TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
18 July
◆477 BCE Battle of the Cremera: The gens Fabius is virtually wiped out by the Veientines
◆387 BCE Battle of the Allia: Brennus' Gauls defeat the Romans (or maybe 390).
◆1185 Battle of Alarcos: Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur defeats King Alfonso VIII of Castille.
◆1630 Spanish-Imperial troops storm Mantua amid great slaughter.
◆1775 Continental Congress resolves that each colony provide armed vessels.
◆1779 Commodore Abraham Whipple's squadron captures 11 prizes in largest prize value of Revolutionary War.
◆1779 Continental Marines attacked British forces in Maine.
◆1792 American naval hero John Paul Jones died in Paris at age 45. His body was preserved in rum in case the American government wished him back. In 1905 his body was transported to the US and placed in a crypt in Annapolis.
◆1806 Gaeta surrenders to the French, after a siege that began Feb 12th.
◆1813 U.S. Frigate President captures British Daphne, Eliza Swan, Alert and Lion.
◆1814 British capture Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
◆1818 The Revenue Cutter Active captured the pirate vessel India Libre in the Chesapeake Bay.
◆1861 Union and Confederate troops skirmished at Blackburn's Ford, Virginia, in a prelude to the Battle of Bull Run.
◆1863 Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and 272 of his troops are killed in an assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.★
◆1863 William Dorsey Pender (29), US Confederate Major General, died of injuries.
◆1864 President Lincoln asked for 500,000 volunteers for military service.
◆1866 Congress authorized Coast Guard officers to search vehicles and persons suspected of concealing contraband.
◆1877 Inventor Thomas Edison recorded the human voice for the first time.
◆1914 US army air service 1st came into being as part of the Signal Corps.
◆1918 US & French forces launched Aisne-Marne offensive in WW I. After an artillery attack, nearly 400 Allied tanks rolled against the German positions. By nightfall the Germans were on the retreat and Paris was mostly in Allied control.
◆1918 The 4th Brigade of Marines began an attack near Soissons, France, as part of a three-division counterattack against the Germans. In the first two days of battle, the brigade sustained 1,972 casualties.
◆1920 Naval aircraft sink ex-German cruiser Frankfurt in target practice.
◆1921 John Glenn, Jr., first man to orbit the Earth, was born in Cambridge, OH.
◆1936 The Spanish Civil War begins as a revolt by right-wing Spanish military officers in Spanish Morocco and spreads to mainland Spain. From the Canary Islands, General Francisco Franco broadcasts a message calling for all army officers to join the uprising and overthrow Spain's leftist Republican government.
◆1939 Edwin H. Armstrong (1890-1954), US radio engineer, started the 1st FM (frequency modulation) radio station in Alpine, NJ.
◆1942 The German Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight.★
◆1943 German submarine shoots down K-47, the first and only U.S. airship lost during WW II.
◆1944 ST. LO CAPTURED: Two Guard divisions, the 29th (DC, MD, VA) and the 35th (KS, MO, NE) both claim credit for the final capture of this vital crossroads city from the Nazis. According to the D-Day plan, St. Lo was supposed to be secured ten days after D-Day. But due to stubborn German resistance using each Norman hedgerow as a defensive fighting position, it took 42 days to take the city. During the 35th Division’s approach, Nebraska Guardsman First Lieutenant Francis Greenlief, of Company L, 134th Infantry (NE), was awarded the Silver Star for capturing an enemy machine gun nest single-handedly. In 1971 Major General Greenlief was appointed by President Richard Nixon as the Chief, National Guard Bureau. Another Guard soldier was to gain fame on the approach to St. Lo, but in a different way. Virginian Major Thomas Howie, the popular commander of the 2nd Battalion, 116th Infantry (VA), told his officers in a meeting on the edge of the city “I’ll see you in St. Lo!” and then was killed by a mortar fragment. When the division commander heard the story he instructed that Howie’s body be transported with the lead elements when they moved into the city. His body was placed on a stretcher and draped with an American flag and placed on the ruins of the Ste. Croix Church in the center of the city. A passing New York Times reporter heard the story and wrote a moving tribute entitled “The Major of St. Lo” but could not identify Howie by name due to security. The story was picked up by newspapers across the nation and the “Major” came to represent all the men killed in the Normandy campaign to liberate France. To honor these men today, Nebraska has the “Major General Francis Greenlief Training Site” in Hastings and the “Major Thomas Howie Memorial Armory” is in his hometown of Staunton, VA.
◆1944 The US 4th Corps attacks Leghorn on the west coast while other elements of US 5th Army reach the Arno River at Pontedera.
◆1945 Captured German mines explode accidentally, destroying an American Red Cross club in Italy and killing 36 people.
◆1945 Aircraft from the American carrier Wasp attack Japanese positions on Wake Island.
◆1945 The battleship Nagato, which has been reduced to service as a floating antiaircraft battery, is damaged by American planes at Yokosuka. Allied air and naval forces strike numerous other targets in the Tokyo area and encounter almost no opposition.
◆1945 Some 200 B-24 and B-25 bombers of the US Far East Air Force, based in Okinawa, bomb Kiangwan airfield near Shanghai.
◆1947 President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.
◆1947 President Harry S. Truman delegates responsibility for the civil administration of former Japanese mandated islands to the Secretary of the Navy.
◆1950 The U.S. 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry Divisions reached Korea from Japan. The British Royal Air Force 88 Flying Boat Squadron joined the U.N. forces on the peninsula. The 1st Cavalry Division's unopposed landing at Pohang was the first planned amphibious operation of the war.
◆1950 In the third such move in as many weeks, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended the Army authorized strength to be increased to 834,000. President Truman approved this request the following day.
◆1955 1st electric power generated from atomic energy was sold commercially.
◆1966 Launch of Gemini 10 with LCDR John W. Young, USN as Command Pilot. Mission involved 43 orbits at an altitude of 412.2 nautical miles and lasted 2 days, 22 hours, and 46 minutes. Recovery was by HS-3 helicopter from USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7).
◆1971 New Zealand and Australia announced they would pull their troops out of Vietnam.
◆1973 Task Force 78, Mine Countermeasures Force, departs waters of North Vietnam after completing their minesweeping operations of 1,992 tow hours for the cost of $20,394,000.
◆1977 Vietnam became a member of UN.
◆1980 A US Federal court voided the Selective Service Act as it didn’t include women.
◆1987 President Reagan used his weekly radio address to call on Congress to give more aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
◆1991 An Iraqi ballistic missile (Scud) concealment is revealed. UNSCOM discovers and destroys undeclared decoy missiles and launch support equipment.