TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
27 February
◆1570 Uprising against Portuguese rule at Ternate, The Moluccas.
◆1617 Treaty of Stolbovo: The Ingrian War ends, as Sweden annexes the eastern Baltic coast, landlocking Russia.
◆1665 Battle of Elmina, Gold Coast: De Ruyter's Dutch fleet defeats the English.
◆1713 French troops shell Willemstadt, Curacao.
◆1776 A colonial force of North Carolina patriots resoundingly defeats a detachment of Scottish Loyalists at Moore’s Creek Bridge near Wilmington.★
◆1782 In England, the House of Commons votes against waging any further war in America. On 5 March, Parliament enacts legislation empowering the English Crown to negotiate peace with the United States.
◆1801 The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.
◆1814 Battle of Orthez: Wellington's British & Portuguese defeat Soult in southern France.
◆1823 William Buel Franklin (d.1903), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
◆1827 Richard W. Johnson (d.1897), Bvt Major General (Union Army), was born.
◆1861 Warsaw: Russian troops shoot hundreds of Poles protesting Tsarist rule.
◆1863 Confederate raider William Quantrill and his men attacked Hickman, Kentucky.
◆1865 A Civil War skirmish took place near Sturgeon, Missouri.
◆1897 Great Britain agrees to U.S. arbitration in a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, defusing a dangerous U.S.-British diplomatic crisis.
◆1925 Hitler resurrected the NSDAP (Nazi) political party in Munich.
◆1931 Congress overrides President Herbert Hoover’s veto of the Bonus Loan Bill which allows veterans to obtain cash loans of up to 50% of the value of the veterans’ bonus certificates they had been issued in 1924.
◆1933 Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, caught fire. The Nazis blamed the Communists and used the fire as a pretext for suspending civil liberties and increasing their power. Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian Communist, was one of the accused plotters, but was acquitted. After WW II Dimitrov became the 1st premier of communist Bulgaria.
◆1942 The U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the Langley, is sunk by Japanese warplanes (with a little help from U.S. destroyers), and all of its 32 aircraft are lost.
◆1942 By the last week of February Java was the only significant Dutch island remaining in Allied hands.
◆1944 There are American air strikes on Momote and Lorengau in preparation for a reconnaissance in force. The troops to be employed in the operation are embarking in Oro Bay.
◆1945 On Iwo Jima, the carriers of TF53 again add their support to the ships aiding the attacks of US 5th Amphibious Corps. The American objective is the elimination of three Japanese positions overlooking the second airfield on the island, however, the marines fail to dislodge the Japanese defenders.
◆1945 Units of US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) cross the Erth River at Modrath, about 10 km from Cologne. Farther south, two corps of US 3rd Army are converging on Trier.
◆1951 The 22nd amendment was ratified, limiting president to 2 terms.
◆1952 The destroyer USS Shelton sustained three hits from shore batteries. Eleven sailors are wounded, three seriously.
◆1953 F-84 Thunderjets raided North Korean base on Yalu River. A year after leaving West Point, Lt. Joe Kingston was en route to Korea, where he, like a lot of others, found himself retreating and advancing in a single day.
◆1963 The USSR said that 10,000 troops would remain in Cuba.
◆1968 CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite‘s commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s decision not to seek reelection in 1968.Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: “Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I‘m not sure.” He concluded: “It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out…will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” Johnson called the commentary a “turning point,” saying that if he had “lost Cronkite,” he‘d “lost Mr. Average Citizen.” On March 31, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.
◆1969 Communist forces shell 30 military installations and nine towns in South Vietnam, in what becomes known as the “Post-Tet Offensive.” U.S. sources in Saigon put American losses in this latest offensive at between 250 and 300, compared with enemy casualties totaling 5,300. South Vietnamese officials report 200 civilians killed and 12,700 made homeless.
◆1973 First airborne mine sweep in a live minefield took place in the Haiphong, Vietnam ship channel by helicopters from Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron Twelve on board USS New Orleans.
◆1976 The final meeting between Mao Tse Tung and Richard Nixon took place.
◆1991 XVIII Airborne Corps prepared to continue its advance east toward A1 Basrah.★