Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

ROWAND, ARCHIBALD H., JR. Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 1st West Virginia Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1864_65. Entered service at: Pittsburgh, Pa. Born: 6 March 1845, Philadelphia, Pa., Date of issue: 3 March 1873. Citation: Was 1 of 2 men who succeeded in getting through the enemy's lines with dispatches to Gen. Grant.

ALCHESAY Rank and organization: Sergeant, Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: Camp Verde, Ariz. Born: 1853, Arizona Territory. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

BAILEY, JAMES E. Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 5th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Dexter, Maine. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

BEAUFORD, CLAY Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company B, 5th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Washington County, Md. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

BLAIR, JAMES Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company I, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at:------. Birth: Schuyler County, Pa. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

BLANQUET Rank and organization: Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at:------. Birth: Arizona. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

CHIQUITO Rank and organization: Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1871-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Arizona. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

ELSATSOOSU Rank and organization: Corporal, Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at:------. Birth: Arizona. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

HINEMANN, LEHMANN Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company L, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 12 August 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

HUFF, JAMES W. Rank and organization: Private, Company L, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: Vanburan, Pa. Born: 7 February 1840, Washington, Pa. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

HYDE, HENRY J. Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company M, 1st U .S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: Princeton, 111. Birth: Bangor, Maine. Date of issue: 12 August 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

JIM Rank and organization: Sergeant, Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Arizona Territory. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

KELSAY Rank and organization: Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at:------. Birth: Arizona. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

KOSOHA Rank and organization: Indian Scouts. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Arizona. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

ORR, MOSES Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at:------. Birth: Ireland Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

OSBORNE, WILLIAM Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company M, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Winter of 1872-73. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 12 April 1875. Citation: Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.

BJORKMAN, ERNEST H. Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 25 April 1881, Malmo, Sweden. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 145, 26 December 1903. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Leyden, 21 January 1903, Bjorkman displayed heroism at the time of the wreck of that vessel.

STUPKA, LODDIE Rank and organization: Fireman First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 4 March 1878, Cleveland, Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. G.O. No.: 145, 26 December 1903. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Leyden, for heroism at the time of the wreck of that vessel, 21 January 1903.

TEYTAND, AUGUST P. Rank and organization: Quartermaster Third Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 6 April 1878, Santa Cruz, West Indies. Accredited to: New Jersey. G.O. No.: 145, 26 December 1903. Citation: For heroism while serving on board the U.S.S. Leyden at the time of the wreck of that vessel, 21 January 1903.

WALSH, MICHAEL Rank and organization: Chief Machinist, U.S. Navy. Born: 27 July 1858, Newport, R.I. Accredited to: Rhode Island. G.O. No.: 145, 26 December 1903. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Leyden; for heroism at the time of the wreck of that vessel, 21 January 1903.

CARY, ROBERT W. Rank and organiza~ion: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. San Diego. Place and date: Aboard U.S.S. San Diego, 21 January 1915. Entered service at: Buncston, Mo. Birth: Kansas City, Mo. Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession on the occasion of an explosion on board the U.S.S. San Diego, 21 January 1915. Lt. Comdr. Cary (then Ensign), U.S. Navy, an observer on duty in the firerooms of the U.S.S. San Diego, commenced to take the half-hourly readings of the steam pressure at every boiler. He had read the steam and air pressure on No. 2 boiler and was just stepping through the electric watertight door into No. 1 fireroom when the boilers in No. 2 fireroom exploded. Ens. Cary stopped and held open the doors which were being closed electrically from the bridge, and yelled to the men in No. 2 fireroom to escape through these doors, which 3 of them did. Ens. Cary's action undoubtedly saved the lives of these men. He held the doors probably a minute with the escaping steam from the ruptured boilers around him. His example of coolness did much to keep the men in No. 1 fireroom at their posts hauling fires, although 5 boilers in their immediate vicinity had exploded and boilers Nos. 1 and 3 apparently had no water in them and were likely to explode any instant. When these fires were hauled under Nos. 1 and 3 boilers, Ens. Cary directed the men in this fireroom into the bunker, for they well knew the danger of these 2 boilers exploding. During the entire time Ens. Cary was cool and collected and showed an abundance of nerve under the most trying circumstances. His action on this occasion was above and beyond the call of duty.

TRINIDAD, TELESFORO Rank and organization: Fireman Second Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 25 November 1890, New Washington Capig, Philippine Islands. Accredited to: Philippine Islands. G.O. No.: 142, 1 April 1915. Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession at the time of the boiler explosion on board the U.S.S. San Diego, 21 January 1915. Trinidad was driven out of fireroom No. 2 by the explosion, but at once returned and picked up R.E. Daly, fireman, second class, whom he saw to be injured, and proceeded to bring him out. While coming into No. 4 fireroom, Trinidad was just in time to catch the explosion in No. 3 fireroom, but without consideration for his own safety, passed Daly on and then assisted in rescuing another injured man from No. 3 fireroom. Trinidad was himself burned about the face by the blast from the explosion in No. 3 fireroom.

BURNSIDE'S MUD MARCH: 
In an attempt to outflank Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, General Ambrose Burnside leads his army on a march to north Fredericksburg, but foul weather bogs his army down in what will become known as “Mud March.” “The auspicious moment seems to have arrived to strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion, and to gain that decisive victory which is due to the country,” so announced Gen. Ambrose Burnside to his Union Army of the Potomac on the morning of January 20, 1863, as he started out on another great drive to beat Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and capture the Rebel capitol of Richmond, VA. 

Burnside’s battered soldiers had had but five weeks to recover from their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but the government demanded action. The Union and Confederate armies still faced each other across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, and Burnside’s plan was to quickly cross the river above Lee’s left and assail that flank of the Confederate position. The Union soldiers and their great wagon trains of pontoon boats, artillery, and supplies made a good start clearing their camp and moving up the river. 

Then the sky started clouding, and by mid-afternoon a slow drizzle had begun. By nightfall a steady, relentless rain was falling, not to stop for days. The next morning the great mule-drawn wagons carrying the pontoons churned the road into a quagmire. The wagons sank to their hubs; the artillery sank until only the muzzles were out of the mud. The exhausted horses floundered, as did the men, as each slippery step through the ooze sucked at their shoes and weighed them down. 

“The whole country was a river of mud,” wrote one soldier. “The roads were rivers of deep mire, and the heavy rain had made the ground a vast mortar bed.” Whole regiments and triple teams of mules hitched to the wagons and guns failed to move them. Still the rain came down in torrents. 

By noon the next day, Burnside’s plans to maneuver past Lee’s Rebel army were hopelessly stalled, and his own army was exhausted, wet, and cold. Burnside had no choice but to abandon the movement and order his soldiers back to their camps across from Fredericksburg. Across the river, the Confederate pickets watched the struggling Union army with amusement. Some put up a large sign on the riverbank that said “Burnside’s Army Stuck in the Mud” and another that said “This way to Richmond.”

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John Moses Browning, the "father of modern firearms," is born in Ogden, Utah. He designed the 1911 .45 caliber pistol, the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), the Hi-Power 9mm pistol, the first gas-operated machine gun (Model 1895), and the M-2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun (aka Ma Duece). There is some confusion on whether his actual birthday is today or on the 23rd, so this page will celebrate it today rather then the latter date, that way we are only early and not late.

BATTLE OF KHE SANH: 
One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the DMZ and six miles from the Laotian border. Seized and activated by the U.S. Marines a year earlier, the base, which had been an old French outpost, was used as a staging area for forward patrols and was a potential launch point for contemplated future operations to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. The battle began on this date with a brisk firefight involving the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines and a North Vietnamese battalion entrenched between two hills northwest of the base.

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Launching of Nautilus, first nuclear submarine, at Groton, CT. Construction of NAUTILUS was made possible by the successful development of a nuclear propulsion plant by a group of scientists and engineers at the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission, under the leadership of Captain Hyman G. Rickover, USN. In July of 1951 Congress authorized construction of the world's first nuclear powered submarine. On December 12th of that year, the Navy Department announced that she would be the sixth ship of the fleet to bear the name NAUTILUS. 

Her keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Connecticut on June 14, 1952. After nearly 18 months of construction, NAUTILUS was launched with First Lady Mamie Eisenhower breaking the traditional bottle of champagne across NAUTILUS' bow as she slid down the ways into the Thames River. Eight months later, on September 30, 1954, NAUTILUS became the first commissioned nuclear powered ship in the United States Navy. 

On the morning of January 17, 1955, at 11 am EST, NAUTILUS' first Commanding Officer, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, "Underway On Nuclear Power." Over the next several years, NAUTILUS shattered all submerged speed and distance records. 

On July 23, 1958, NAUTILUS departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii under top secret orders to conduct "Operation Sunshine," the first crossing of the north pole by a ship. At 11:15 pm on August 3, 1958, NAUTILUS' second Commanding Officer, Commander William R. Anderson, USN, announced to his crew "For the world, Our Country, and the Navy - the North Pole." With 116 men aboard, NAUTILUS had accomplished the "impossible," reaching the geographic North Pole--90 degrees north. 

In May 1959, NAUTILUS entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine for her first complete overhaul--the first of any nuclear powered ship--and the replacement of her second fuel core. Upon completion of her overhaul in August 1960, NAUTILUS departed for a period of refresher training, then deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to become the first nuclear powered submarine assigned to the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Over the next six years, NAUTILUS participated in several fleet exercises while steaming over 200,000 miles. In the spring of 1966, she again entered the record books when she logged her 300,000th mile underway. 

During the following 12 years, NAUTILUS was involved in a variety of developmental testing programs while continuing to serve alongside many of the more modern nuclear powered submarines she had preceded. In the spring of 1979, NAUTILUS set out from Groton, Connecticut on her final voyage. She reached Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California on May 26, 1979--her last day underway. She was decommissioned on March 3, 1980 after a career spanning 25 years and almost half a million miles steamed. In recognition of her pioneering role in the practical use of nuclear power, NAUTILUS was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on May 20, 1982. 

Following an extensive historic ship conversion at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, NAUTILUS was towed to Groton, Connecticut arriving on July 6, 1985. On April 11, 1986, eighty-six years to the day after the birth of the Submarine Force, Historic Ship NAUTILUS, joined by the Submarine Force Museum, opened to the public as the first and finest exhibit of it's kind in the world, providing an exciting, visible link between yesterday's Submarine Force and the Submarine Force of tomorrow.

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Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was born today, regarded as one of historys greatest military captains, was a US Army officer and a Confederate general under Robert E. Lee.

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21 January

​◆1277 Battle of Desio: The Visconti defeat the Torriani.
◆1287 King Alfons III of Aragon captures Minorca.
◆1519 Vasco Núñez de Balboa died, c. 44, Spanish explorer.
◆1642 Director of the New Netherlands colony, Willem Kieft, calls for a meeting of the Twelve (family representatives) to organize a military response to the increasing raids of the Hudson River Valley Tribe. This tribe is reacting to pressure from the growing Iroqois to the north and increasing European settlement in the south.
◆1785 Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa and Wyandot tribes signed a treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.
◆1813 John C. Frémont was born, soldier, explorer, politician, died in 1890.
◆1824 Battle of Accra: the Ashanti defeat the British.
◆1824 Battle of the Adoomansu River: The Ashante annihilate a British expeditionary column
◆1824 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Confederate General, is born. Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders.★
◆1839 The British storm Ghuzni, India.
◆1855 John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the "father of modern firearms," is born in Ogden, Utah. Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West-Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage-were actually based on John Browning's designs.★
◆1863 Battle of Sabine Pass. Two Confederate ships drive away two Union ships as the Rebels recapture Sabine Pass, Texas, and open an important port for the Confederacy. 
◆1896 Battle of Makalle: Abyssinians defeat the Italians.
◆1903 The "Dick Act" creates the modern National Guard.
◆1903 The US and Columbia sign the Hay-Herran Treaty, giving the US a 99 year lease and sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone.
◆1912 US troops begin the occupation of Tiensin, China to protect US interests and the US diplomatic legation. They will cooperate with troops from Japan, Germany, England, Russia and others to protect the International Quarter.
◆1919 The German Krupp plant began producing guns under the U.S. armistice terms.
◆1930 An international arms meeting opened in London. 
◆1940 Britain rejects American protests concerning the examination of mail carried aboard US merchant ships.
◆1941 The United States lifted the ban on arms to the Soviet Union.
◆1941 British and Australian troops attack the Afrika Korps at Tobruk.
◆1942 In North Africa, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launches a drive to push the British eastward. While the British benefited from radio-intercept-derived Ultra information, the Germans enjoyed an even speedier intelligence source.
◆1942 General Stilwell is nominated as Chief of Staff to Chaing Kai-shek.
◆1942 Malaya: the Japanese begin to dislocate the Johore line.
◆1943 Soviet forces recapture Worosjilowsk.
◆1943 A Nazi daylight air raid kills 34 in a London school. When the anticipated invasion of Britain failed to materialize in 1940, Londoners relaxed, but soon they faced a frightening new threat.
◆1944 Forces chosen for the Anzio landing set sail from Naples.
◆1951 Communist troops force the UN army out of Inchon, Korea after a 12-hour attack.
◆1951 Large numbers of MiG-15s attacked USAF jets, shooting down one F-80 and one F-84. Lt. Col. William E. Bertram of the 27th FEG shot down a MiG-15 to score the first USAF aerial victory by an F-84 ThunderJet.
◆1953 Aircraft from three carriers continue relentless assaults against communist supply buildups near Hungnam and Wonsan. Meanwhile, Air Force F-86 Sabre jets downed seven MiGs and damaged three others in a trio of engagements.
◆1954 Launching of Nautilus, first nuclear submarine, at Groton, CT.★
◆1961 USS George Washington completes first operational voyage of fleet ballistic missile submarine staying submerged 66 days
◆1968 One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the DMZ and six miles from the Laotian border.★★
◆1968 B-52 airplane loaded with hydrogen bombs crashed at North Star Bay, Greenland.
◆1970 U.S. planes conduct widespread bombing raids in North Vietnam.
◆1993 Two U.S. warplanes bombed a defense site in northern Iraq after radar was turned on them.
◆2003 NATO blocked a US request to begin preparations for a military backup in the event of war with Iraq.

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