TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
3 October
◆1569 Battle of Moncontour: Defeat of the Huguenots near Paris.
◆1574 Relief of Leiden: William of Orange breaches the dykes to lift a long Spanish siege.
◆1650 The English parliament declared its rule over the fledgling American colonies.
◆1656 Myles Standish, Plymouth Colony leader, died (birth date unknown).
◆1862 At the Battle of Corinth, in Mississippi, a Union army defeated the Confederates.
◆1873 Captain Jack and three other Modoc Indians were hanged in Oregon for the murder of General Edward Canby.
◆1912 Marines participated in the Battles of Coyotepe and Barranca Hills during the Nicaraguan Campaign.★
◆1921 USS Olympia sails for France to bring home the Unknown Soldier from World War I.
◆1940 After a month of training and experimentation the U.S. Army adopted airborne, or parachute, soldiers.★
◆1942 Germany conducted the 1st successful test flight of an A-4/V-2 missile from the Peenemunde test site. It flew perfectly over a 118-mile course to an altitude of 53 miles (85 km). The 13-ton, 46-foot long V2 rocket was the world’s 1st long-range ballistic missile.
◆1942 U S Marines occupy Funafuti in the Ellice Islands.
◆1943 Aircraft from USS Ranger sink 5 German ships and damage 3 in Operation Leader, the only U.S. Navy carrier operation in northern European waters during World War II.
◆1944 During World War II, U.S. troops cracked the Siegfried Line north of Aachen, Germany.
◆1951 Operation COMMANDO, one of the largest operations conducted after the commencement of truce negotiations, began. COMMANDO was a full-scale offensive designed to establish a defensive line that would screen the Yonchon-Chorwon Valley from enemy observation and long-range artillery.
◆1952 USAF Major Frederick C. "Boots" Blesse, 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, flying an F-86 Sabre jet, scored his 10th and final aerial victory and became the fifth double ace of the Korean War.
◆1955 USS Saipan (CVL-48) begins disaster relief at Tampico, Mexico rescuing people and delivering supplies. Operations end 10 October.
◆1962 Launch of Sigma 7 (Mercury 8 ) piloted by CDR Walter M. Schirra, Jr., USN.
◆1988 Discovery completed a four-day mission, the first American shuttle flight since the Challenger disaster.1989 Panamanian Defense Force attempts a coup against Manuel Noriega.
◆1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made his first known visit to Kuwait since his country seized control of the oil-rich emirate.
◆1993 Battle at Bakhara Market. On 22 August, Task Force Ranger, consisting of one company of Rangers from 3/75, a special forces unit, and a deployment package of the 160th SOAR (A), was ordered to deploy to Mogadishu, Somalia.★
◆1994 U.S. soldiers in Haiti raided the headquarters of a pro-army militia.
◆1995 Pres. Gligorov, leader of Macedonia, was critically hurt in a car bomb attack in Skopje, Macedonia.
◆1995 The Sri Lankan army claimed to have killed 200 Tamil Tiger rebels on the northern Jaffa peninsula.
◆1997 US Defense Sec. William Cohen ordered the Nimitz Carrier Battle Group to the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran and Iraq to stop incursions into the US-enforced “no-fly” zone in southern Iraq.
◆1997 In Algeria armed men killed 38 people at the village of Mahelma. Throats of the victims were slit, heads were cut off and houses were set on fire. In Blida 10 people were killed and 20 wounded by assailants with homemade rockets and bombs. Another group of attackers killed 75 others including 34 children. In the village of Ouled Benaissa armed men killed 37 people including 22 children.
◆1997 UN officials reported that Congo had ordered international refugee agencies to leave part of eastern Congo and was expelling Rwandans who had fled there to escape fighting in Rwanda.
◆1997 Turkish jets bombed escape routes used by Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Over the last 13 days the army reported 415 rebels dead vs. 6 Turkish soldiers.
◆1998 Turkey sent some 10,000 troops into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels.