TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
25 January
◆477 King Gaiseric of the Vandals and Alans died (428-477), at c. 80.
◆1126 Battle of Marj-es-Safar: The Kingdom of Jerusalem defeats the Damascans.
◆1153 King Baldwin III of Jerusalem attacks Ascalon.
◆1401 Tamerlane captures Damascus by treachery.
◆1497 Giovanni Borgia abandons the siege of the Orisini stronghold at Bracciano.
◆1775 Americans dragged cannon uphill to fight the British at Gun Hill Road, Bronx. When the British navy landed on Staten Island in 1775, New York City Patriots feared an imminent invasion. They did not want the precious cannon at the Battery to fall into enemy hands. Thus, in December, 1775, they took the cannon to the mainland and scattered them roughly along present-day Gun Hill Road from today's Jerome Avenue across the Bronx River to modern White Plains Road.
◆1787 Small farmers in Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays continued their revolt against tax laws. Federal troops broke up the protesters of what becomes known as Shay’s Rebellion. Shays' Rebellion suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers led by Capt. Daniel Shays failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass. [see Aug 29, 1786]
◆1799 Having existed, essentially nameless, for 8-1/2 years, Alexander Hamilton's "system of cutters" was referred to in legislation as "Revenue Cutters." Some decades later, the name evolved to Revenue Cutter Service and Revenue Marine.
◆1806 Secretary of State James Madison delivers a report to Congress on the continuung British interference with the commercial shipping of neutral nations, including the US, and on British policy of impressing US seamen, in the context of the Napoleonic Wars. Madison’s report will give rise to a new wave of anti-British feeling.
◆1814 Congress modifies the embargo against Britain when the embargo leads to famine on Nantucket Island, off the Massachusetts coast.
◆1856 Marines and seamen from the U.S. sloop DECATUR went ashore at the village of Seattle, Washington, to protect settlers from Indian raids. The Indians launched a seven-hour attack but were driven off later that day after suffering severe losses. Incredibly, only two civilian volunteers were killed and no Marines or sailors were lost.
◆1863 After two months, General Ambrose Burnside is removed as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside assumed command of the army after President Lincoln removed General George B. McClellan from command in November 1862. Lincoln had a difficult relationship with McClellan, who built the army admirably but was a sluggish and overly cautious field commander. Lincoln wanted an attack on the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was commanded by Robert E. Lee. Burnside drafted a plan to move south towards Richmond. The plan was sound, but delays in its execution alerted Lee to the danger. Lee headed Burnside off at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13. Burnside attacked repeatedly against entrenched Confederates along Marye's Heights above Fredericksburg with tragic results. More than 13,000 Yankees fell; Lee lost just 5,000. Northern morale sunk in the winter of 1862-1863. Lincoln allowed Burnside one more chance. In January, Burnside attempted another campaign against Lee. Four days of rain turned the Union offensive into the ignominious "Mud March," during which the Yankees floundered on mud roads while the Lee's men jeered at them from across the Rappahannock River. Lincoln had seen enough--General Joe Hooker took over command of the army.
◆1879 The Arrears of Pensions Act is passed by Congress. It authorizes back-payment of military pensions beginning from the day of discharge. If the veteran is dead, payments will be made to the family.
◆1887 Battle of Saati: Italians defeat the Tigrinos.
◆1898 Continuing his preparations for war, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, sends a highly confidential order to Comodoer George Dewey, leader of the Asiatic Squadron, to go to Hong Kong. Dewey is to be prepared to attack the Spanish fleet in the Philippines should war be declared.
◆1906 Major Gen. Joseph Wheeler II (70), Confederate, US General, died. He led a cavalry division in the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898. As a Confederate brigadier and then major general, “Fightin’ Joe” Wheeler commanded the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Mississippi and, later, the Army of Tennessee. Captured in May 1865, he went on to have a prosperous postwar life, serving as a U.S. congressman for eight terms. After his Spanish-American War service, Wheeler retired from the army as a brigadier general of U.S. Regulars. He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
◆1915 The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental telephone service in the United States. Bell placed the first ceremonial cross-continental call from New York to his old colleague Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
◆1918 Austria and Germany rejected U.S. peace proposals.
◆1919 The League of Nations plan was adopted by the Allies.
◆1922 In Managua, Nicaragua, a series of clashes between Marines and police came to a head on the night of 8 December 1921, when a private shot and killed a policeman. As a result of this incident, a systematic town patrol was begun and every effort was made to raise the morale and standards of conduct of the command. While these reforms were taking place, the guard was reinforced to head off any Liberal-inspired rioting. A group of 30 Marines arrived from the USS GALVESTON. A little later, 52 men arrived from the DENVER, while the NITRO contributed 45 Leathernecks. After a few weeks, the majority of these reinforcements were withdrawn.
◆1928 Marines participated in the Battle of El Chipote during the occupation of Nicaragua. A patrol was sent to storm the Sandino stronghold on the mountain El Chipote. This patrol had begun probing the area from 20 January. Moving cautiously, the patrol would reach the crest very early on January 26. Although a quantity of supplies were captured, Sandino and his main body had escaped.
◆1942 Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies.
◆1943In Tunisia, American forces advance to Maknassy, threatening Sfax and Gabes.
◆1944 Forces of the US 5th Army continue attacks on the German-held Gustav Line. The Free French Corps makes some gains on Colle Belvedere. At Anzio, Allied efforts to expand the beachhead make slow progress.
◆1945 The US 37th Division, US 14th Corps (Griswold), occupies a large part of the Clark Field air base in the Philippines.
◆1945 Iwo Jima is bombarded by the battleship Indiana and a force of cruisers and destroyers. There are also air attacks by B-24 and B-29 bombers. This is the first step in the preparation for the US landings in February.
◆1949 Axis Sally, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to U.S. troops in Europe, stands trial in the United States for war crimes.★
◆1951 General Ridgway and I and IX Corps launched Operation THUNDERBOLT, a counteroffensive northward to the Han River. This large-scale reconnaissance in force was the first ground offensive since the full-scale intervention of the Chinese. The purpose of the operation was to determine the enemy's disposition of forces and reestablish contact.
◆1952 During the third largest aerial victory of the Korean War, F-86s shot down 10 MiG-15s and damaged three others without suffering any losses.
◆1953 Operation SMACK was launched in the western I Corps sector by the U.S. 7th Infantry Division. This air-ground coordinated test strike lasted three hours and involved close air support in concert with a combined arms task force of tanks, infantry and artillery. The operation achieved disappointing results.
◆1955 Columbia University scientists developed an atomic clock that was accurate to within one second in 300 years.
◆1963 1st Seabee Technical Assistance Team arrives in Vietnam
◆1968 Operation Windsong I in Mekong Delta, Vietnam.
◆1968 President Johnson sends the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Sea of Japan in a show of force, hoping this will be sufficient to prevent direct military action with North Korea over the Pueblo incident.
◆1969 The first fully attended meeting of the formal Paris peace talks is held. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, the chief negotiator for the United States, urged an immediate restoration of a genuine DMZ as the first "practical move toward peace." Lodge also suggested a mutual withdrawal of "external" military forces and an early release of prisoners of war. Tran Buu Kiem and Xuan Thuy, heads of the National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese delegations respectively, refused Lodge's proposals and condemned American "aggression."
◆1974 General Creighton Abrams directed the activation of the first battalion size Ranger unit since WWII.★
◆1980 Highest speed attained by a warship, 167 kph, USN hovercraft.
◆1981 The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States.
◆1983 The IRAS space probe was launched. It studied infrared radiation from across the cosmos and exposed stars as they were born from clouds of gas and dust.
◆1984 President Reagan endorsed the development of the first U.S. permanently manned space station.
◆1990 Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was transferred to a Miami federal prison.
◆1991 During the Gulf War Iraq sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping an estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf. Missiles fired from western Iraq struck in the Tel Aviv and Haifa areas, killing one Israeli and injuring more than 40 others.
◆1993 Cobra helicopters from 10th Mountain Divisions 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment destroy 6 armed vehicles, killing 8 Somalis in Kismaayo.
◆1994 The United States launched Clementine I, an unmanned spacecraft that was to study the moon before it was "lost and gone forever."
◆1995 Russia's early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow.★
◆2002 In Afghanistan leaders called for an increase in peacekeeping troops as warlords competed for power outside of Kabul.
◆2003 NASA launched a spacecraft into orbit to measure all the radiation streaming toward Earth from the sun. The small satellite is called Sorce — for Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment.
◆2004 NASA's Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to Earth, delighting and puzzling scientists just hours after the spacecraft bounced to a landing on the opposite side of the red planet from its twin rover, Spirit.