Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
PRESTON, ARTHUR MURRAY
Rank and organization: Lieutenant, U.S. Navy Reserve, Torpedo Boat Squadron 33. Place and date. Wasile Bay, Halmahera Island, 16 September 1944. Entered service at: Maryland. Born: 1 November 1913, Washington, D.C. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commander, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 33, while effecting the rescue of a Navy pilot shot down in Wasile Bay, Halmahera Island, less than 200 yards from a strongly defended Japanese dock and supply area, 16 September 1944. Volunteering for a perilous mission unsuccessfully attempted by the pilot's squadron mates and a PBY plane, Lt. Comdr. (then Lieutenant) Preston led PT-489 and PT-363 through 60 miles of restricted, heavily mined waters. Twice turned back while running the gauntlet of fire from powerful coastal defense guns guarding the 11-mile strait at the entrance to the bay, he was again turned back by furious fire in the immediate area of the downed airman. Aided by an aircraft smokescreen, he finally succeeded in reaching his objective and, under vicious fire delivered at 150-yard range, took the pilot aboard and cleared the area, sinking a small hostile cargo vessel with 40-mm. fire during retirement. Increasingly vulnerable when covering aircraft were forced to leave because of insufficient fuel, Lt. Comdr. Preston raced PT boats 489 and 363 at high speed for 20 minutes through shell-splashed water and across minefields to safety. Under continuous fire for 2l/2 hours, Lt. Comdr. Preston successfully achieved a mission considered suicidal in its tremendous hazards, and brought his boats through without personnel casualties and with but superficial damage from shrapnel. His exceptional daring and great personal valor enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
*VITTORI, JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Company F, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein.). Place and date: Hill 749, Korea, 15 and 16 September 1951. Entered service at: Beverly, Mass. Born: 1 August 1929, Beverly, Mass. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an automatic-rifleman in Company F, in action against enemy aggressor forces. With a forward platoon suffering heavy casualties and forced to withdraw under a vicious enemy counterattack as his company assaulted strong hostile forces entrenched on Hill 749, Cpl. Vittori boldly rushed through the withdrawing troops with 2 other volunteers from his reserve platoon and plunged directly into the midst of the enemy. Overwhelming them in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, he enabled his company to consolidate its positions to meet further imminent onslaughts. Quick to respond to an urgent call for a rifleman to defend a heavy machine gun positioned on the extreme point of the northern flank and virtually isolated from the remainder of the unit when the enemy again struck in force during the night, he assumed position under the devastating barrage and, fighting a single-handed battle, leaped from 1 flank to the other, covering each foxhole in turn as casualties continued to mount manning a machine gun when the gunner was struck down and making repeated trips through the heaviest shellfire to replenish ammunition. With the situation becoming extremely critical, reinforcing units to the rear pinned down under the blistering attack and foxholes left practically void by dead and wounded for a distance of 100 yards, Cpl. Vittori continued his valiant stand, refusing to give ground as the enemy penetrated to within feet of his position, simulating strength in the line and denying the foe physical occupation of the ground. Mortally wounded by the enemy machine gun and rifle bullets while persisting in his magnificent defense of the sector where approximately 200 enemy dead were found the following morning, Cpl. Vittori, by his fortitude, stouthearted courage, and great personal valor, had kept the point position intact despite the tremendous odds and undoubtedly prevented the entire battalion position from collapsing. His extraordinary heroism throughout the furious nightlong battle reflects the highest credit upon himself and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
16 September
◆1189 Siege of Acre: Crusaders defeat an Ayyubid assault.
◆1776 Battle of Harlem Heights: Washington ambushes the Brits on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
◆1795 British capture Capetown from the Dutch.
◆1812 Great Fire of Moscow frustrates Napoleon's attempt to hold the city.
◆1814 A detachment of Marines under Major Daniel Carmick from the Naval Station at New Orleans, together with an Army detachment, destroyed a pirate stronghold at Barataria, on the Island of Grande Terre, near New Orleans.
◆1854 CDR David G. Farragut takes possession of Mare Island, the first U.S. Navy Yard on the Pacific.
◆1862 Confederate Congress passed a resolution expressing thanks to Commander Ebenezer Farrand, CSN, senior officer in command of the combined naval and military forces at Drewry's Bluff on 15 May, "for the great and signal victory achieved over the naval forces of the United States in the engagement . . . at Drewry's Bluff;" Farrand was praised for his "gallantry, courage, and endurance in that protracted fight. . . ." which Confederate statesmen knew could have been so disastrous to their cause.
◆1864 "The Beefsteak Raid": Wade Hampton's Confederate cavalry captures over 2,000 cattle and 304 prisoners from a Union supply depot at Coggins Point, Va.★
◆1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest led 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.
◆1893 The largest land run in history begins with more than 100,000 people pouring into the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma to claim valuable land that had once belonged to Native Americans.
◆1917 Navy Department authorizes establishment of 16 Naval air stations abroad.
◆1919 The American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
◆1940 The Burke-Wadsworth Act is passed by Congress, by wide margins in both houses, and the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States is imposed.
◆1940 Under authority granted by Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training prompted by the worsening conditions in Europe. The Nazis armies had conquered most of Western Europe except Britain. The president and Congress wanted the 242,000 men in the Guard to rapidly expand the Regular Army of only 190,000 men and begin to prepare in case of attack. The first of 18 increments enter active duty today, the last units will not be called up until the spring of 1941. Guardsmen report to forts located all across the country. Once settled in, they begin large maneuver training not usually available in peacetime. Guard aerial observation squadrons, separated from their parent divisions and placed in Army Air Corps groups, began antisubmarine patrols along the coasts. Helping to fill in the ranks were men drafted under a newly enacted conscription law passed by Congress. America was preparing for war.
◆1942 3rdMarDiv activated at Camp Elliott in California.
◆1942 New Guinea: High Tide of the Japanese advance: The Aussies hold Imita Ridge, safeguarding Port Moresby.
◆1942 The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands was raided by American bombers.
◆1942 Allied prospects are brighter as they establish local air superiority over Ioribaiwa. This halts the Japanese advance. American reinforcements brought into Port Moresby to join the Australians mean that an effective offense can now be planned.
◆1943 Australian troops capture Lae, in northeastern New Guinea.
◆1944 The US marine forces consolidate their beachhead and are engaged in a battle for control of the airfield on the island.
◆1944 The Octagon Conference ends. Churchill and Roosevelt and their staffs conclude their meeting in Quebec to discuss strategy. There is general agreement on continuing the campaigns underway in Europe. A campaign in Burma is agreed upon. There is also agreement on British forces joining the American forces in the final campaigns in the Pacific.
◆1950 The U.S. 1st Marine Division, assisted by four battalions of ROK Marines, secured the Inchon peninsula. The way was now clear for the landing of the rest of X Corps and the attack towards Seoul and Suwon.
◆1950 The U.S. 8th Army broke out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and began heading north to meet MacArthur's troops heading south from Inchon.
◆1958 USS Grayback fires first operational launch of Regulus II surface to surface guided missile off CA coast; Missile carries first U.S. mail sent by guided missile.
◆1969 President Richard Nixon announces the second round of U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam. This was part of the dual program that he had announced at the Midway conference on June 8 that called for "Vietnamization" of the war and U.S. troop withdrawals, as the South Vietnamese forces assumed more responsibility for the fighting. The first round of withdrawals was completed in August and totaled 25,000 troops (including two brigades of the 9th Infantry Division). There would be 15 announced withdrawals in total, leaving only 27,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam by November 1972.
◆1972 - South Vietnamese troops recaptured Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.
◆1974 - President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft-evaders. Limited amnesty was offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.
◆1990 Iraqi television broadcast an eight-minute videotaped address by President Bush, who warned the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein’s brinkmanship could plunge them into war “against the world.”
◆1990 The U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 667condemning Iraqi efforts to force nations to close their embassies in Kuwait and move them to Baghdad.
◆1991 A federal judge in Washington dismissed all Iran-Contra charges against Oliver North.
◆1994 Two astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery went on the first untethered spacewalk in 10 years.
◆1996 Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off more than six weeks late on a mission to pick up NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, aloft since last March, from the Russian space station Mir.
◆1996 Kuwait agreed to allow the US to send 3,300 troops to its soil over the confrontation with Iraq.
◆1997 Two Air national Guard F-16 fighters collided off Atlantic City, N.J. All the crew members survived.
◆1998 Iraq urges the Security Council to reverse its decision on sanctions reviews.
◆2001 President George W. Bush pledged a crusade against terrorists, saying there was "no question" Osama bin Laden was the "prime suspect" in the Sept. 11 attack. US officials warned that the new war on terrorism will be a long, often secret and a “dirty” contest.
◆2001 Pakistan told Afghanistan to surrender Osama bin Laden within 3 days or face almost certain military action.
◆2001 More than 10,000 Army and Air Guard personnel from 29 states and Washington, DC, are on active duty providing humanitarian relief, security, air defense and communications support as a result of the attacks of September 11th.