TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
3 May
◆1382 Battle of Beverhoudsveld: Ghent defeats Bruges, using firearms.
◆1515 Portuguese fleet captures Hormuz, Persia.
◆1568 The French burn the Spanish fort at San Mateo, Florida.
◆1622 Portguese-held Hormuz [Bandar Abbas], besieged since 18 Feb, surrenders to an Anglo-Persian force.
◆1678 French fleet attacks Dutch Curaçao, 1200 die.
◆1800 Second Battle of Stockach: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1802 Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city, with the mayor appointed by the president and the council elected by property owners.
◆1808 The Russians capture Sveaborg from the Swedes.
◆1809 Battle of Ebelsberg: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1811 Five day Battle of the Fuentes de Onoro begins: Wellington defeats the French.
◆1821 The Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery was organized.
◆1846 Mexican army invades Texas.
◆1863 BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE (Day 3).
◆1863 Stonewall Jackson’s arm was amputated and buried.
◆1898 Lt Dion Williams and Marines from the USS Baltimore raised the American flag over Cavite, Philippines.
◆1923 The 1st non-stop flight across the US was made. Army lieutenants Kelly and Macready flew from New York to San Diego.
◆1926 U.S. marines landed in Nicaragua and remained until 1933.
◆1942 Executive Order 9066, signed by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, was issued by Lt. Gen’l. John DeWitt from his headquarters in the SF Presidio. It called for the evacuation of Japanese-Americans from Los Angeles effective May 9. Some 110,000-112,000 Japanese-Americans were settled in 10 relocation camps, the first of which was in Manzanar in Owens Valley, Ca. In the Bay Area most Japanese-Americans were sent to the Tanforan racetrack where they were put up in stables and later relocated to Topaz, Utah.
◆1942 BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA.
◆1943 US General Devers is appointed to Commander in Chief of the American European Theater Command after General Andrews is killed in an airplane accident.
◆1943 In Tunisia, the US 1st Division break out of "Mousetrap Valley" and capture Mateur. An improvised Axis defensive line prevents further progress.
◆1944 Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the United States.
◆1944 An acoustic torpedo fired by the U-371 hit and destroyed the stern of the Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Menges while she was escorting a convoy in the Mediterranean, killing thirty-one of her crew. The Menges was later repaired and returned to service. She assisted in the sinking of the U-866 on 19 March 1945.
◆1944 Japanese Admiral Toyoda is designated Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet. He replaces Admiral Koga who was killed on March 31st.
◆1944 The production of synthetic quinine (anti-malarial) by young Harvard scientists Woodward and Doering is announced in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
◆1945 Allies arrested German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg.
◆1945 Soviet forces have now reached the Elbe west of Berlin and made contact with US 1st and 9th Armies and in the north with the British 2nd Army. Fighting in Berlin ends.
◆1945 In Austria, Innsbruck falls to the US 7th Army while other units advance near Salzburg.
◆1945 American naval forces commanded by Admiral Noble land 1000 troops near Santa Cruz in the Gulf of Davao, on Mindanao. Davao City is taken by US 24th Division units.
◆1945 On Okinawa, Japanese forces launch a counteroffensive from positions in the south, during the night (May 3-4), but fail to break through the American lines. Japanese artillery batteries, that have remained silent until now to avoid American retaliation, support the assaults.
◆1947 Japan's postwar constitution goes into effect.
◆1949 First Navy firing of a high altitude Viking rocket at White Sands, NM.
◆1951 The U.S. Navy's Air Group 19 conducted an air strike on the Hwachon Dam with 12 flack-suppressing F4U Corsairs and eight AD3 Skyraiders armed with Mark-13 aerial torpedoes. This was the first use of these weapons since World War II.
◆1952 A ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47 piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict of California becomes the first aircraft to land on the North Pole.
◆1952 Air Force Captain Robert T. Latshaw, Jr., 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, and Major Donald E. Adams, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 13th and 14th jet aces of the Korean War, shooting down five enemy aircraft each.
◆1965 The lead element of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, stationed in Okinawa, departs for South Vietnam.
◆1968 After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
◆1968 At Phan Rang Air Base, Vietnam, Colorado’s 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron becomes the first Air Guard unit to arrive in Vietnam, less than four months after mobilization.
◆1982 Falklands War: Argentine Exocet sinks HMS 'Sheffield'.
◆1992 In Los Angeles, soldiers continued to patrol streets and guard fire-gutted and ransacked stores in the wake of rioting that erupted following the Rodney King-taped beating acquittals.
◆1996 A weak compromise treaty was passed in Geneva that aimed to phase out non-detectable plastic mines, and introduced rules to limit the lifespan of anti-personnel mines planted outside marked fields to 3 months.
◆1999 US jets attacked Iraqi air defense sites.
◆1999 NATO jets hit a bus in Kosovo and killed about 20 people.
◆2000 Gen. Wesley Clark left his post as NATO’s supreme allied commander. He was replaced by Gen. Joseph Ralston.
◆2001 US federal agents broke up a smuggling ring that brought hundreds of Ukrainians into the US through Mexico.