Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
HILL, FRANK E.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 5th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Date Creek, Ariz., 8 September 1872. Entered service at: ------. Birth: Mayfield, Wis. Date of issue: 12 August 1875. Citation: Secured the person of a hostile Apache Chief, although while holding the chief he was severely wounded in the back by another Indian .
HOLTZ, AUGUST
Rank and organization: Chief Watertender, U.S. Navy. Born: 12 February 1871, St. Louis, Mo. Entered service at: St. Louis, Mo. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: On board the U.S.S. North Dakota, for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board that vessel, 8 September 1910.
LIPSCOMB, HARRY
Rank and organization: Watertender, U.S. Navy. Born: 2 April 1878, Washington, D.C. Accredited to: Washington, D.C. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: On board the U.S.S. North Dakota, for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board that vessel, 8 September 1910.
REID, PATRICK
Rank and organization: Chief Watertender, U.S. Navy. Born: 17 June 1875, Dublin, Ireland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board the U.S.S. North Dakota where Reid was serving, 8 September 1910.
ROBERTS, CHARLES CHURCH
Rank and organization: Machinist's Mate First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 6 March 1882, Newton, Mass. Accredited to: Illinois. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. North Dakota; for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board that vessel, 8 September 1910.
STANTON, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Chief Machinist's Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 11 August 1869, Ireland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: For extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board the U.S.S. North Dakota, 8 September 1910.
WESTA, KARL
Rank and organization: Chief Machinist's Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 8 April 1875, Norway. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 83, 4 October 1910. Citation: On board the U.S.S. North Dakota, for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the fire on board that vessel, 8 September 1910.
*PRUSSMAN, ERNEST W.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, 13th Infantry, 8th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Les Coates, Brittany, France, 8 September 1944. Entered service at: Brighton, Mass. Birth: Baltimore, Md. G.O. No.: 31, 17 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 8 September 1944, near Les Coates, Brittany, France. When the advance of the flank companies of 2 battalions was halted by intense enemy mortar, machinegun, and sniper fire from a fortified position on his left, Pfc. Prussman maneuvered his squad to assault the enemy fortifications. Hurdling a hedgerow, he came upon 2 enemy riflemen whom he disarmed. After leading his squad across an open field to the next hedgerow, he advanced to a machinegun position, destroyed the gun, captured its crew and 2 riflemen. Again advancing ahead of his squad in the assault, he was mortally wounded by an enemy rifleman, but as he fell to the ground he threw a handgrenade, killing his opponent. His superb leadership and heroic action at the cost of his life so demoralized the enemy that resistance at this point collapsed, permitting the 2 battalions to continue their advance.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
8 September
◆1380 Battle of Kulikovo Pole: Dmitri Donskoi's Russians defeat the Tatars.
◆1495 King Ferrantino II of Naples lays siege to French-held Gaeta (falls Nov 18).
◆1565 Italo-Spanish fleet begins landing troops on Malta to break the Turkish siege.
◆1565 A Spanish expedition under Pedro Menendez de Aviles established the first permanent European colony in the present day St. Augustine, Fla.★
◆1628 Dutch sea dog Piet Heyn captures a Spanish treasure fleet, Matanzas, Cuba.
◆1664 Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrenders New Amsterdam, the capital of New Netherland, to an English naval squadron under Colonel Richard Nicolls.
◆1740 Eight hundred volunteers drawn from the militia of several colonies board transports to sail as part of the joint British/American colonial expedition to capture the Spanish colony of Cartagena (today the nation of Columbia).★
◆1755 British forces under William Johnson defeated the French and the Indians at the Battle of Lake George, NY.
◆1760 The French surrendered the city of Montreal to British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst.
◆1771 Mission San Gabriel Archangel formed in California.
◆1781 Gen. Nathanael Greene engaged British forces at Eutaw Springs, South Carolina and was forced to retreat.
◆1796 Battle of Bassano del Grappa: Massena defeats the Austrians under Wurmser.
◆1798 Battle of Ballinamuck, Ireland: the British defeat a French invasion.
◆1828 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Bvt. Major General (Union volunteers), hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, was born.
◆1829 George Crook (d.1890), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
◆1847 The US under Gen. Scott defeated Mexicans at Battle of Molino del Rey.
◆1855 Crimean War: Allied assault on the Malakof Bastion.
◆1863 Federal troops reconquered the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.
◆1863 Battle of Telford's Depot, Ten.
◆1863 Battle of Sabine Pass: A small Confederate force thwarts a Federal invasion of Texas at the mouth of the Sabine River on the Texas-Louisiana border.★
◆1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims limited national emergency and increases enlisted strength in the Navy and Marine Corps; also authorizes the recall to active duty of officer, men and nurses on the retired lists of the Navy and Marine Corps.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, the 1st Raider Battalion and the 1st Parachute Battalion, supported by planes of MAG-23 and two destroyer transports, landed east of Tasimboko, advanced west into the rear of Japanese positions, and carried out a successful raid on a Japanese supply base.
◆1943 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
◆1943 American and Japanese reinforcements arrive on Arundel. Fighting continues.
◆1943 Australian forces advancing on Lae from the east capture Saingaua but are held by Japanese resistance at Busu River. The Japanese begin to withdraw from Salamaua under Australian pressure. Four US destroyers shell Lae.
◆1944 Germany's V-2 offensive against England began. The 1st V-2 rockets landed in London & Antwerp.★
◆1944 The US 7th Corps (part of US 12th Army Group) captures Liege.
◆1944 The US 6th Corps (part of US 7th Army) captures Besancon.
◆1945 Hideki Tojo, Japanese PM during most of WW II, failed in his attempted suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal attempt. He was later hanged.
◆1945 U.S. troops land in Korea to begin their postwar occupation of the southern part of that nation, almost exactly one month after Soviet troops had entered northern Korea to begin their own occupation.
◆1945 The US 1st Cavalry Division enters Tokyo.
◆1950 Congress passed the Defense Production Act, which called for various economic measures, including wage and price controls. In 1950, Congress passed the Defense Production Act, which called for various economic measures, including wage and price controls.
◆1951 A formal Treaty of Peace was signed by 48 nations of the United Nations and Japan at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. On the same day the US and Japan signed a Joint Security Pact at the Presidio. The Soviet delegation refused to sign and said the deal provided for the exclusive existence of American military bases in Japan.
◆1952 Major Frederick C. Blesse, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, earned his sixth and seventh aerial kills after downing a pair of MiG-15 jet fighters.
◆1954 Having been directed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to put together an alliance to contain any communist aggression in the free territories of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, or Southeast Asia in general, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles forges an agreement establishing a military alliance that becomes the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
◆1958 LT R. H. Tabor, wearing a Navy developed pressure suit, completes 72-hour simulated flight at altitudes as high a 139,000 feet. It was another step in the development of the Navy spacesuit, which NASA accepted in 1959 for use by Mercury astronauts.
◆1960 NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
◆1962 Chinese troops invade India.
◆1990 President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in Helsinki, Finland, for a one-day summit sparked by the Persian Gulf crisis.
◆1994 The last US, British & French troops left West-Berlin.
◆1996 Okinawans voted more than 10-to-1 in favor of a reduction of U.S. military bases on their islands, in a referendum aimed at pressuring Washington to pull out its troops.
◆2000 The US Bureau of Indian Affairs marked its 175th birthday and Kevin Grover, head of the bureau, offered a formal apology to American Indians for the misdeeds of the agency that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian cultures.
◆2000 The space shuttle Atlantis blasted into orbit to deliver supplies to the new int’l. space station.
◆2002 The leaders of the two main Kurdish factions, KDP and PUK, that control northern Iraq signed a reconciliation agreement as the United States tries to forge a united front against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
◆2002 The Guardian reports that the United States has begun a massive military build-up required for a war against Iraq, ordering the movement of tens of thousands of men and tons of material to the Gulf region.
◆2003 NASA presented a "return to flight" plan for the shuttle fleet.
◆2004 NASA’s $260 million Genesis space capsule crashed in the Utah desert after its parachute failed to open. It carried a cargo of solar wind particles.
◆2004 US warplanes launched strikes in the insurgent-held city of Fallujah, hitting at suspected militant hideouts used to plan attacks on American forces.