TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
17 June
◆1291 Moslems recover Acre, after nearly 200 years of Crusader control.
◆1497 Battle of Blackheath/Deptford Bridge: King Henry VII defeats Cornish rebels.
◆1579 During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchors in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claims the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Calling theland "Nova Albion," Drake remained on the California coast for a month to make repairs to his ship, the Golden Hind, and prepare for his westward crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
◆1744 Battle of Velletri I: Neapolitans under Charles VII raid Austrian lines.
◆1745 American New Englanders captured Louisburg, Cape Breton, from the French. The ragtag army captured France's most imposing North American stronghold on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
◆1775 Battle of Bunker Hill: During the American Revolution, British General William Howe lands his troops on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking Boston and leads them against Breed's Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill.
◆1799 Three day Battle of the Trebbia begins: Austro-Russians defeat the French.
◆1815 Stephen Decatur captures Algerian frigate Mashouda.
◆1833 USS Delaware enters drydock at Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, VA, the first warship to enter a public drydock in the United States.
◆1863 On the way to Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Point of Rocks, Maryland.
◆1863 Battle of Aldie: Confederates failed to drive back Union in Virginia.
◆1864 A 640 meter long pontoon bridge over the James River in Virginia was finished.
◆1864 General John B. Hood replaced General Johnston as head of CSA troops around Atlanta.
◆1870 USS Mohican burns Mexican pirate ship Forward.
◆1876 Sioux and Cheyenne Indians score a tactical victory over General Crook's forces at the Battle of the Rosebud, foreshadowing the disaster of the Battle of Little Big Horn eight days later.
◆1898 Navy Hospital Corps established.
◆1913 U.S. Marines set sail from San Diego to protect American interests in Mexico.
◆1916 American troops under the command of Gen. Jack Pershing marched through Mexico chasing the cowardly bandit Francisco “Pancho” Villa who fled at every turn.
◆1932 The U.S. Senate defeated the bonus bill as 10,000 veterans massed around the Capitol.
◆1938 Japan declared war on China.
◆1940 Chief of Naval Operations asks Congress for money to build two-ocean Navy.
◆1942 Yank a weekly magazine for the U.S. armed services, began publication. Hartzell Spence (d.2001 at 93), executive editor of Yank, a new US Army publication, soon introduced the term “pinup” for the photo inserts of beautiful women and added the “Sad Sack” cartoon strip.
◆1942 Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet directed the organization of coastal pickets to combat submarine menace of Atlantic Coast. This became known as the "Corsair Fleet."
◆1943 Operation Husky. The first units of the naval support for the invasion of Sicily set sail from the British Home Fleet base at Scapa Flow.
◆1944 The US 1st Army cuts off the Contentin Peninsula. The US 9th Division (part of US 7th Corps) reaches the west coast to the north and south of Barneville. German divisions isolated to the north are not permitted to attempt to break out. Hitler meets with Rundstedt, Commander in Chief (West), and Rommel, commanding Army Group B. Both Field Marshals seek a withdrawal to more defensible positions inland. Hitler refuses to allow a retreat in Normandy. He suggests that the V1 bombing of Britain will force it out of the war.
◆1944 The US 27th Infantry Division lands on Saipan to reinforce the American beachhead.
◆1944 The carriers led by Admiral Clark and the rest of the main US carrier forces sail for a rendezvous to the west of the Mariana Islands.
◆1945 On Okinawa, reinforced American units advance in the Kuishi Ridge area which has been stubbornly defended by forces of the Japanese 32nd Army. Along the line of the US 24th Corps, the last Japanese defensive line is broken. The US 7th Division completes the capture of Hills 153 and 115. The commander of the Japanese naval base on Okinawa, Admiral Minoru Ota, is found dead, having committed suicide.
◆1945 On Luzon, elements of the US 37th Division, US 1st Corps, captures Naguilian after making a forced crossing of the Cagayan river, near the town of Cagayan.
◆1945 General Arnold orders General Chennault to be replaced by General Stratemeyer as Commander in Chief of the US air forces operating in China. Japanese troops in southern China begin withdrawing northward in five long columns between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.
◆1953 A revised demarcation line was settled at Panmunjom.
◆1953 The Soviet Union orders an entire armored division of its troops into East Berlin to crush a rebellion by East German workers and antigovernment protesters.
◆1965 Twenty-seven B-52’s hit Viet Cong outposts but lost two planes in South Vietnam.
◆1967 China detonated its 1st hydrogen bomb and became the world's 4th thermonuclear power.
◆1969 U.S. intelligence reports that an estimated 1,000 North Vietnamese troops have reoccupied Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937) also known as Hamburger Hill, one mile east of the Laotian border.
◆1970 North Vietnamese troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
◆1971 The United States and Japan signed a treaty under which the United States would return control of the island of Okinawa in 1972.
◆1972 Chilean president Allende formed a new government and the CIA prepared to oust him.
◆1979 Colonel Valeria Hilgart became the first woman Marine to assume duty as chief of staff of a major command (Albany, Georgia).