TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
21 October
◆1096 Battle of Drakon: The Seljuks defeat the "Beggars' Crusade."
◆1600 Battle of Sekigahara: With the help of a little treachery, Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the Toyotomi under Ishida Mitsunari, to secure the shogunate for his family for more than 250 years.
◆1639 Battle of the Dunes: Tromp's Dutch fleet defeats Quendo's Spaniards.
◆1797 The 44-gun 204-foot U.S. Navy frigate USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, was launched in Boston's harbor.★
◆1837 Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops sieged the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida. Osceola, who was sick with malaria, knew the Indians could fight no more. He went to the General's fort at St. Augustine with a white flag. When Osceola went to General Jesup the General had his men surround Osceola. They threw the white flag to the ground and put chains on his hands and feet. The Seminoles were so angry with Osceola's capture that they continued to fight for the next five years.
◆1861 A Union assault across the Potomac River north of Washington, DC, at a site named Harrison’s Landing or better known to history as “Ball’s Bluff” was repulsed with heavy losses.★
◆1867 Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache signed a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
◆1872 The U.S. Naval Academy admitted John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.
◆1904 Panamanians clashed with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
◆1916 US Army formed Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). Congress recognized the need for an expanded military reserve to supplement the National Guard, and it passed the National Defense Act. ★
◆1917 Members of the First Division of the U.S. Army training in Luneville, France, became the first Americans to see action on the front lines of World War I. The first U.S. troops entered the front lines at Sommervillier under French command. During the night, a battalion from each regiment and designated batteries of the division moved in beside corresponding units of the 18th French Division and began training in caring for themselves in the trenches, in patrolling, observation, and artillery procedures. The battalions and batteries were rotated at ten-day intervals until all had been at the front.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, the Japanese forces, mainly 2nd Infantry Division, under General Maruyama now number 20,000. The plan for the attack on the main American position involves simultaneous attacks to be made northward in the area between the Lunga and Tenaru Rivers, while secondary attacks are made on the American western outposts along the Matanika River. The Japanese lack accurate intelligence concerning the numbers and dispositions of the American troops.
◆1942 General MacArthur orders the Australian troops fighting on Kokoda Trail advance to the main Japanese positions in Eora, New Guinea to speed up their advance.
◆1942 Eight American and British officers landed from a submarine on an Algerian beach to take measure of Vichy French to the Operation Torch landings.The transports and escorts in support of the Allied invasion of French North Africa, sail. Despite the presence of 21 German U-boats in the waters off Gibraltar and the Moroccan coast, the transports are only mentioned vaguely in dispatches to Italy and Germany.
◆1944 During World War II, U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen.
◆1944 Organized Japanese resistance on Angaur, Palau Islands ends. A total of 1300 Japanese are killed and 45 are captured. American forces have suffered 265 dead and 1335 wounded. US heavy bombers are operating from the airfield. The Japanese garrisons on the remaining islands in the group are left isolated.
◆1944 Elements of US 24th Corps capture Dulag Airfield; Tacloban village is taken by forces of US 10th Corps. American forces are unable to link the two beachheads. Ships of the US 7th Fleet and one group of US Task Force 38 (part of US 3rd Fleet) provide naval and air support to the land battles. Meanwhile, two groups of TF38 launch air strikes against targets on Panay, Cebu, Negros and Masbate.
◆1959 Dr. Werner Von Braun started work at NASA. By the late 1960s his rockets were taking men to the moon. At age 25 he had masterminded the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany.
◆1983 The United States sent a ten-ship task force to Grenada, one of the smallest independent nations in the Western Hemisphere and one of the southernmost Caribbean islands in the Windward chain. The Cuban government had decided to utilize the former British colony as a holding place for arms and military equipment, complete with a major airport. Eastern Caribbean nations fully understood the implication of the communist threat and called upon the United States for help. The response was Operation Urgent Fury, a multinational, multiservice effort. Commanding officers of the US Navy ships have not yet been told what the mission in Grenada--to evacuate U.S. citizens, neutralize any resistance, stabilize the situation and maintain the peace—will be.