunk off Ireland by Germany.
◆1919 The American Legion was organized in Paris.
◆1934 In 1932, America was plagued by poverty and unemployment, prompting President Franklin Roosevelt to call on Congress to establish a Federal institution for doling out funds to the nation's needy. The result was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which funneled money to states and oversaw the subsequent distribution and relief efforts. FERA was a massive and costly project: the administration spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion a year, or nearly 2 percent of America's income. FERA needed a steady supply of capital and Congress was willing to oblige; on this day in 1934 legislators passed the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, which provided an infusion of funds for the administration.
◆1936 Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Battle of Amba-Aradam; Decisive tactical victory for the Italians, destruction of Ethiopian army
◆1940 In reply to the British governments announcement that British merchant ships in the North Sea will be armed, the German government announces that all such ships will be treated as warships. U-boat commanders are ordered attack without warning any ship which is likely to come under British control. This directive means that any neutral ship sailing towards a British-controlled war zone -- such as the English Channel, can be attacked without warning. Any ship following a zig-zag course is also liable to be sunk without warning.
◆1941 President Roosevelt sends James B. Conant, President of Harvard University, to Britain to discuss military technology.
◆1943 The Germans broke the U.S. lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia. Troops under the command of Rommel, now commanding the Italian 1st Army, join the Axis offensive. A detachment of the 15th Panzer Division, along with Italian armor, strikes Gafsa and captures the town. Most of Rommel's forces are defending the Mareth Line where the last of the rearguard is now arriving from Libya.
◆1944 Allied aircraft bomb the historic monastery on the crest of Monte Cassino. German forces, which have not occupied the position previously, move into the ruins of the monestary. The New Zealand Corps (part of US 5th Army) follows-up the bombing with an assault which fails.
◆1944 The 3rd Amphibious Force (Admiral Wilkinson) lands elements of the New Zealand 3rd Division (General Barrowclough) on the Green Islands, north of Bougainville. US Task Force 39 (Admiral Merrill) provides escort.
◆1945 During the day, the US 8th Air Force raids Dresden where the fire storm continues.
◆1945 A regiment from US 11th Corps is landed at the southern tip of Bataan on Luzon to help in the operations of the remainder of the corps. The fighting in Manila continues.
◆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).
◆1950 The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world, announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty. The negotiations for the treaty were conducted in Moscow between PRC leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky. The treaty's terms called for the Soviets to provide a $300 million credit to the PRC. It also mandated that the Soviet Union return to the Chinese the control of a major railroad and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria, all of which had been seized by Russian forces near the end of World War II. The mutual defense section of the agreement primarily concerned any future aggression by Japan and "any other state directly or indirectly associated" with Japan. Zhou En-lai proudly declared that the linking of the two communist nations created a force that was "impossible to defeat." U.S. commentators viewed the treaty as proof positive that communism was a monolithic movement, being directed primarily from the Kremlin in Moscow. An article in the New York Times referred to the PRC as a Soviet "satellite." As events made clear, however, the treaty was not exactly a concrete bond between communist countries. By the late-1950s, fissures were already beginning to appear in the Soviet-PRC alliance. Publicly, the Chinese charged that the Soviets were compromising the principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting an attitude of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist nations of the West. By the early-1960s, Mao Zedong was openly declaring that the Soviet Union was actually allying itself with the United States against the Chinese revolution.
◆1951 The communists were defeated at Chipyong-ni by the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division's 23rd Infantry Regimental Combat Team (RCT) and the French Battalion. At the climax of the battle, the 1st Cavalry Division's Task Force Crombez broke through to support the encircled 23rd RCT. After three days of intense combat and having suffered perhaps 8,000 casualties, the Chinese forces withdrew. The 23rd RCT suffered 52 killed, 42 missing and 259 wounded in action. This was the first major battlefield defeat of the Chinese communist forces in the war.
◆1951 President Truman stated that the United Nations had authorized General MacArthur to recross the 38th parallel.
◆1953 Radio Pyongyang went off the air when B-29s attacked the nearby Pingjang-ni communications center, damaging power lines and Twenty-two F-84s from the 474th Fighter-Bomber Wing bombed the generators at the Sui-ho hydroelectric plant. The fighter-bombers suffered no damage and the attack halted power production at Sui-ho for several months.
◆1967 Thirteen U.S. helicopters were shot down in one day in Vietnam.
◆1985 The STS 51-E vehicle was moved to the launch pad.
◆1989 The Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.
◆2003 American warplanes bombed two anti-aircraft missile sites in southern Iraq.