TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
27 June
◆81 BCE First Day of Sulla's Triumph, for the defeat of Mithridates.
◆1136 Naval Battle of Yell Sound, Shetlands: Earl Paul defeats Earl Ragnvald.
◆1684 Battle of Vaccia: Imperialists defeat the Turks.
◆1693 First Naval Battle of Lagos: English and Dutch defeat the French.
◆1743 Battle of Dettingen: George II's Anglo-German army defeats the French.
◆1776 Thomas Hickey, who plotted to hand George Washington over to British, was hanged.
◆1778 The Liberty Bell came home to Philadelphia after the British left.
◆1806 Buenos Aires is captured by the British.
◆1829 In Genoa, Italy, English scientist James Smithson dies after a long illness, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to "the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."
◆1848 Battle of Maida: Calabrese insurgents defeat Borbon troops.
◆1862 Confederates broke through the Union lines at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on the 3rd day of the Seven Days Battle in Virginia.
◆1863 There was a skirmish at Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.
◆1864 Union General William T. Sherman launches a major attack on Confederate General Joseph Johnston's army at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia.
◆1874 ADOBE WALLS: Using new high-powered rifles to devastating effect, 28 buffalo hunters repulse a much larger force of attacking Indians at an old trading post in the Texas panhandle called Adobe Walls.✯
◆1916 The 4th Marine Regiment defeated Dominican rebels in a stand-up bayonet attack.
◆1918 First use of parachutes to escape an aircraft in combat: two German airmen jump.
◆1927 The U.S. Marines adopted the English bulldog (Sgt. Jiggs) as their mascot.✯
◆1929 Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York revealed a system for transmitting television pictures.
◆1940 The Germans set up two-way radio communication in their newly occupied French territory, employing their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma, to transmit information.
◆1944 American forces of 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) complete the capture of Cherbourg.The port, however, is not presently operational. To the left, the British 2nd Army continues attacks. Forces of the British 30th Corps capture Rauray, near Caen, and British 8th Corps launches new attacks.
◆1945 On Luzon, units of the US 37th Division, part of US 1st Corps, reach Aparri, on the north coast. With the occupation of the whole of the Cagayan valley, the campaign for the recapture of the island is now effectively complete. The remaining Japanese forces are isolated in remote parts of Luzon and lack supplies or medical care.
◆1945 The American carrier USS Bunker Hill is struck by a Kamikaze plane, killing 373 men.
◆1950 President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea.
◆1950 Just two days after communist North Korean forces invaded South Korea, the United Nations Security Council approves a resolution put forward by the United States calling for armed force to repel the North Korean invaders.
◆1950 Flying a F-82G Twin Mustang in a defensive mission over Kimpo Airfield, Lieutenant William G. "Skeeter" Hudson, 68th Fighter (All-Weather) Squadron, destroyed a Yak-7U fighter and was officially credited with the first aerial victory of the Korean War. Lieutenant Carl Fraser occupied the second cockpit as copilot.
◆1950 Captain Raymond E. Schillereff and Lieutenant Robert H. Dewald each scored single victories while Lieutenant Robert E. Wayne claimed a pair IL-10s. These were the first air-to-air victories achieved by jet fighters in U.S. Air Force history.✯
◆1950 US sent 35 military advisers to South Vietnam.
◆1954 CIA-sponsored rebels overthrew the elected government of Guatemala. A US supported force of Guatemalan mercenaries invaded from Honduras. Pres. Arbenz was toppled and replaced by 30 years of military rule. He spent much of his exile in Cuba. Arbenz died in 1971 in Mexico City. It was disclosed in 1997 to have been motivated by US economic interests with 58 Guatemalan politicians put on a list of potential targets for political killing.
◆1962 NASA civilian pilot Joseph Walker took the X-15 to 6,606 kph, 37,700 m.
◆1963 USAF Major Robert A. Rushworth in X-15 reached 86,900 m.
◆1968 The U.S. command in Saigon confirms that U.S. forces have begun to evacuate the military base at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the Demilitarized Zone and six miles from the Laotian border.
◆1973 Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on Cambodia bombing.
◆1980 President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.
◆1983 NASA launched space vehicle S-205.
◆1985 The U.S. House of Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua.
◆1986 US informed New Zealand it will not defend it against attack.
◆1993 US warships fired 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles at intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in retaliation for the assassination plot. The Iraqis claimed 8 dead. Iraqis pulled their dead from the rubble of buildings wrecked by U.S. missiles during an early morning raid ordered by President Clinton in reprisal for an alleged assassination plot against former President Bush.
◆1994 U.S. Coast Guard cutters intercepted 1,330 Haitian boat people on the high seas in one of the busiest days since refugees began leaving Haiti following a 1991 military coup.
◆2005 Operation Red Wings (often incorrectly referred to as Operation Redwing and/or Operation Red Wing) was a combined / joint military operation that took place in the Pech District of Afghanistan's Kunar Province, on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, approximately 20 miles west of Kunar's provincial capital of Asadabad, in Late June through Mid-July 2005. The goal of Operation Red Wings was the disruption of Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) activity in the region in order to further aid the stabilization efforts of the region for the upcoming September 18, 2005 Afghan National Parliamentary Elections. Anti-Coalition Militia activity in the region was carried out at the time most notably by a small group led by a local man (from Nangarhar Province) who had aspirations of regional Islamic fundamentalist prominence named Ahmad Shah, hence he and his small group would be one of the primary targets of the operation. Operation Red Wings, conceived by the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment (2/3) of the U.S. Marine Corps (Red Wings was based on an operational model developed by 2/3's sister battalion, the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment (3/3), who preceded the 2nd Battalion in their combat deployment to Afghanistan), utilized special operations forces (SOF) units and assets, including members of the U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operation's Aviation Regiment (Airborne) (SOAR(A)), for the opening phase of the operation. A team of four Navy SEALs, tasked for surveillance and reconnaissance of a group of structures known to be used by Ahmad Shah and his men, fell into an ambush by Shah and his group just hours after inserting by fast rope from an MH-47 helicopter in the area. Three of the four SEALs were killed in the ambush; a quick reaction force helicopter sent in for their aid was subsequently shot down with an RPG-7 rocket propelled grenade by one of Shah's men, killing all on board, which consisted of 8 Navy SEALs and 8 U.S. Army Special Operations aviators. The operation then became known as Red Wings II and lasted approximately three more weeks, during which time bodies of the deceased SEALs and Army Special Operations aviators were recovered and the only surviving member of the initial four-man surveillance and reconnaissance team, Marcus Luttrell, was rescued.[5] While the goal of the operation, the disruption of Anti-coalition Militia activity, was achieved in part, Ahmad Shah regrouped in Pakistan, and returned with yet more men and armament to the area due to the notoriety he gained from the Red Wings ambush and helicopter shoot down. Operationally, Red Wings achieved its stated goal, although temporarily. Shah's group was stricken to a point of inoperability and Shah was seriously wounded during Operation Whalers, which took place in the Kunar Province just weeks after Red Wings drew to a close, in August, 2005.