TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
28 January
◆1099 First Crusaders lay siege to Hosn-el-Akrad, Syria.
◆1670 English pirate, Sir Henry Morgan sacks Panama. ★
◆1757 Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupies Delhi and annexes the Punjab.
◆1825 George Edward Pickett (d.1875), Major General in the Confederate Army, was born. When blame was being sought for why his ill -fated charge was the final action of the Battle of Gettysburg, and why the Confederacy did not win the three -day battle, George Pickett suggested that "The Union Army might have had something to do with it." Pickett had been sponsored for West Point by the Illinois congressman, Abraham Lincoln.
◆1828 Confederate General Thomas Carmichael Hindman is born in Knoxville, Tennessee. 1846 Battle of Allwal: British defeat the Sikhs.
◆1855 The Panama Railway, which carried thousands of unruly miners to California via the dense jungles of Central America, dispatches its first train across the Isthmus of Panama.
◆1858 John Brown organized a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry.1871 Paris, besieged since July 19th, surrenders to the Prussians.
◆1909 The United States ended direct control over Cuba.
◆1914 Marines with British, French and German units landed in Haiti.
◆1915 The merchant frigate Willaim P. Frye was stopped by a German cruiser in the South Atlantic off the Brazilian coast and ordered to jettison its cargo. The following day, the German captain noted that the disposal of the wheat had not been completed, so he ordered the ship's destruction. The sinking of the Frye was the first such loss inflicted on American shipping in World War I.
◆1917 American forces are recalled from Mexico after nearly 11 months of fruitless searching for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had lead a bloody raid against Columbus, New Mexico.
◆1923 The 1st "National Socialist German Workers Party" (NSDAP, aka NAZI) formed in Munich.
◆1932 The Japanese attacked Shanghai, China, and declare martial law.
◆1942 The Eighth Bomber Command (Later redesignated 8th AF in February 1944) activated as part of the U.S. Army Air Forces at Hunter Field in Savannah, Ga. Brig. Gen. Ira C Eaker took the headquarters to England the next month to prepare for its mission to conduct aerial bombardment mission against Nazi-occupied Europe.During World War 2,under the leadership of such generals as Eaker and Jimmy Doolittle, 8th AF became the greatest air armada in history.By mid-1944 ,8th AF had reached a total strength of more than 200,000 people ( it is estimated that more than 350,000 Americans served in 8th AF during the war in Europe ) . At its peak , 8th AF could dispatch more than 2,000 four-engine bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission . For these reasons , 8th AF became known as the "Mighty Eighth".
◆1942 The 4th Marine Regiment was assigned to support Philippine Scouts on Bataan.1944 RAF puts 683 bombers over Berlin.
◆1945 Part of the 717-mile "Burma Road" from Lashio, Burma to Kunming in southwest China is reopened by the Allies, permitting supplies to flow back into China.
◆1945 The US 8th Air Force conducts raids on the Ruhr industrial area and the Rhine with 1000 bombers. Oil plants and bridges are the nominal targets.
◆1945 The US 1st Army launches attacks east of St. Vith in the Ardennes.
◆1952 The U.N. Command gave the communists four lists with the names of 132,080 POWs held by the United Nations forces.
◆1955 The U.S. Congress passed a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan.
◆1964 The U.S. State Department angrily accuses the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace.
◆1966 Operation "Double Eagle." Largest amphibious landing since Korea. D-Day, 28 January, was a dismal day with low overcast and light rain. Despite the heavy seas, the first wave of Lieutenant Colonel James R. Young’s BLT 3/1 landed at 0700 as planned. Offshore, a destroyer, the USS Barry (DD 933), and a cruiser, the USS Oklahoma City (CLG 5) provided naval gunfire coverage, while eight Douglas A4 Skyhawks from MAG-12 and eight McDonnell F-4B Phantoms from MAG- 11 were on station overhead. The only opposition encountered by the assault troops occur-red late that day. Companies I and M were exposed to occasional small arms fire; one Company I Marine was wounded. Shortly after Lieutenant Colonel Young's men secured their objectives, five 105mm howitzer-equipped amphibian tractors (IVTH-6 moved ashore to provide artillery support for the infantry battalion. Company B from the 3d Engineer Battalion was also on the beach to establish various points.
◆1975 President Gerald Ford asks Congress for an additional $522 million in military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia.
◆1991 The US military reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter -bombers had taken refuge in Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government.
◆2003 US and Afghan forces battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the largest -scale fighting in 10 months. Norwegian F -16s participated in bombing enemy targets.