TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
27 March
◆58 BCE Caesar reaches Geneva, to begin the conquest of Gaul.
◆47 BCE Battle of the Nile: Caesar & Pharnaces defeat the a Egypto-Optimate Army.
◆1780 The Battle of Rantowle’s Bridge.★
◆1794 President Washington and Congress authorized creation of the U.S. Navy. The bill authorizes construction of 6 frigates, including Constitution.
◆1799 USS Constitution recaptures American sloop Neutrality from France.
◆1813 In a US attack on Fort George, near the mouth of the Niagra River, LTC Winfield Scott with a 4000-man force captures the 1600-man British garrison under General John Vincent. The British withdraw from Lake Erie. This action permits Captain Oliver Hazard Perry to surreptitiously remove five vessels form the Black Rock shipyard and take them to Presque Isle in order to reinforce the flotilla under construction there.
◆1814 General Jackson led U.S. soldiers who killed 700 Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, La. [in Northern Alabama] Jackson lost 49 men.
◆1836 In a disastrous setback for the Texans resisting Santa Anna’s dictatorial regime, the Mexican army defeats and executes 417 Texas revolutionaries at Goliad.★
◆1862 Flag Officer Du Pont reported to Secretary of the Navy Welles that Confederate batteries on Skiddaway and Green Islands, Georgia, had been withdrawn and placed nearer Savannah. This gives Union forces complete control of Wassaw and Ossabaw Sounds and the mouths of the Vernon and Wilmington Rivers, important approaches to the city.
◆1863 U.S.S. Pawnee, Commander Balch, supported an Army landing on Cole’s Island, South Carolina; Balch joined the Army command ashore for a reconnaissance of the island.
◆1865 Combined Army-Navy operations, the latter commanded by Rear Admiral Thatcher, aimed at capturing the city of Mobile commenced. The objective was Spanish Fort, located near the mouth of the Blakely River and was the key to the city’s defenses. Six tinclads and supporting gun-boats steamed up the Blakely River to cut the fort’s communications with Mobile while the army began to move against the fort’s outworks. The river had been thickly sown with torpedoes which necessitated sweeping operations ahead of the advancing ironclads. These efforts, directed by Commander Peirce Crosby of U.S.S. Metacomet, netted 150 torpedoes. Nevertheless, a number of the Confederate weapons eluded the Union with telling results. In the next five days three Northern warships would be sunk in the Blakely.
◆1899 The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
◆1941 Roosevelt’s $7,000,000,000 Appropriations Bill for Lend-Lease passes into law.
◆1941 Britain leased defense bases in Trinidad to the U.S. for a period of 99 years.
◆1941 Tokeo Yoshikawa arrived in Oahu, Hawaii, to begin spying for Japan on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
◆1942 All RAF aircraft and the remainder of Chennault’s American volunteer air force are withdrawn from Burma.1942 Allied air attack on the German submarine base at St Nazaire, paves the way for a nocturnal Commando raid.
◆1943 US began an assault on Fondouk-pass, Tunisia.1945 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower told reporters in Paris that German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.
◆1945 Iwo Jima was occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US killed.
◆1945 US 9th Army begins to penetrate south into the Ruhr industrial area. US 3rd Army has now crossed the Main both west of Frankfurt, where Wiesbaden is attacked, and to the east.
◆1945 The last German V2 rocket lands southeast of London at Orpington. The V2 campaign has killed over 2700 British civilians and injured 6500. As well as the 1115 launched at British targets, a further 2050 were aimed at Antwerp, Brussels and Liege.
◆1945 Cebu City is captured by the US landing force. As on the other islands, the Japanese are beginning to withdraw to inland strongholds where they will be confined and worn down by Filipino forces. Only on Luzon, Mindanao and Negros will the prolonged presence of US troops be necessary. In Manila Bay, an American force lands on Caballo Island, better known to the Americans as Fort Hughes, where they encounter strong Japanese resistance.
◆1945 US naval forces, including TF58 and TF52, continue air strikes on Okinawa and TF54 continues bombarding the island. The British Pacific Fleet (Admiral Rawlings), also designated Task Force 57, again attacks airfields and other targets on Sakashima Gunto. A Japanese attack by explosive boats fails. Unsuccessful submarine attacks continue.
◆1951 Carrier Group 101, the first all-Reserve naval air group, entered the war aboard the USS Boxer. Two days later, the group flew its first combat missions.
◆1952 Elements of the U.S. Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.
◆1953 The 5th Marines, supported by the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, in the first full day of fighting after the Chinese assault the previous evening of Outpost Vegas on Korea’s western front, counterattacked to regain enemy-held positions. Companies E and F of 2/7, down to only three platoons between them, managed to regain partial control of Outpost Vegas that day.
◆1953 U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James P. Hagerstrom, 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing, flying his F-86 Sabre “MiG Poison,” qualified as the 28th ace of the Korean War and his wings only ace.
◆1956 US seized the US communist newspaper “Daily Worker.”
◆1965 Following several days of consultations with the Cambodian government, South Vietnamese troops, supported by artillery and air strikes, launch their first major military operation into Cambodia. The South Vietnamese encountered a 300-man Viet Cong force in the Kandal province and reported killing 53 communist soldiers. Two teams of U.S. helicopter gunships took part in the action. Three South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and seven wounded.
◆1973 The White House announces that, at the request of Cambodian President Lon Nol, the bombing of Cambodia will continue until communist forces cease military operations and agree to a cease-fire.
◆1984 "Tanker war” begins with Iraqi attacks on shipping near the Iranian coast. In coming months, many tankers are attacked by both Iran and Iraq, war risk insurance premiums for tankers soar, and oil tanker traffic in the Gulf (particularly to Iran’s Kharg Island terminal) is reduced.
◆1990 The The U.S. government begins the operation of TV Marti, which broadcast television programs into communist Cuba.
◆1999 NATO expanded its air assault on Yugoslavia in the fourth straight day of attacks. A $42 million US F-117A stealth fighter was downed over Yugoslavia during continued NATO airstrikes. The downed American pilot was rescued by US forces. The wreckage was later believed to have been sold.
◆2003 In the 9th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom a British armored unit destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks trying to break out of the besieged city of Basra. A sea-borne relief operation was postponed after discovering Iraqi mines in the shipping channel leading to the recently captured Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Heavy bombing on Baghdad destroyed a main telephone exchange.