TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
18 June
◆1053 Battle of Civitate: Normans defeat a Papal-Lombard army.
◆1429 Battle of Patay: French defeat the English, retreating from Orleans.
◆1450 Battle of Sevenoaks: Kentish rebels defeat Sir Humphrey Stafford.
◆1675 Battle of Fehrbellim: The Prussians defeat the Swedes.
◆1757 Battle of Kolin: Austrians defeat Frederick the Great's Prussians.
◆1778 After almost nine months of occupation, the 15,000 British troops under Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital.
◆1812 WAR OF 1812: The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law--and the War of 1812 begins.
◆1815 BATTLE OF WATERLOO: Wellington crushes Napoleon, with the help of Blucher’s Prussians.
◆1815 Battle of Wavre: Prussians keep the French right from reinforcing Napoleon.
◆1862 Commander S.P. Lee submitted a demand from Flag Officer Farragut and General Butler for the surrender of Vicksburg; Confederate authorities refused and a year-long land and water assault on the stronghold began.
◆1863 After repeated acts of insubordination, General John McClernand was relieved by General Ulysses S. Grant during the siege of Vicksburg.
◆1864 At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realized the town could no longer be taken by assault and settled into a siege.
◆1878 The 45th Congress enacted a rider on an Army appropriations bill that became known as the Posse Comitatus Act [Chapter 263, Section 15, U.S. Statutes, Vol. 20.]
◆1900 Empress Douairisre ordered I-Ho-Chuan (the Boxers) to kill all foreigners.
◆1903 1st transcontinental auto trip began in SF and arrived in NY 3-months later.
◆1918 Allied forces on the Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the spent German army.
◆1942 The U.S. Navy commissioned its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.
◆1944 On Saipan, elements of the US 5th Amphibious Corps continue to make progress. The 4th Marine Division reaches the west side of the island at Magicienne Bay. This advance divides the Japanese garrison. Elements of the 27th Division capture Aslito airfield. Japanese air strikes sink 1 American destroyers and 2 tankers as well as damaging the escort carrier Fanshaw Bay. Most of the American air and naval support has withdrawn to meet the approaching Japanese fleet.
◆1944 The main US carrier forces rendezvous west of the Mariana Islands. Japanese scout planes sight the American fleet late in the day. The Japanese command intends to launch air strikes next morning, while still beyond range, and fly the aircraft to Guam to refuel and rearm.
◆1944 Elements of the French Expeditionary Corps (part of US 5th Army), in the west, enter Radicofani.
◆1945 On Okinawa, the remnants of the Japanese 32nd Army continue to offer determined resistance to attacks of the US 3rd Amphibious Corps and the US 24th Corps. Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, commanding US 10th Army, is killed by Japanese artillery fire while he is on a visit to the front line, inspecting troops of the US 8th Marine Division. He is temporarily replaced by General Geiger, commanding the US 3rd Amphibious Corps.
◆1945 On Luzon, elements of the US 37th Division, supported by an armored column, advance in the Caygayan valley, capturing Ilagan airfield and crossing the Ilagan River. On Mindanao, organized Japanese resistance comes to an end. Forces of the Japanese 35th Army have been cut off and dependent on roots and tree bark for food for some time now. Nonetheless, some small units of Japanese continue to resist.
◆1945 Organized Japanese resistance ended on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
◆1953 U.S. Air Force Captains Lonnie R. Moore and Ralph S. Parr of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing became the 33rd and 34th aces of the war. Their F-86s were named "Billie/Margie" and "Barb/Vent De Mort."
◆1965 For the first time, 28 B-52s fly-bomb a Viet Cong concentration in a heavily forested area of Binh Duong Province northwest of Saigon.
◆1995 The Bosnian Serbs announced the resumption of cooperation with the UN. Serbs released the last 26 UN hostages held since NATO airstrikes.
◆1999 The US and Russia agreed on terms for Russian participation in Kosovo peacekeeping.