7 January
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
*SHOUP, CURTIS F Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company I, 346th Infantry, 87th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Tillet, Belgium, 7 January 1945. Entered service at: Buffalo, N.Y. Birth: Napenoch, N.Y. G.0. No.: 60, 25 July 1945. Citation: On 7 January 1945, near Tillet, Belgium, his company attacked German troops on rising ground. Intense hostile machinegun fire pinned down and threatened to annihilate the American unit in an exposed position where frozen ground made it impossible to dig in for protection. Heavy mortar and artillery fire from enemy batteries was added to the storm of destruction falling on the Americans. Realizing that the machinegun must be silenced at all costs, S/Sgt. Shoup, armed with an automatic rifle, crawled to within 75 yards of the enemy emplacement. He found that his fire was ineffective from this position, and completely disregarding his own safety, stood up and grimly strode ahead into the murderous stream of bullets, firing his low-held weapon as he went. He was hit several times and finally was knocked to the ground. But he struggled to his feet and staggered forward until close enough to hurl a grenade, wiping out the enemy machinegun nest with his dying action. By his heroism, fearless determination, and supreme sacrifice, S/Sgt. Shoup eliminated a hostile weapon which threatened to destroy his company and turned a desperate situation into victory.
*SPECKER, JOE C. Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, 48th Engineer Combat Battalion. Place and date: At Mount Porchia, Italy, 7 January 1944. Entered service at: Odessa, Mo. Birth: Odessa, Mo. G.O. No.. 56, 12 July 1944. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty, in action involving actual conflict. On the night of 7 January 1944, Sgt. Specker, with his company, was advancing up the slope of Mount Porchia, Italy. He was sent forward on reconnaissance and on his return he reported to his company commander the fact that there was an enemy machinegun nest and several well-placed snipers directly in the path and awaiting the company. Sgt. Specker requested and was granted permission to place 1 of his machineguns in a position near the enemy machinegun. Voluntarily and alone he made his way up the mountain with a machinegun and a box of ammunition. He was observed by the enemy as he walked along and was severely wounded by the deadly fire directed at him. Though so seriously wounded that he was unable to walk, he continued to drag himself over the jagged edges of rock and rough terrain until he reached the position at which he desired to set up his machinegun. He set up the gun so well and fired so accurately that the enemy machine-gun nest was silenced and the remainder of the snipers forced to retire, enabling his platoon to obtain their objective. Sgt. Specker was found dead at his gun. His personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and determination were an inspiration to his officers and fellow soldiers.
7 January 1944
The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet. Development of the P-59, America's first jet-propelled airplane, was ordered personally by General H. H. Arnold on September 4, 1941. The project was conducted under the utmost secrecy, with Bell building the airplane and General Electric the engine. The first P-59 was completed in mid-1942 and on October 1, 1942, it made its initial flight at Muroc Dry Lake (now Edwards Air Force Base), California. One year later, the airplane was ordered into production, to be powered by I-14 and I-16 engines, improved versions of the original I-A. Bell will produce 66 P-59s. Although the airplane's performance was not spectacular and it never got into combat, the P-59 provided training for AAF personnel and invaluable data for subsequent development of higher performance jet airplanes.
7 January 1865
Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, CO, in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. After the massacre, the survivors had fled north to the Republican River where the main body of Cheyenne were camped. The Cheyennes sent a messenger to the Sioux and Arapaho inviting them to join them in a war on the whites.
In early January 1865, as many as 2000 Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho warriors shifted their camps closer to the South Platte Trail where it cut through the northeast corner of Colorado. On January 6, a small party hit a wagon train and killed twelve men. Just before sunrise the following day, the majority of the Dog Soldiers and their allies concealed themselves in some sand hills a short distance from Fort Rankin and Julesburg, one mile up the Platte River, while the Cheyenne chief Big Crow slipped up to the fort.
At first light he rushed the sentries stationed outside the walls. A sixty man cavalry troop quickly emerged from the gates to give chase and as soon as they were clear of the fort they were cut off from their base as more than a thousand warriors dashed from the sand hills and began to empty the cavalry saddles.
All but a few were killed. As the remaining garrison prepared to defend the fort, the Indians raced up the Platte to the undefended Julesburg where they plundered at will while the soldiers at Fort Rankin could only watch and harmlessly fire their howitzers.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
7 January
◆49 BCE The Roman Senate orders Caesar to disband his army or be declared a public enemy, thereby heading off a compromise by Cicero, and insuring civil war.
◆1558 The French take Calais, the last English enclave on the Continent.
◆1601 Robert, Earl of Essex leads revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
◆1608 Disaster strikes Jamestown. The fort burns and leaves the colonists vulnerable to attack by Indians and the Spanish.
◆1699 Hostilities end in King William's War, with the signing of a treaty at Casco, Maine.
◆1709 Siege of Verpik: Russians use boiling porridge to help defeat the Swedes.
◆1718 Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War hero, was born. He planned the fortifications at the Battle of Bunker Hill and told his men, "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
◆1807 In the Napoleonic Wars, a British order in council bars all commercial shipping in the coastal waters of France and her allies. This order is in response to Napoleon's Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806, which ordered a naval blockade around the British Isles.
◆1863 Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke's expedition into Missouri reached Ozark, where it destroyed the Union post, and then approached Springfield on the morning of January 8.★
◆1865 Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, CO, in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.★
◆1914 The first ship, the Alexander la Valley, crossed the Panama Canal.
◆1916 In response to pressure from the Wilson administration, Germany notifies the US of its intention to abide by international rules of naval warfare.
◆1918 The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.
◆1942 The World War II siege of Bataan began in the Philippines.
◆1943 On Guadalcanal, fresh American troops mount an assault on Mount Austen.
◆1943 A Japanese convoy lands supplies and reinforcements at Lea, New Guinea despite air attacks.
◆1944 The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet.
◆1944 British and American elements of the US 5th Army capture Monte Chiaia and Monte Porchia. San Vittore is also taken.
◆1945 U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. is killed in the Pacific.
◆1945 The attacks of the US 8th Corps of US 1st Army, along the line of the Ourthe west of Houffalize, record progress around Laroche. German attacks in Alsace also continue with some success south of Strasbourg in the area around Erstein.
◆1953 In his final State of the Union address before Congress, President Harry S. Truman tells the world that that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. It was just three years earlier on January 31, 1950, that Truman publicly announced that had directed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. Truman’s directive came in responds to evidence of an atomic explosion occurring within USSR in 1949.
◆1960 Launch of the first fully-guided flight of a Polaris missile at Cape Canaveral (flew 900 miles).
◆1960 A small submarine, the Trieste, sets a new record for depth when it descends 24,000 feet into the Pacific off Guam.
◆1967 The first elements of the Mobile Riverine Force reached Vietnam on when the USS Whitfield County (LST 1169) docked at Vung Tau.
◆1975 Vietnamese troops take Phuoc Binh in new full-scale offensive.
◆1993 Largest military confrontation of Restore Hope. 500 Marines engage in a shoot-out with Warlord Aidid's forces in Mogadishu. 15 Somalis are taken POW, no US casualties.
◆1999 A US jet fired on an air defense station in Iraq after it was targeted on radar.
◆2003 Creation of the Select Committee on Homeland Security to help Congress coordinate oversight of the new Department of Homeland Security and to ensure implementation of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
◆2007 President George W. Bush announces that he will send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq as part of a shift in American military strategy. Under this new strategy, labeled “the surge,” American troops will pacify and protect individual neighborhoods rather than combat sectarian violence through mobile patrols.