TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
5 June
◆1249 Battle of Damietta: Crusaders defeat the Ayyubids.
◆1284 Battle of Castellammare: Aragonese-Sicilian fleet defeats the Angevin-Neapolitans.
◆1288 Battle of Worringen: Brabant defeats Guelders.
◆1589 Battle of Lisbon: Spanish beat off an English assault.
◆1595 Battle of Fontaine-Francaise: French defeat the Spanish.
◆1637 The English and their Mohegan allies slaughtered as many as 600 Pequot Indians [in the area of Connecticut]. The survivors were parceled out to other tribes. Those given to the Mohegans eventually became the Mashantucket Pequots. American settlers in New England massacred a Pequot Indian village.
◆1794 Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from enlisting in the service of a foreign power.
◆1794 The Third Congress authorized an additional 10 revenue cutters and gave the Treasury Department the responsibility for lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and piers.
◆1794 First officers of the U.S. Navy under the Constitution are appointed. The first 6 captains appointed to superintend the construction of new ships were John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale, and Thomas Truxtun.
◆1848 Army officer John C. Fremont submitted his “Geographical Memoir” to the US Senate where the SF Bay entrance was called Chrysopylae (Golden Gate). He had in mind the Chrysoceras (Golden Horn) of Constantinople, and suggested that the SF Bay would be advantageous for commerce.
◆1856 U.S. Army troops in the Four creeks region of California, headed back to quarters, officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, continued for a few more years.
◆1861 Federal marshals seized arms and gunpowder at Du Pont works in Delaware.
◆1862 Union forces arrive at Fort Pillow, a key stronghold on the Mississippi River, to find that the Confederates had already evacuated the day before.
◆1863 Battle of Franklin's Crossing, VA (Deep Run).
◆1864 Union forces under General David Hunter rout a Confederate force led by General William "Grumble" Jones, giving the North their first real success in the 1864 Shenandoah campaign.
◆1884 Civil War hero General William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
◆1912 US Marines invaded Cuba (3rd time).
◆1917 About 10 million American men began registering for the draft in World War I.
◆1917 First military unit sent to France, First Naval Aeronautical Detachment, reaches France on board USS Jupiter.
◆1933 The United States went off the gold standard.
◆1940 The Battle of France began during World War II. The German army began its offensive on Southern France.
◆1941 The US Army Bill for 1942 is introduced into Congress. It calls for appropriations amounting to $10,400,000,000.
◆1944 Allied airborne troops embark for Normandy just before midnight. The convoys carrying the Allied Expeditionary Force are nearing France.
◆1944 The BBC broadcasts a second message, intended for the French Resistance, warning of the imminent invasion. Again, the significance of the message is noted by German authorities but the 7th Army in Normandy is not alerted.
◆1944 Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a note to be issued in case the D-Day invasion turned out to be a failure: “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops.” The note was [apparently misdated] dated July 5.
◆1944 PREPARATION BOMBING COMMENCED FOR D-DAY: More than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries placed at the Normandy assault area, while 3,000 Allied ships cross the English Channel in preparation for the invasion of Normandy-D-Day.
◆1944 The US 5th Army enters Rome in force and continues to advance in pursuit of the retreating German forces. Traffic congestion on the limited road network hinders the advance, as does the German rearguards.
◆1944 On Biak, elements of the US 41st Division continue to advance, reducing pockets of Japanese resistance. On the mainland, near Aitape, American forces evacuate one of their beachheads because of continuing Japanese attacks. The Japanese forces are sustaining heavy losses.
◆1944 The first B-29 bombing raid struck the Japanese rail line in Bangkok, Thailand.
◆1945 On Okinawa, Japanese forces on the Oroku peninsula strongly resist the US 6th Marine Division which nonetheless captures most of the airfield. In the south the forces of the US 24th Corps near the last Japanese defensive line, running from Yuza in the west to Guschichan on the east coast and based on the three hills, Yaeju, Yuza and Mezado. At sea, a sudden typhoon damages 4 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers, 7 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 2 tankers, and and ammunition transport ship, of the US 3rd Fleet. A Japanese Kamikaze attack cripples the battleship USS Mississippi and the heavy cruiser USS Louisville.
◆1945 On Luzon, the US 37th Division (US 1st Corps) occupy Aritao and advance northward from the town.
◆1945 A total of 473 US B-29 Superfortress bombers strike Kobe with 3000 tons of incendiary bombs.
◆1953 U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Vermont Garrison, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 32nd ace of the Korean War and, at age 37, the oldest.
◆1967 Six Day War begins between Israel & its Arab neighbors.
◆1968 ROBERT KENNEDY ASSASSINATED: Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary.
◆1989 Chinese soldiers slaughtered pro-democracy students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. In one of the most remembered images of China's crushed pro-democracy movement, a lone man stood defiantly in front of a line of tanks in Beijing until friends pulled him out of the way. In 2001 “The Tiananmen Papers,” a book based on classified documents smuggled out of China, was published. Zhang Liang was the pseudonym of the compiler.
◆1993 In Somalia, militiamen loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
◆1993 2 US soldiers (trucker and engineer) are wounded in the bloodiest day in 3 months during running battles across Mogadishu. An 85 man company from 1/22 Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, is air assaulted in to repel further attacks.
◆2003 The United States agreed to pull its ground troops away from the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea.
◆2004 Ronald Reagan (b.1911), US president (1981-1989), died in California after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease.