This Day In Military History...

[Admiral]

January 27

Born...

1546 Joachim III Frederick of Brandenburg

1571 Shah 'Abbas I the Great of Persia (1588-1629)

1822 Thomas Leiper Kane, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1883

1826 Richard Taylor, Lt Gen, C.S.A., d. 1879

1828 Samuel Allen Rice, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1864

1830 William Henry Fitzhugh Payne, Brig Gen, C.S.A.

1834 Robert Sanford Foster, Maj Gen, U.S.

1859 Wilhelm II, "Kaiser Bill, German Emperor, (1888-1918), d. 1940

1900 Hyman G Rickover, Admiral, father of modern US nuclear navy

1940 Brian T O'Leary, Astronaut

Died...

98 Marius Cocceius Nerva, Emperor of Rome (96-98), at about 67

1556 Humayun, Mughal emperor of India, in a fall from his library.

1816 Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood/Admiral

1967 Alphonse Juin, last Marshal of France

1967 Edward Higgins White II, Lt Col USAF/Astronaut (Gemini 4), at 36 in the Apollo I fire

1967 Roger B Chaffee, Astronaut, at 31 in the Apollo I fire

1967 Virgil I (Gus) Grissom, Astronaut, at 41 in the Apollo I fire

1974 Georgios Grivas, Greek General/opposition leader on Cyprus (EOKA), at 75

1995 Halsey S Colchester, British SAS/MI6-spy/priest, at 76

Event...

1556 Akbar becomes Mogul Emperor of India (1556-1605)

1556 Willem of Orange becomes Knight of Guilder Flies

1671 Pirate Henry Morgen lands at Panama City

1736 Abdication of Stanislas, last King of Poland

1864 Battle of Fair Gardens, TN

1864 Skirmish at Kelly's Ford, Va.

1897 British troops occupy Bida Gold Coast (Ghana)

1915 US Marines occupy Haiti

1924 Lenin placed in Mausoleum in Red Square

1940 U.S. freighter Cold Harbor, bound for Odessa, is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities.

1941 Peruvian agent Rivera-Schreiber warns of Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor

1942 Submarine USS Gudgeon is first US boat to sink an enemy sub, torpedoes and sinks Japanese submarine I-73 240 miles west of Midway, 28°24'N, 178°35'E.

1942 Submarine USS Seawolf delivers ammunition to Corregidor, P.I., and evacuates naval and army pilots.

1942 USAAF B-17s bomb and damage Japanese seaplane carrier Sanuki Maru off Balikpapan, Borneo.

1942 Naval Air Station, Puunene, Maui, T.H., is established.

1942 Unarmed U.S. tanker Francis E. Powell is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-130 about eight miles northeast of Winter Quarter Lightship, 37°45'N, 74°53'W; a Coast Guard boat from the Assateague Island station and U.S. tanker W. C. Fairbanks rescue the 28 survivors from the 32-man crew. U.S. tanker Halo is torpedoed and damaged by U-130 about 17 miles northeast of Diamond Shoals Lightship, 35°33'N, 75°20'W.

1942 U.S. steamship Coamo rescues 71 survivors of Canadian steamer Lady Hawkins that had been sunk by U-66 on 19 January.

1942 USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown task forces raid the Marshall Islands

1942 HMS Indomitable flys off 48 aircraft to reinforce the defense of Java

1943 Submarine USS Whale damages Japanese transport Shoan Maru in the central Pacific, 14°24'N, 153°30'E; towed to Saipan and grounded to facilitate salvage, Shoan Maru performs no more active service.

1943 Japanese ship No.2 Choko Maru rescues about 1,000 survivors of army cargo ship Buyo Maru, sunk the previous day by submarine Wahoo.

1943 Japanese destroyer IJN Karukaya is damaged off Takao, Formosa, by marine casualty.

1943 Submarine I-27 is damaged by marine casualty off Penang, Malaya.

1943 U.S. freighter Cape Decision, steaming independently from Charleston, South Carolina to Freetown, Sierra Leone, is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-105 at 23°00'N, 46°40'W; all 45 merchant sailors, 26-man Armed Guard, and six passengers, survive the sinking.

1943 1st U.S. air attack on Germany (Wilhelmshafen)

1943 U.S. freighter Charles C. Pinckney, a straggler from convoy UGS 4, is torpedoed by German submarine U-514 about 200 miles southwest of the Azores, 36°37'N, 30°55'W. When U-514 surfaces nearby, Armed Guard gunners hold fire until well within range, at which point they open up and score hits on their assailant, driving her off for the time being.

1944 Submarine USS Swordfish, in attack on Japanese convoy about 130 miles south of Tokyo Bay, sinks gunboat Kasagi Maru, 33°31'N, 139°36'E.

1944 Submarine USS Thresher attacks Japanese convoy, sinking transport Kosei Maru and merchant cargo ship Kikuzuki Maru about 70 miles southwest of Formosa, 22°11'N, 119°12'E.

1944 German air opposition to landings at Anzio begins to increase; submarine chaser SC-534 is damaged by near- miss of bomb. Adverse weather conditions there cause damage to one large infantry landing craft (LCI[L]) and eleven tank landing craft (LCT).

1944 880 day German Siege of Leningrad lifted: 600,000 dead

1944 U.S. issues a report on "The Bataan Death March"

1945 1st Cav and 32nd Inf Divions, and 122nd Cav Regiment land on Luzon, Motor torpedo boat PT-338 is damaged by grounding off Semimara Island Luzon, 12°06'N, 121°23'E.

1945 Submarine USS Bergall sinks Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa.102 in Lombok Strait, 08°34'S, 115°50'E.

1945 Japanese merchant cargo ship Ryuzan Maru is sunk by USAAF mine off Hankow, China, 29°46'N, 116°52'E; cargo ship Hsin Yang Maru is sunk by USAAF mine (laid by 14th Air Force B-24 on 19 January ) off Kiukiang, China, 29°55'N, 115°20'E.

1945 Japanese transport Nagatsu Maru is damaged by mine off Chichi Jima.

1945 U.S. freighter Ruben Dario is torpedoed and damaged by German submarine, most likely U-852, off Saint George's Channel, 52°27'N, 05°21'W. There are no casualties among the 27-man Armed Guard.

1945 Russia liberates Auschwitz & Birkenau Concentration Camp (Poland)

1945 Nazi occupiers forbid food transport to West (The Netherlands)

1945 Commissioning of USS Higbee, first U.S. Navy ship named after women member of U.S. Navy.

1951 U.S. begins 126 nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site

1953 Netherlands ends Marshall aid

1965 1st ground station-to-aircraft radio communication via satellite

1967 Apollo 1: Fire in Command Module at Cape Kennedy during simulation countdown kills astronauts Grissom, White & Chaffee

1967 Treaty banning military use of nuclear weapons in space, signed

1969 14 spies hung in Baghdad

1969 9 Jews publically executed in Damascus Syria

1973 The Paris Peace Accords signed by William Rogers and Nguyen Duy Trinh, ending U.S. participation in the Vietnam War

1976 Morocco-Algeria battles in Westerly Sahara

1977 Pres Carter pardons most Vietnam War draft evaders (10,000)

1989 German war criminals Fischer and Aus der Funten freed

1996 France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island

[Cap. Teancum]

98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.

1606 - Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, and ending in their execution on January 31.

1695 - Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until 1703.

1862 - President Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, ordering all land and sea forces to advance on February 22, 1862. This bold move sent a message to his commanders that the president was tired of excuses and delays in seizing the offensive against Confederate forces.

The unusual order was the product of a number of factors. Lincoln had a new Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who replaced the hopelessly corrupt Simon Cameron. Lincoln was much more comfortable with Stanton. The president had also been brushing up on his readings in military strategy. Lincoln felt that if enough force were brought to bear on the Confederates simultaneously, the Confederates would break. This was a simple plan that ignored a host of other factors, but Lincoln felt that if the Confederates "...weakened one to strengthen another," the Union could step in and "seize and hold the one weakened." The primary reason for the order, however, was General George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the east. McClellan had a deep contempt for Lincoln that had become increasingly apparent since Lincoln appointed McClellan in July 1861. McClellan had shown great reluctance to reveal his plans to the president, and he exhibited no signs of moving his army in the near future.

Lincoln wanted to convey a sense of urgency to all the military leaders, and it worked in the West. Union armies in Tennessee began to move, and General Ulysses S. Grant captured Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, respectively. McClellan, however, did not respond. Lincoln's order called for strict accountability for each commander who did not follow the order, but the president had to handle McClellan carefully. Because McClellan had the backing of many Democrats and he had whipped the Army of the Potomac into fine fighting shape over the winter, Lincoln had to give McClellan a chance to command in the field.

1918 - Plagued by hunger and increasingly frustrated with the continuing Great War, hundreds of thousands of long-suffering German workers prepare for a massive strike in Berlin.

Although the year 1917 had brought a string of military triumphs to the Central Powers—Kaiser Wilhelm, on a visit to the Western Front in December, told his troops that the year’s events proved that God was on the side of the Germans—it had also seen hunger and discontent on the home front rise to unprecedented levels. There were a total of 561 strikes in 1917, up from 240 the year before and 137 in 1915. Real wages—or the ratio of wages to cost of living—were falling, with disastrous effects for industrial and white-collar workers alike.

War with Russia had cut Germany and Austria-Hungary off from a crucial supply of food and the Allied naval blockade in the North Sea, in effect since early in the war, had exacerbated the resulting shortages. At the beginning of 1918, the thorny negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk promised to delay a much-needed influx of food and resources even longer. Discontent flared first in Austria, where flour rations were cut in mid-January. Strikes began almost immediately in Vienna and by January 19 there was a general strike throughout the country.

Food shortages were even worse in Germany, where some 250,000 people had died from hunger in 1917. On January 28, 1918, 100,000 workers took to the streets of Berlin, demanding an end to the war on all fronts. Within a few days, the number was up to 400,000. The Berlin strikers enjoyed support in a string of other major cities, including Dusseldorf, Kiel, Cologne and Hamburg. By one estimate, more than 4 million took to the streets across Germany.

The reaction of the German government and the army—frightened by visions of Bolshevik-style revolution and worried the workers’ revolt would further delay the peace talks at Brest-Litovsk—was swift and decisive. On January 31, a state of siege was declared and the ringleaders of the strikes were arrested and court-martialed. One hundred and fifty were imprisoned, while 50,000 more were drafted into the army and sent to the front.

1941 - World War II: Fighting at Derna, Libya, begins. Following the capture of Tobruk, two brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursue the Italians westwards and encounters an Italian rear guard at Derna.

1967 - Specialist Four Donald W. Evans, a 23-year-old medic from Covina, California, was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for action on this day in the Kontum Province.

Evans' platoon had not yet been committed to the battle near the hamlet of Tri Tam when firing broke out in an adjacent unit. Without hesitation, Evans charged forward through 100 yards of open ground to reach six wounded soldiers. With total disregard for his own safety, he moved among the soldiers, treating the men and carrying two of the more seriously wounded back to his platoon. Grenade fragments hit Evans, but he ignored his wounds to rejoin his unit as it entered the battle. Twice more he carried the wounded out of the line of fire. He was running toward another man when he was killed by enemy fire. His devotion to duty and uncommon valor won him the nation's highest award for bravery.

1973 - The Paris Peace Accords are signed by officials from the United States and North Vietnam, bringing an official end to America's participation in its most unpopular foreign war. The accords did little, however, to solve the turmoil in Vietnam or to heal the terrible domestic divisions in the United States brought on by its involvement in this Cold War battleground.

Peace negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam had been ongoing since 1968. Richard Nixon was elected president that year, largely on the basis of his promise to find a way to "peace with honor" in Vietnam. Four years later, after the deaths of thousands more American servicemen, South Vietnamese soldiers, North Vietnamese soldiers, and Viet Cong fighters, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, and America's participation in the struggle in Vietnam came to a close.

On the military side, the accords seemed straightforward enough. A cease-fire was declared, and the United States promised to remove all military forces from South Vietnam within 60 days. For their part, the North Vietnamese promised to return all American prisoners of war within that same 60-day framework. The nearly 150,000 North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam were allowed to remain after the cease-fire.

The political side of the agreement was somewhat less clear. In essence, the accords called for the reunification of North and South Vietnam through "peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam." Precisely what this entailed was left unsaid. The United States also promised to "contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam [North Vietnam] and throughout Indochina."

Most Americans were relieved simply to be out of the Vietnam quagmire. The war against communism in Southeast Asia cost over 50,000 U.S. lives and billions of dollars, in addition to countless soldiers wounded in the line of duty. At home, the war seriously fractured the consensus about the Cold War that had been established in the period after World War II--simple appeals to fighting the red threat of communism would no longer be sufficient to move the American nation to commit its prestige, manpower, and money to foreign conflicts.

For Vietnam, the accords meant little. The cease-fire almost immediately collapsed, with recriminations and accusations flying from both sides. In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a massive military offensive, crushed the South Vietnamese forces, and reunified Vietnam under communist rule.

1991 - Muhammad Siyad Barre, the dictator of the Somali Democratic Republic since 1969, flees Mogadishu as rebels overrun his palace and capture the Somali capital.

In 1969, Somalian President Abd-i-rashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated, and a few days later Major General Barre seized power in a military coup. Barre's government developed strong ties with the USSR and other Soviet-bloc nations during the 1970s but in 1978 lost Soviet support when it invaded Ethiopia to regain pre-colonial Somali territory. The attack was repelled within a year, but protracted guerrilla warfare continued into the 1980s, bolstered by U.S. support for the Somalis. Several hundred thousand refugees fled to Somalia to escape the conflict, and by the late 1980s economic depression contributed to the outbreak of civil war in Somalia.

In early 1991, rebels ousted Barre after intense and bloody fighting, and Ali Mahdi Muhammad of the United Somali Congress took control of Mogadishu and the rest of southern Somalia. The Somali National Movement gained control of the north, the old British Somaliland, and proclaimed it the independent Somaliland Republic.

In 1992, civil war between the two Somalias, internal clan-based fighting, and the worst African drought of the century created devastating famine, which threatened one-fourth of the Somali population with starvation. In response, troops from the United States and other U.N. nations occupied Somalia in late 1992 to ensure distribution of food aid and to suppress Somalia's warring factions. Although many of the U.N.'s temporary humanitarian aims were achieved, the military operation was largely unsuccessful. In 1993, a national cease-fire was signed, but no central government was formed, and fighting erupted again in the same year.

[Admiral]

January 28
Born...
1457 Henry VII, first Tudor king of England (1485-1509)
1693 Tsarina Anna Ivanovna of Russia (1730-40) (Old Style, 2/7 New)
1717 Sultan Mustafa III of (Turkey
1768 King Frederick VI of Denmark (1808-39), lost Norway to Sweden (1814)
1815 Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1875
1825 George Edward Pickett, Maj Gen, C.S.A., d. 1875
1828 Thomas Carmichael Hindman, Maj Gen, C.S.A., d. 1868
1831 Henry Brevard Davidson, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1899
1833 Charles George Gordon of Khartoum, military hero, kia 1885
1841 Henry M. Stanley, CS & US veteran, journalist, explorer
Died...
814 Charlemagne
1256 William of Holland, Holy Roman Emperor, at about 28
1547 King Henry VIII of England (1509-47), at 55
1595 Sir Francis Drake, "English Sea Dog", of disease at about 50
1725 Tsar Peter the Great
1810 Andreas Hofer, Tyrolian resistance fighter, shot by the French
1986 Christa McAuliffe, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
1986 Ellison S Onizuka, USAF, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
1986 Francis R Scobee, USAF, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
1986 Judith Arlene Resnik, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
1986 Michael J Smith, USN, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
1986 Ronald E McNair, astronaut, in the Challenger disaster
Event...
1099 Crusaders begin siege of Hosn-el-Akrad, Syria
1393 Disastrous fire at a ball in Paris, four die, king loses his mind
1457 Henry Tudor, later Henry VII
1495 Pope gives his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France
1547 Edward VI (age 9) succeeds his father Henry VIII
1778 Second New Providence Expedition raised the flag with thirteen stripes over Fort Nassau.
1830 Auber's opera "Fra Diavolo" premiers in Paris
1846 British defeat Sikhs at Allwal, the Punjab
1860 Britain formally returns Mosquito Coast to Nicaragua
1864 Battle of New Bern, NC
1865 Pres Jefferson Davis names three peace commissioners
1871 Paris surrenders to the Prussians
1915 1st US ship lost in WW I, SS William P Frye, carrying wheat to Britain
1915 US Coast Guard created from the Life Saving and Revenue Cutter Services
1916 German colony of Cameroon surrenders to Britain & France
1918 Strike at Berlin ammunition's factory
1920 "Vive la Muerte!" -- Spanish Foreign Legion formed
1932 Japanese capture Shanghai
1940 U.S. freighter Sarcoxic is detained temporarily at Gibraltar for several hours by British authorities; freighter Waban, bound for Italy and Greece, is also held there briefly but is allowed to proceed after one item of cargo is seized as contraband and 34 detained for investigation.
1942 Third Conference of Foreign Ministers of the American Republics at Rio de Janeiro is concluded. Despite the efforts of Argentina and Chile, Pan-American unity is preserved; within days, all Latin American nations that had not already done so (except Argentina and Chile) sever ties with Germany, Italy, and Japan.
1942 Japanese land on Rossel Island off New Guinea.
1942 PBO (VP 82) on an antisubmarine sweep astern of convoy HX 172 attacks a surfaced submarine in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland at 43°50'N, 53°50'E. Although pilot (Aviation Machinist's Mate First Class Donald F. Mason) reports "sighted sub, sank same" no U-boat is lost on this date.
1942 German troops capture Benghazi, Libya
1942 Bataan: Japanese attack the new US/Philippine defesnes
1942 Malaya: British forces begin to withdraw towards Singapore
1943 New Guinea: Japanese attack Australian Kanga Force at Wau
1943 Guadalcanal: the CAM Div advances across the Nueha River.
1943 German submarines continue operations against stragglers from convoy UGS 4. U-514 resumes attack on freighter Charles C. Pinckney. The freighter is abandoned for a second time, after which time U-514's officers question the survivors. The U-boat then sinks Charles C. Pinckney with gunfire; a storm separates the four boatloads of survivors (see 8 February). U-442 torpedoes and sinks freighter Julia Ward Howe about 175 miles south of the Azores, 35°29'N, 29°10'W, 1 of the 29-man Armed Guard is lost with the ship.
1943 Portuguese destroyer Lima rescues 48 survivors from sunken U.S. freighter City of Flint.
1944 Submarine Bowfin (SS-287) damages Japanese oiler Kamoi off Makassar, N.E.I., 03°25'S, 118°15'E.
1944 USAAF B-24 (13th Air Force) and USN PBYs sink Japanese transport Neikai Maru south of Kavieng, 03°45'S, 150°38'E; midget submarine Ha.49, carried on board Neikai Maru, is lost as well.
1944 PB4Y-1 (VB 103) sinks German submarine U-271 off Limerick, Eire, 53°15'N, 15°52'W.
1944 Off Anzio, motor torpedo boat PT-201--that has Lieutenant General Mark Clark, Commanding General of the U.S. Fifth Army, on board--is damaged by friendly fire from minesweeper Sway (AM-120); submarine chaser SC-534 is damaged by near-miss of bomb.
1944 U.S. TF 58 arrives within striking distance of the Marshall Islands.
1945 Submarine Spadefish (SS-411) attacks Japanese convoy in the southern Yellow Sea and sinks escort vessel Kume, 33°50'N, 122°55'E and transport (ex-seaplane carrier) Sanuki Maru, 34°02'N, 123°00'E.
1952 Ens. Donald Mason radio's, "Sighted sub, sank same."
1960 US Navy demonstrates value of moon communication relay, used in fleet broadcasts.
1962 USS Cook (APD-130) rescues 25 survivors from after section of Panamanian tanker, SS Stanvac Sumatra, which broke in two in the South China Sea
1964 Sgt. J.A.L. Lessard, of the Royal 22nd Regiment ("Van Doos"), wins the George Medal for bravery during a second day of rescue operations in the Congo. Lessard and other United Nations troops are bringing missionaries to safety from angry mobs. Sgt. Lessard jumps from his helicopter to carry two nuns aboard; at the same time he has to fend off attacks by several Congalese, holding the assailants off until the helicopter leaves the ground.
1981 William J Casey begins six years as director of the CIA
1986 Space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after launch

[Cap. Teancum]

1777 - John Burgoyne, poet, playwright and British general, submits an ill-fated plan to the British government to isolate New England from the other colonies on this day in 1777.

Burgoyne’s plan revolved around an invasion of 8,000 British troops from Canada, who would move southward through New York by way of Lake Champlain and the Mohawk River, taking the Americans by surprise. General Burgoyne believed he and his troops could then take control of the Hudson River and isolate New England from the other colonies, freeing British General William Howe to attack Philadelphia.

General Burgoyne’s plan went into effect during the summer of 1777 and was initially a success—the British captured Fort Ticonderoga on June 2, 1777. However, the early success failed to lead to victory, as Burgoyne overextended his supply chain, which stretched in a long, narrow strip from the northern tip of Lake Champlain south to the northern curve of the Hudson River at Fort Edward, New York. As Burgoyne’s army marched south, Patriot militia circled north, cutting the British supply line.

Burgoyne then suffered defeat in Bennington, Vermont, and bloody draws at Bemis Heights, New York. On October 17, 1777, a frustrated Burgoyne retreated 10 miles and surrendered his remaining 6,000 British forces to the Patriots at Saratoga. Upon hearing of the Patriot victory, France agreed to recognize the independence of the United States. It was, of course, France’s eventual support that enabled the Patriots’ ultimate victory.

The defeat at Saratoga led to General Burgoyne’s downfall. He returned to England, where he faced severe criticism and soon retired from active service.

1917 - American forces are recalled from Mexico after nearly 11 months of fruitless searching for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who was accused of leading a bloody raid against Columbus, New Mexico.

In 1914, following the resignation of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa and his former revolutionary ally Venustiano Carranza battled each other in a struggle for succession. By the end of 1915, Villa had been driven north into the mountains, and the U.S. government recognized General Carranza as the president of Mexico.

In January 1916, to protest President Woodrow Wilson's support for Carranza, Villa executed 16 U.S. citizens at Santa Isabel in northern Mexico. Then, on March 9, 1916, Villa led a band of several hundred guerrillas across the border and raided the town of Columbus, killing 17 Americans. U.S. troops pursued the Mexicans, killing 50 on U.S. soil and 70 more in Mexico.

On March 15, under orders from President Wilson, U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa dead or alive. For the next 11 months, Pershing, like Carranza, failed to capture the elusive revolutionary and Mexican resentment over the U.S. intrusion into their territory led to a diplomatic crisis. On June 21, the crisis escalated into violence when Mexican government troops attacked Pershing's forces at Carrizal, Mexico, leaving 17 Americans killed or wounded, and 38 Mexicans dead. In late January 1917, having failed in their mission to capture Villa and under pressure from the Mexican government, the Americans were ordered home.

Villa continued his guerrilla activities in northern Mexico until Adolfo de la Huerta took power over the government and drafted a reformist constitution. Villa entered into an amicable agreement with Huerta and agreed to retire from politics. In 1920, the government pardoned Villa, but three years later he was assassinated at Parral.

1945 - On this day, part of the 717-mile "Burma Road" from Lashio, Burma to Kunming in southwest China is reopened by the Allies, permitting supplies to flow back into China.

At the outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937, when Japan began its occupation of China's seacoast, China began building a supply route that would enable vital resources to evade the Japanese blockade and flow into China's interior from outside. It was completed in 1939, and allowed goods to reach China via a supply route that led from the sea to Rangoon, and then by train to Lashio. When, in April 1942, the Japanese occupied most of Burma, the road from Lashio to China was closed, and the supply line was cut off.

The Allies were not able to respond until 1944, when Allied forces in eastern India made their way into northern Burma and were able to begin construction of another supply road that linked Ledo, India, with the part of the original Burma Road still controlled by the Chinese. The Stillwell Road (named for Gen. Joseph Stillwell, American adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, China's leader) was finally opened on this day in 1945, once again allowing the free transport of supplies into China.

1964 - The U.S. State Department angrily accuses the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were killed in the incident. The Soviets responded with charges that the flight was a "gross provocation," and the incident was an ugly reminder of the heightened East-West tensions of the Cold War era.

According to the U.S. military, the jet was on a training flight over West Germany and pilots became disoriented by a violent storm that led the plane to veer nearly 100 miles off course. The Soviet attack on the plane provoked angry protests from the Department of State and various congressional leaders, including Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, who charged that the Soviets had intentionally downed the plane "to gain the offensive" in the aggressive Cold War maneuvering.

For their part, the Soviets refused to accept U.S. protests and responded that they had "all grounds to believe that this was not an error or mistake...It was a clear intrusion." Soviet officials also claimed that the plane was ordered to land but refused the instructions. Shortly after the incident, U.S. officials were allowed to travel to East Germany to recover the bodies and the wreckage.

Like numerous other similar Cold War incidents--including the arrest of suspected "spies" and the seizure of ships--this event resulted in heated verbal exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union, but little else. Both nations had bigger issues to contend with: the United States was engaged in the Vietnam War, and the Soviet Union was dealing with a widening split with communist China. The deaths were, however, another reminder that the heated suspicion, heightened tension, and loaded rhetoric of the Cold War did have the potential to erupt into meaningless death and destruction.

1973 - A cease-fire goes into effect at 8 a.m., Saigon time (midnight on January 27, Greenwich Mean Time).

When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam's territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped via last-minute deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive U.S. aid after the cease-fire. The CIA estimated North Vietnamese presence in the South at 145,000 men, about the same as the previous year. The cease-fire began on time, but both sides violated it. South Vietnamese forces continued to take back villages occupied by communists in the two days before the cease-fire deadline and the communists tried to capture additional territory.

Each side held that military operations were justified by the other side's violations of the cease-fire. What resulted was an almost endless chain of retaliations. During the period between the initiation of the cease-fire and the end of 1973, there were an average of 2,980 combat incidents per month in South Vietnam. Most of these were low-intensity harassing attacks designed to wear down the South Vietnamese forces, but the North Vietnamese intensified their efforts in the Central Highlands in September when they attacked government positions with tanks west of Pleiku. As a result of these post-cease-fire actions, about 25,000 South Vietnamese were killed in battle in 1973, while communist losses in South Vietnam were estimated at 45,000.

1975 - President Gerald Ford asks Congress for an additional $522 million in military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia. He revealed that North Vietnam now had 289,000 troops in South Vietnam, and tanks, heavy artillery, and antiaircraft weapons "by the hundreds." Ford succeeded Richard Nixon when he resigned the presidency in August 1974. Despite his wishes to honor Nixon's promise to come to the aid of South Vietnam, he was faced with a hostile Congress who refused to appropriate military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia; both countries fell to the communists later in the year.

[Admiral]

January 29

Born...
1584 Frederik Hendrik, Count of Nassau/Prince of Orange
1717 Jeffrey Amherst, English Governor-General of America/Fieldmarshal
1737 Thomas Paine, political essayist, Common Sense, Age of Reason, Patriot
1756 Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, Rep/Gov-Va, /General
1803 James Outram, Bulterley Hall Derbyshire, General
1821 Isaac Ferdinand Quinby, Brig General Union volunteers, d. 1891
1823 Franklin Gardner, Major General, Confederate Army
1836 James Meech Warner, Brig General Union volunteers, d. 1897
1836 Benjamin Franklin Potts, Bvt Mjr Gen Union volunteers, d. 1887
1843 William McKinley, US President, 1897-1901
1911 George Burns, British Major-General
1915 Halfdan Rasmussen, Danish poet/WWII resistance fighter, Skoven
1939 O P Kolomitsev, Cosmonaut
1942 Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez, Cosmonaut, Soyuz 38. 1st Cuban in space.
Died...
969 Peter, Tsar of Bulgaria (927-69),
1696 Ivan V, co-Tsar of Russia (1682-89)
1820 George III, King of Great-Britain (1760-1820), at 81
1906 Christaan IX, King of Denmark (1893-1906)
1928 Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig/Fieldmarshal (WW I), at 66
1941 Ioannis Metaxas, Greek General/dictator (1936-41), commits suicide at 69
1970 Basil H Liddell Hart, English military historian, at 74
2002 Daniel Pearl, journalist, Wall Street Journal bureau chief kidnapped and murdered by Muslim terrorists, at 38
Events...
1574 Sea battle of Reimerswaal - Admiral Boisot defeats the Spanish fleet
1587 Deventer and Zutphen surrender to Spain
1676 Fjodor Aleksejevitsj becomes Czar of Russia
1856 Victoria Cross established to acknowledge bravery
1863 Battle at Bear River, Washington: U.S. Army vs Indians
1864 Battle of Moorefield, WV (Rosser's Raid)
1879 Custer Battlefield National Monument, Montana established
1895 King Koko's Kopermannen assault on Akassa Niger, 100's killed
1900 Boers under Joubert beat English at Spionkop Natal, 2,000 killed
1914 U.S. Marines land in Haiti to protect U.S. consulate
1916 1st bombings of Paris by German Zeppelins takes place
1917 English submarine K13 leaves Gaire Loch
1923 1st flight of autogiro (Juan de la Cierva, Madrid Spain)
1933 German president von Hindenburg appoints Hitler Chancellor
1940 Action in the Atlantic
*British Admiralty orders that no American ships should, under any circumstances, be diverted into the war zone delineated by President Roosevelt in the provisions of the Neutrality Act.
*Light cruiser USS Helena steams from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Montevideo, Uruguay, on her shakedown cruise.
*U.S. freighter Exochorda is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities
1941 U.S.-British-Canadian staff conversations begin in Washington to determine joint strategy in case of U.S. involvement in the war.
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*Japanese land at Badoeng Island and Mampawan, Celebes.
*Minesweeper USS Quail bombards Japanese troop concentrations at Longoskawayan Point, Luzon.
*Oiler USS Ramapo arrives at Bora Bora, Society Islands, to support survey operations being carried out by USS Sumner, which had arrived at that place on 22 January
1942 Action in the Indian Ocean:
*U.S. freighter Florence Luckenbach is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-64 about 15 miles east of Madras, India, 12°55'N, 80°33'E; there are no casualties among the 38-man crew and all hands reach Madras by lifeboat.
1942 Action in the Atlantic:
*Coast Guard cutter USCG Alexander Hamilton is torpedoed by German submarine U-132 off Reykjavik, Iceland, 64°10'N, 22°56'W.
*PBYs (VP 52) operating out of Natal, Brazil, are fired upon by British freighter Debrett owing to difficulty of mutual identification.
1942 German and Italian troops occupy Banghazi
1943 Action in the Pacific:
*Battle of Rennell Island begins as Japanese land attack planes (701st and 705th Kokutai) attack TF 18, cruisers and destroyers covering the movement of transport force (TG 62.8) toward Guadalcanal. Japanese 701st Kokutai land attack planes damage heavy cruiser USS Chicago; in the retirement from the area, heavy cruiser USS Louisville, in an extremely masterful piece of seamanship, takes her damaged sistership in tow in total darkness.
*New Zealand corvettes HMNZS Kiwi and HMNZS Moa sink Japanese submarine I-1 off Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal, 09°13'S, 159°40'E.
*Submarine USS Gato sinks Japanese army cargo ship Nichiun Maru off southeast tip of Bougainville, Solomons, 06°22'S, 156°04'E, despite proximity of escorting submarine chaser Ch 22.
1943 Action in the Atlantic:
*Portuguese destroyer Lima recovers survivors from U.S. freighter Julia Ward Howe, sunk by German submarine U-442 about 350 miles southwest of the Azores.
1944 Action in the Pacific:
*Aircraft from fast carrier force TF 58 begin series of strikes to destroy Japanese air power and shipping in the Marshalls. Aircraft from TG 58.1 sink Japanese auxiliary netlayer Uji Maru. Attacks continue daily until 6 February.
*Submarine USS Bowfin lays mines off southeastern coast of Borneo. *Submarine USS Tambor attacks Japanese convoy in the Nansei Shoto, sinking merchant cargo ship Shuntai Maru north of Okinawa, 27°51'N, 128°24'E.
*During Japanese bombing raid on U.S. shipping off Cape Cretin, New Guinea, freighter George Sterling is damaged by near-miss, 06°41'S, 147°52'E. There are no fatalities among complement (including the 26-man Armed Guard).
1944 285 German bombers attack London
1944 Action in the Mediterranean:
*German planes bomb U.S. shipping off the invasion beaches at Anzio and Nettuno; off the former place, rescue tug ATR-1 is damaged by near-miss of bomb, 41°27'N, 12°40'E. freighter Alexander Martin is damaged by strafing but there are no fatalities among the ship's complement (including the 24-man Armed Guard). Off Nettuno, freighter Samuel Huntington is sunk by bombs; three merchant sailors die in the explosions, one will die of his wounds later. Her survivors are rescued by tank landing craft LCT-277. There are no casualties among the 39-man Armed Guard; the ship will later be written off as a total loss. LCT-198 rescues survivors from British light AA cruiser HMS Spartan [along with HMS Dido and HMS Delhi, among others.]
1945 Action in the Pacific:
*Motor torpedo boat PT-338 is damaged by grounding off Semimara Island Luzon, 12°06'N, 121°23'E.
*Submarine USS Bergall sinks Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa.102 in Lombok Strait, 08°34'S, 115°50'E.
*Japanese merchant cargo ship Ryuzan Maru is sunk by USAAF mine off Hankow, China, 29°46'N, 116°52'E; cargo ship Hsin Yang Maru is sunk by USAAF mine (laid by 14th Air Force B-24 on 19 January ) off Kiukiang, China, 29°55'N, 115°20'E.
*Japanese transport Nagatsu Maru is damaged by mine off Chichi Jima.
1945 Action in the Atlantic:
*U.S. freighter Ruben Dario is torpedoed and damaged by German submarine, most likely U-852, off Saint George's Channel, 52°27'N, 05°21'W. There are no casualties among the 27-man Armed Guard.
1945 Action in Europe"
*Canadian troops succeed in dislodging German paratroopers from their bridgehead at Kapelsche Veer (south-east of Rotterdam).
1949 Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand & Switzerland recognize Israel
1964 Unmanned Apollo 1 Saturn launcher test attains Earth orbit
1969 Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend wage a battle of guitars
1970 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
1973 After 26 hours aboard a Canadian Forces 707 jet, the first contingent of Canadian peacekeepers arrives in Saigon to begin monitoring the ceasefire reached in Paris between North and South Vietnam.
1980 6 Iranian held U.S. hostages escape with help of Canadians
1989 U.S.S.R.'s Phobos II enters Martian orbit
1991 Battle for Khafji in Saudi Arabia (begins)
1998 Soyuz TM-27 launches to MIR
2006I want to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate our good friend Cap. Teancum as he takes the helm as the new CO of the former Age of Muskets, now expanded & standing on its own as the Napoleonic Era. Best of luck & good wishes, my friend!

Admiral

[Cap. Teancum]

Thanks for the support Admiral.

1777 - Facing a surprise British counterassault in the bitter cold and with a snowstorm approaching, American commander Major General William Heath and his army of 6,000 abandon their siege on Fort Independence, in Bronx County, New York, on this day in 1777.

Acting on orders from General George Washington, General Heath and his men had begun their assault on Fort Independence 11 days earlier on January 18, 1777. General Washington, who was under British attack in nearby New Jersey, believed that a successful assault on Fort Independence would force the British to divert troops from New Jersey to defend the outpost, located just outside British-controlled Manhattan between the Post Roads to Boston and Albany.

On January 25, a torrential rainstorm overflowed the Bronx River and muddied the battlefield, making troop movement nearly impossible for the Patriots. A British counterassault and the pending snowstorm forced General Heath to admit defeat, and he ordered his troops to retreat on January 29, 1777.

Fort Independence was first built by the Patriots in 1776 and then burned by them as they retreated from New York City. The British partially rebuilt the fort when they took control later in the year. The fort endured the Patriots’ attack in 1777, but was destroyed again as the British left in 1779 . The city park that now exists on the site memorializes the fort on its front gates, as well as in its name.

Also on this day in 1777, Washington placed Major General Israel Putnam in command of all Patriot troops in New York, charging them with defense of the city and its water routes.

1891 - Following the death of her brother, King Kalakaua, Liliuokalani becomes the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.

Hawaii, first settled by Polynesian voyagers sometime in the eighth century, saw a massive influx of American settlers during the 19th century, most coming to exploit Hawaii's burgeoning sugar industry. In 1887, under pressure from U.S. investors and American sugar planters, King Kalakaua agreed to a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power. However, in 1891, Liliuokalani ascended to the throne and refused to recognize the constitution of 1887, replacing it instead with a constitution that restored the monarchy's traditional authority.

Two years later, a revolutionary "Committee of Safety," organized by Sanford B. Dole, a Hawaiian-born American, staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the support of U.S. Minister John Stevens and a division of U.S. Marines. Stevens recognized Dole's new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did not want annexation. President Grover Cleveland sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii, which was organized into a U.S. territory in 1900.

Liliuokalani herself spent much of the remainder of her life in the United States, where she unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for compensation for seized property and other losses. The territorial legislature of Hawaii finally voted her an annual pension of $4,000 and permitted her to receive the income from a small sugar plantation. In additional to her political fame, Liliuokalani is also known for composing many Hawaiian songs, including the popular "Aloha Oe," which translates to "Farewell to Thee."

1915 - On January 29, 1915, in the Argonne region of France, German lieutenant Erwin Rommel leads his company in the daring capture of four French block-houses, the structures used on the front to house artillery positions.

Rommel crept through the French wire first and then called for the rest of his company to follow him. When they hung back after he had repeatedly shouted his orders, Rommel crawled back, threatening to shoot the commander of his lead platoon if the other men did not follow him. The company finally advanced, capturing the block-houses and successfully combating an initial French counter-attack before they were surrounded, subjected to heavy fire and forced to withdraw.

Rommel was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, for his bravery in the Argonne; he was the first officer of his regiment to be so honored. “Where Rommel is, there is the front,” became a popular slogan within his regiment. The bravery and ingenuity he displayed throughout the Great War, even in light of the eventual German defeat, led to Rommel’s promotion through the ranks of the army in the post-war years.

In May 1940, Erwin Rommel was at the head of the 7th Panzer Division that invaded France with devastating success at the beginning of the Second World War. Promoted to general and later to field marshal, he was sent to North Africa at the head of the German forces sent to aid Hitler’s ally, Benito Mussolini. Known as the “Desert Fox,” Rommel engineered impressive victories against Britain in Libya and Egypt before his troops were decisively defeated at El Alamein in Egypt in 1943 and forced to retreat from the region.

Back in France to see the success of the Allied invasion in June and July 1944, Rommel warned Hitler that the end of the war was near. “The unequal struggle is nearing its end,” Rommel sent in a teletype message on July 15. “I must ask you immediately to draw the necessary conclusions from this situation.”

Suspected by Hitler of conspiring against him in the so-called July Plot, Rommel was presented with an ultimatum: suicide, with a state funeral and protection for his family, or trial for high treason. Rommel chose the former, taking poison pills on October 14, 1944. He was buried with full military honors.

1942 - On this day, Britain and the USSR secure an agreement with Iran that offers the Iran protection while creating a "Persian corridor" for the Allies-a supply route from the West to Russia.

Early in the war, Iran collaborated with Germany by exporting grain to the Axis power in exchange for technicians. But the Allies viewed Iran as a valuable source of oil and conveniently situated as a route for shipping Western war material east to the USSR. On August 25, 1941, both Allied powers invaded Iran (which Prime Minister Winston Churchill preferred to call "Persia," so there would be no confusion between "Iran" and "Iraq"), the Soviets from the north and the Brits from the south. In four days, the Allies effectively controlled Iran.

On September 16, the ruling shah abdicated, and his 23-year-old son, Muhammad, assumed power and pushed through the Iranian parliament the Treaty of Alliance, which allowed the Allies freedom to move supplies through the country and gave them whatever else they needed from Iran to win the war. The new shah also vowed "not to adopt in his relations with foreign countries an attitude which is inconsistent with the alliance."

In exchange, Iran was promised wartime protection from Axis invasion-and a guarantee that the Allies would leave Iranian soil within six months of the close of the war.

The alliance started off shakily: the Soviets bought up most of Iran's grain harvest, which caused a bread shortage and riots in the streets. Allied troops put the rebellion down, and the United States shipped in grain to compensate for the losses. The Soviet Union then attempted to agitate for the overthrow of the shah by supporting the Tudeh (Farsi for "masses") party, which the Soviets believed would be more generous in oil concessions. Tudeh forces did manage temporarily to take over northern Iran in December 1944.

When the war ended, the Allies began leaving Iran as promised-except for the USSR. Complaints were made to the United Nations, and pressure was applied by the United States and Great Britain, as this was a violation of one of the terms of the Treaty of Alliance. The Soviets finally began pulling out of Iran in April 1946, but as they withdrew, they continued to foster more bloody rebellions between the shah's government and the Tudeh; the Tudeh were decisively defeated in December 1946 when the shah declared martial law.

[Admiral]

January 30

Born...

1797 Edwin Vose Sumner, Maj Gen, U.S., d. 1863
1816 Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, Maj Gen, U.S., d. 1894
1822 John Basil Turchin, [Ivan Turchinoff], Brig Gen, U.S.
1829 Alfred Cummings, Brig Gen, C.S.A., ied in 1910
1835 Oliver Edwards, Bvt Major General Union volunteers, d. 1904
1841 Alfred Townsend George, Civil War journalist, d. 1914
1844 Moritz F Freiherr von Bissing German General/Governor-General of Belgium (1914-17)
1865 Samuel Pl'h Naber, Dutch Rear-Admiral/librarian
1882 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, asst. SecNav, Commander in Chief, 1933-1945
1885 John Henry Towers, aviator/naval hero
1894 Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria (1918-43)
1912 Barbara Tuchman, historian (The Guns of August)
1941 Richard "Dick" Cheney, US Congressman/Secretary of Defense/Vice President

Died...

1393 Aimery Poitiers, French nobleman, accidentally burned to death
1393 Yvain, son of the Count of Foix, accidentally burned to death
1649 King Charles I of England (1625-49), condemned by Parliament & beheaded for treason.
1730 Tsar Peter II Alekseyevitch of Russia (1727-30)
1838 Osceola, Chief of Seminole, in jail
1889 Archduke Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, suicide at Mayerling
1889 Baroness Maria Vetsera, killed by Rudolf, at Mayerling, at 17
1928 Douglas Haig, British Fieldmarshal (Sudan/Boer war/WW I), at 66
1948 Orville Wright, US aviation pioneer
1948 Mahatma Ghandi, assasinated by Hindu extremists in India
1951 Ferdinand Porsche, German tank designer, at 75
1958 Earnest H Heinkel, German aircraft designer, at 70
1969 Allan W Dulles, CIA director/diplomat, at 75

Events...

435 Rome recognized the Vandal territories in Northwest Africa as "federati," in an effort to stave off their invasion of Italy. (The invasion was successfully postponed for 20 years.)
1349 Günther of Schwarzburg chosen German anti-King, Jews of Freilsburg, Germany, are massacred
1467 Battle at Velke Kostolany: Hungariaan King Mátyás Corvinus beats Bratríci
1522 Duke of Albany takes captured French back to Scotland
1647 Scots sell King Charles I to the English Parliament for £400
1648 Peace of Münster: Spain and Netherlands sign peace treaty ending Tachtigjarige War
1667 Treaty of Andrussovo: Russia and Poland sign peace treaty
1697 Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville leads 90 men (in five boats) in an unsuccessful attack against the fortified English fishing village on Carbonear Island in Newfoundland.
1713 England and Netherlands sign 2nd anti-French boundary treaty
1781 Articles of Confederatin go into effect
1804 Recruiting officers from the New Brunswick regiment report an unfriendly reception from the Quebec and Montreal military authorities.
1806 Prussia takes possession of Hanover
1815 Library of Congress re-established. With Thomas Jefferson's 6500 volumns, the Library destroyed by the British during their occupation was reborn.
1835 Richard Lawrence attempts assasination of US President Andrew Jackson. His weapon misfires.
1853 Emperor Napoleon III marries Eugenie Maria de Montijo y de Guzman
1862 USS Monitor is launched in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The world would soon change in swift regard to John Ericssons little design as the great ironclad battle between USS Monitor & CSS Virginia came to pass & show the world a new face of naval warfare.
1892 US Captain Lugard occupies Uganda's King Mwanga's hide out
1894 U.S. flag fired on in Rio; prompt satisfaction exacted by Admiral Benham
1915 German submarine attack on Le Havre
1925 Turkish government throws out Constantine VI of Constantinople
1933 German President von Hindenburg appoints Hitler Chancellor, Hitler forms government with Von Papen
1934 Hitler proclamation on German unified states
1935 Ezra Pound meets Mussolini, reads from a draft of the "Cantos"
1937 2nd of Stalin's purge trials: Pyatakov and 16 others sentenced to death
1939 Hitler calls for the extermination of European Jews
1940 U.S. freighters Examelia (detained at Gibraltar since 20 January) and Cold Harbor (detained there since 27 January) are released by British authorities.
1941 Germany announces that ships of any nationality bringing aid to Great Britain will be torpedoed.
1941 Australian troops conquer Derna, Libya
1942 Burma: Japanese undertake a surprise attack on Moulmein
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*Bataan: US/Phil troops begin clearing Japanese pockets along the coast.
*Japanese naval land attack planes (Genzan Kokutai) bomb Allied shipping at Keppel Harbor, Singapore, Straits Settlements; transport Wakefield, waiting to embark passengers, is damaged by a bomb, as are British transports (ex-passenger liners) Duchess of Bedford and Empress of Japan and freighter Madura. Transport West Point is straddled and showered with fragments, but suffers no damage. She provides medical assistance to Wakefield. Both U.S. transports subsequently embark passengers that include dockyard workers from Singapore and their families, in addition to Royal Navy officers and enlisted men and a small RAF contingent. The ships will then proceed to Batavia, Java, N.E.I., and thence on to Colombo, Ceylon.
*Netherlands East Indies: Japanese attack Amboina.
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*Coast Guard cutter USCG Alexander Hamilton, torpedoed by German submarine U-132 the previous day, is scuttled by gunfire of destroyer USS Ericsson off Reykjavik, Iceland.
*Unarmed U.S. tanker Rochester is torpedoed, shelled, and sunk by German submarine U-106 off the Chesapeake Lightship, 37°10'N, 73°58'W; three crewmen perish in the initial torpedo explosion. Destroyer USS Roe rescues the 29 survivors.
1943 British daylight raid on Berlin by 6 Mosquito bombers
1943 Hitler's promotions:
*Friedrich von Paulus to General-Fieldmarshal
*Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz succeeds Grossadmiral Erich Raeder as Commander in Chief of the German Navy.
1943 German assault on French in Tunisia,
1943 German under officers shot down in Haarlem Netherlands
1943 Action in the Pacific:
*New Guinea: Australian Kanga Force defeats Japanese at Wau
*Battle of Rennell Island ends as F4Fs (VF 10) engage Japanese land attack planes (751st Kokutai) attacking the retiring TF 18. Japanese land attack planes torpedo and sink crippled heavy cruiser USS Chicago, now under tow of tug Navajo, and torpedo destroyer USS LaVallette. Consequently, USS Chicago sinks 30 miles east of Rennell Island, 11°26'S, 160°56'E. US Marines participated in the Battle for Rennell Island itself.
*Japanese submarine I-10 torpedoes and sinks U.S. freighter Samuel Gompers 115 miles from Amadee Lighthouse, New Caledonia, 24°28'S, 166°20'E; one of the 17-man Armed Guard dies, and three of the 43-man merchant complement perish in the sinking. French fishermen and U.S. Army crash boat P 111 rescue the survivors.
*Naval Station, Akutan Harbor, Fox Island, Alaska, is established.
*Guadalcanal: U.S. lands reinforcements and supplies
*Floating dry dock YFD-220 founders and sinks in heavy weather off California coast.
1944 Burma: Chinese forces oust Japanese from Taro Plain.
1944 Action in the Pacific:
*U.S. invades Majuro, Marshall Islands
*PB2Ys (VP 13, VP 102) from Midway Island carry out nocturnal bombing raid on Wake Island to neutralize Japanese airfield installations there that could threaten the imminent Marshalls operations. Motor torpedo boats Gyoraitei No.5 and Gyoraitei No.6 are sunk during the raid. The strike marks the first time that Coronados are used as bombers, and strikes are repeated on the nights of 4, 8, and 9 February.
*During preinvasion bombardment of Wotje, Marshalls, destroyer USS Anderson is damaged by shore battery, 09°33'N, 170°18'E.
*U.S. invades Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands.
*SBDs and F6Fs from TG 52.8, comprising carriers USS Enterprise, USS Yorktown and USS Bunker Hill and small carrier USS Belleau Wood sink Japanese auxiliary submarine chasers Cha 18 and Cha 21 at Kwajalein Atoll, Marshalls; auxiliary submarine chasers Cha 14, Cha 19, and Cha 28 at Mili; and damage cargo vessel Katsura Maru at Eniwetok. Destroyer USS Phelps subsequently finishes off the crippled enemy merchantman.
*Battleships USS Washington, USS Indiana and USS Massachusetts and destroyers USS Ingersoll, USS Knapp, USS Caperton, and USS Cogswell bombard Japanese installations at Kwajalein. Battleship USS North Carolina sinks transport Eiko Maru off west coast of Roi, 09°10'N, 167°20'E.
*Destroyer USS Burns sinks Japanese transport Akibasan Maru and guardboat Nichiei Maru off Ujae Atoll, Marshalls.
*Navy SBDs and TBFs, supported by Allied fighters, bomb Japanese shipping at Rabaul, sinking water supply ship Iwata Maru and damaging auxiliary vessel Juzan Maru, 04°12'S, 152°12'E.
*TG 31.8 (four destroyers, three high speed transports, and two motor torpedo boats) lands 30th New Zealand Battalion and U.S. Navy personnel on the Green Islands, north of Bougainville, to locate areas suitable for airstrips and landing beaches. The reconnoitering force is recovered the next day.
*Submarine USS Seahorse attacks Japanese convoy on the Palau-Rabaul track, sinking army cargo ship Toko Maru southeast of Palau, 06°10'N, 138°14'E.
*Submarine USS Spearfish attacks Japanese convoy, sinking transport Tamashima Maru about 400 miles north- northeast of Saipan, 21°15'N, 149°18'E.
1945 Transport Wilhelm Gustloff sunk off Danzig by Soviet sub, c 7,700 die
1945 Action in the Pacific:
*Submarine HMS Tantalus sinks Japanese fishing boat No.12 Taisei Maru in northern approaches to Bangka Strait, 01°26'S, 105°01'E.
*TG 78.3 lands army troops (38th Infantry) on Grande Island Subic Bay, in Operation MIKE SEVEN; they encounter no enemy opposition. Light cruiser USS Denver and destroyers USS Fletcher and USS Radford provide gunfire support. TG 77.4, consisting of six escort carriers and their screen, provide direct air cover. Attack transport USS Cavalier is torpedoed by Japanese submarine RO 46 off Subic Bay, 14°48'N, 119°18'E.
*Destroyer USS Burns sinks Japanese guardboat No.2 Hokoku Maru off Ojae, 08°42'N, 167°44'E.
*Submarine USS Bergall damages Japanese storeship Arasaki, 08°26'S, 115°40'E.
*Submarine USS Threadfin sinks Japanese merchant cargo ship I ssei Maru off southern Honshu, 33°30'N, 135°34'E, but although damaged by depth charges from escorts, 33°20'N, 135°30'E, remains on patrol.
1957 Congress accepts "Eisenhower Doctrine"
1960 CIA approves Lockheed to produce a new U-2 aircraft. (Oxcart)
1961 John F. Kennedy asks for an Alliance for Progress and Peace Corp
1962 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1964 Ranger 6 launched; makes perfect flight to Moon, but cameras fail
1964 Military coup by Gen Nguyen Khanh in South-Vietnam
1965 State funeral of Sir Winston Churchill
1968 The Tet Offensive: Vietcong launch offensive on U.S. embassy in Saigon & various locations in S Vietnam.
1969 U.S. / Canada ISIS 1 launched to study ionosphere
1972 Pakistan withdraws from the British Commonwealth
1972 "Bloody Sunday": British troops fire on Catholics in Londonderry. 13 die.
1974 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
1976 George HW Bush becomes CIA director. William E. Colby, ends term as its 10th director.
1991 Battle for Khafji in Saudi Arabia (2nd day)
1997 Minuteman III launches

[Cap. Teancum]

1971 - Operation Dewey Canyon II begins as the initial phase of Lam Son 719, the South Vietnamese invasion of Laos that would commence on February 8. The purpose of the South Vietnamese operation was to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail, advance to Tchepone in Laos, and destroy the North Vietnamese supply dumps in the area.

In Dewey Canyon II, the vanguard of the U.S. 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division began moving from Vandegrift Combat Base along highway Route 9 toward Khe Sanh with an armored cavalry/engineer task force. These units were to clear the way for the move of 20,000 South Vietnamese troops along the highway to reoccupy 1,000 square miles of territory in northwest South Vietnam and to mass at the Laotian border in preparation for Lam Son 719.

U.S. ground forces were not to enter Laos, in accordance with a U.S. congressional ban. Instead they gave logistical support, with some 2,600 helicopters on call to airlift Saigon troops and supplies. In addition, U.S. artillerymen provided long-range artillery fires into Laos from American firebases just inside the South Vietnamese border.

[Admiral]

January 31

Born...
1620 Georg von Waldeck, German General/CIC
1734 Robert Morris, Signer
1810 Daniel Ruggles, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1897
1812 John Randolph Tucker, Capt, Confederate Navy, d. 1883
1818 William Raine Peck, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1871
1904 Leon N H Jungschlager, head of military intelligence, Neth-Indies
1923 Norman Mailer, U.S. Army, Luzon, 1945, novelist ("The Naked & the Dead")
1938 Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, Queen of Netherlands, 1980-

Died...
1606 Guy Fawkes, convicted in the "Gunpowder Plot," executed
1788 "Bonnie Prince Charlie," Charles E Stuart, the "Young Pretender"
1828 Alexandros Ypsilanti, Greek revolutionary leader, at 35
1945 Eddie Slovik, ony American executed for desertion since the Civil War
1972 Bir Bikram Shah Deva Mahendra, King of Nepal (1955-72), dies at 51

Event...
1504 By treaty of Lyons, French cede Naples to Ferdinand of Aragon
1578 Battle of Gembloux
1802 Jan C J van Speijk, Dutch naval hero
1861 State of Louisiana takes over US Mint at New Orleans
1863 Black 1st SC Volunteers mustered into the US Army
1865 Gen Robert E Lee named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies
1895 Jose Marti and others leave New York to invade Spanish Cuba
1915 Germans stage first poison gas attack, against Russian
1916 Two Western Canadian battalions, the 28th with recruits from Saskatchewan and Northwest Ontario, and the 29th from Vancouver and New Westminster, launch a successful night raid against the German trenches in the centre of the Canadian sector.
1917 Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral merchant ship
1929 Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is published
1929 Leon Trotsky expelled from Russia to Turkey
1940 US passenger liner Washington is detained for several hours at Gibraltar by British authorities, but is allowed to proceed the same day; freighter Jomar is also detained there
1941 US Command Rotations
*Vice Admiral William S. Pye relieves Admiral Charles P. Snyder as Commander Battle Force. (US)
*Vice Admiral Walter S. Anderson becomes Commander Battleships Battle Force. (US)
1941 West Base - US Antarctic Service - is closed.
1941 Anti-German demonstration in Haarlem, Netherlands
1942 (US) Office of Procurement and Material is established in the office of the Under Secretary of the Navy; Vice Admiral Samuel M. Robinson, Chief of the Bureau of Ships, is named its director. He must build, from the ground up, an organization that will assure the flow of vital materials essential to the production of ships, planes, and other munitions. He will instill in the production program the need for more production and greater speed, and will apply himself to breaking complex bottlenecks in production, settling conflicts in priorities, solving labor difficulties and curing the multitudinous ills besetting the Navy's production efforts.
1942 British abandon Moulmein, Burma, and retire across the Salween River
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*TF 11, formed around USS Lexington, departs Pearl Harbor to cover the retirement of TF 8 and TF 17 from the Marshalls and Gilberts.
*Japanese troops land on Amboina Island, N.E.I.
*Destroyer USS Helm evacuates civilian radio operators and weather observers from Howland and Baker Islands; she is bombed by a Japanese reconnaissance flying boat (Yokohama Kokutai) off Baker, but is not damaged.
*Japanese pressure on Bataan eases.
*British troops in Malaya are withdraw to Singapore Island.
1942 Action in the Atlantic:
*British tanker San Arcadio is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-107 at 38°10'N, 63°50'W.
*British tanker Tacoma Star is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-109 at 37°33'N, 69°21'W; destroyer USS Roe, on temporary duty with the Fifth Naval District defense forces due to the increase in ship sinkings off Cape Hatteras, is sent to rescue survivors.
1943 Action in the Pacific:
*USMC SBDs (VMSB 233), TBFs, F4Fs and USAAF P-39s, flying from Guadalcanal sink Japanese transport Toa Maru between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara, 07°50'S, 156°50'E. Torpedo boat IJN Hiyodori and minelayer IJN Kamime, damaged in the air attacks, rescue survivors and transport them to Kolombangara.
*Guadalcanal: CAM Div advances to the Bonegi River
*New Guinea: Australian troops mop up the Japanese at Wau.
*Japanese 20th Division completes its concentration at Wewak, in New Guinea
1943 Chile breaks diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan
1943 Stalingrad: German Sixth Army surrenders to the Russians.
1944 Action in the Pacific:
*Marines and Army troops land on atolls of Kwajalein and Majuro, in the Marshalls, in Operation FLINTLOCK. The operation is under the overall command of Commander Central Pacific force TF 50 and is composed of Southern Attack force TF 51, Northern Attack Force TF 53, and Reserve Force and Majuro Attack Group TF 51.2. Landings are supported by carrier-based aircraft TF 58 and land-based aircraft TF 57.
Aircraft from fast carrier group TG 58.3 bomb aircraft and airfield facilities at Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshalls. Attacks by this carrier group continue on the first three days of February and afterward by carrier group TG 58.4 through 7 February. TG 58.3 aircraft and destroyer USS Harrison sink Japanese auxiliary netlayer Katsura Maru off Eniwetok.
*U.S. air strike on Nauru, in support of the Marshalls operations, sinks Japanese auxiliary submarine chasers Cha 25 and Cha 33.
*Cargo ship Enceladus is damaged by storm, Solomons, 08°09'N, 157°38'E. *Submarine USS Trigger sinks Japanese auxiliary submarine depot ship Yasukuni Maru northwest of Truk, 09°21'N, 147°02'E, and damages destroyer IJN Michisio, 09°50'N, 147°06'E.
*Submarine USS Tullibee sinks Japanese auxiliary netlayer Hiro Maru north-northwest of Saipan, 15°23'N, 145°35'E.
*USAAF B-24 sinks Japanese guardboat Seisho Maru off Celebes.
Japanese plane carries out high-level bombing raid on U.S. shipping in Langemak Bay, New Guinea; freighter Stephen Crane is damaged by bomb that glances off her stack and explodes in the water nearby. One Army passenger is killed; 22 men (including one merchant seaman and one of the 29-man Armed Guard) are injured.
1945 Baltic Sea: German SS Wilhelm Gusloff (25,484 GRT) torpedoed, c. 8,000 die
1945 Pvt. Eddie Slovik executed for desertion.
1945 Action in the Pacific:
*TG 78.2 lands Army troops (two RCTs of the 11th Airborne Division) at Nasugbu, south of the entrance to Manila Bay in Operation MIKE SIX; TG 77.4 provides cover. A third RCT of the 11th Airborne is airdropped at Tagtaytay Ridge, 14 miles inland and the three RCTs link up on 3 February. This operation, designed to outflank the enemy forces defending Manila, meets little resistance at the outset; Japanese assault demolition boats attack the screen, however, and sink submarine chaser PC-1129, the flagship for the control unit, TU 78.2.7, 14°05'N, 120°30'E.
*Submarine USS Boarfish sinks Japanese merchant cargo ship Enki Maru 50 miles southeast of Tourane, French Indochina, 14°55'N, 109°01'E, and damages cargo ship Taietsu Maru, which is run aground 14°56'N, 109°00'E.
*Submarine USS Pargo damages Japanese escort vessel IJN Manju, 11°51'N, 109°12'E.
*Submarine USS Spadefish unsuccessfully attacks Japanese ship Nanshin Maru in Yellow Sea west of Ch'uja Kundo, Korea, 34°14'N, 122°36'E.
*Motor torpedo boat PT-338, irreparably damaged by grounding is destroyed by demolition squad off Semimara Island Luzon, 12°06'N, 121°23'E.
*USAAF B-25s (Far Eastern Air Force) sink Japanese escort destroyer IJN Ume and damage destroyer IJN Shiokaze and escort destroyer IJN Kaede west of Takao, Formosa, 22°30'N, 12°00'E.
*Japanese small cargo vessel No.4 Kiri Maru is sunk by mine off Cape Tavoy, Burma, 13°32'N, 98°10'E.
1961 1st black commander of a combatant: Samuel Lee Gravely, Jr., DE USS Falgout
1972 Military coup ousts civilian government of Ghana
1981 Last enlisted USN aviator retires.

[Cap. Teancum]

1950 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II.

Five months earlier, the United States had lost its nuclear supremacy when the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Then, several weeks after that, British and U.S. intelligence came to the staggering conclusion that German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top-ranking scientist in the U.S. nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. These two events, and the fact that the Soviets now knew everything that the Americans did about how to build a hydrogen bomb, led Truman to approve massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world's first "superbomb," as he described it in his public announcement on January 31.

On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated "Mike," the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device, built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion, instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater more than a mile wide. The incredible explosive force of Mike was also apparent from the sheer magnitude of its mushroom cloud--within 90 seconds the mushroom cloud climbed to 57,000 feet and entered the stratosphere. One minute later, it reached 108,000 feet, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling of 120,000 feet. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched 60 miles across, with the base of the head joining the stem at 45,000 feet.

Three years later, on November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion. Both superpowers were now in possession of the "hell bomb," as it was known by many Americans, and the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war for the first time in history.

1968 - As part of the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong soldiers attack the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. A 19-man suicide squad seized the U.S. Embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of U.S. paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed them.

The offensive was launched on January 30, when communist forces attacked Saigon, Hue, five of six autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The timing and magnitude of the attacks caught the South Vietnamese and American forces off guard, but eventually the Allied forces turned the tide. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the communists. By the end of March 1968, they had not achieved any of their objectives and had lost 32,000 soldiers and had 5,800 captured. U.S. forces suffered 3,895 dead; South Vietnamese losses were 4,954; non-U.S. allies lost 214. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians died.

While the offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, the early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and this led to a great psychological victory for the communists. The heavy U.S. casualties incurred during the offensive coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson's conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election.

1972 - In a communiquý charging President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger with "unilaterally" divulging the substance of the secret talks, creating the impasse at the secret meeting, and distorting the facts, North Vietnam publishes the nine-point plan they submitted during the secret talks.

Since August 1969, talks between Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives had been going on secretly in Paris. On January 25, Nixon, in response to criticism that his administration had not made its best efforts to end the war, revealed that Kissinger had been involved in the secret talks. Nixon also disclosed the text of an eight-point peace proposal presented privately to the North Vietnamese on October 11, 1971.

In their communiquý, the North Vietnamese answered with their own peace plan. While Washington requested the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Vietnam with the condition of an agreement in principle on a final solution, Hanoi insisted on the withdrawal of U.S. and Allied troops from all of Indochina without condition. Hanoi also demanded the immediate resignation of the South Vietnamese Thieu regime. With the secret talks made public and at an impasse, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to launch a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972.

[Admiral]

February 1

Born...
1807 William Bowen Campbell, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1867
1819 Henry Lawrence Eustis, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1885
1829 John Potts Slough, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1867
1895 John Ford, director ("She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," etc.)
1896 Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza General/President of Nicaragua (1937-56)
1931 Boris Yeltsin, President of Russian Federation
1935 Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov, U.S.S.R., Cosmonaut, Soyuz 22, T-2
Died...
656 Sigebert III, King of Austrasia
1248 Duke Hendrik II of Brabant (1235-48)
1294 Louis II, the Strong, ruler of Upper-Bavaria
1328 King Charles IV of France (1322-28)
1666 Sjihab al-Din Sultan C Shah Djahan, Mogol of India (who built the Taj Mahal)
1733 Augustus II "the Strong" of Poland and Saxony, having sired c. 350 children
1851 Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, at 53
1851 Mary Godwin Shelley, mother of Frankenstein
1908 Crown Prince Luis Phillip of Portugal, killed by a mob
1908 King Carlos I of Portugal (1889-1908), killed by a mob
1957 FM Friedrich Paulus, captured at Stalingrad, at 66
1976 Werner C Heisenberg, physicist (Nobel 1932, field theory)
2003 Rick D. Husband, Space Shuttle Columbia, commander
2003 William C. McCool, Space Shuttle Columbia, pilot
2003 Michael P. Anderson, Space Shuttle Columbia, payload specialist
2003 David M. Brown, Space Shuttle Columbia, mission specialist
2003 Kalpana Chawla, Space Shuttle Columbia, payload specialist, first Asian Indian woman in space
2003 Laurel Clark, Space Shuttle Columbia, physician
2003 Ilan Ramon, Space Shuttle Columbia, Israel's first Astronaut

Events...
1539 Emperor Karel and King Francois I sign anti-English treaty
1587 English Queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuarts death sentence
1662 Dutch garrison on Formosa surrenders for Chinese pirates
1720 Sweden and Prussia sign peace treaty
1742 Sardinia and Austria sign alliance
1789 Chinese troops driven out of Vietnam capital Thang Long
1793 France declares war on England and Netherlands
1798 War breaks out between Great Britain and Revolutionary France. Canada is far removed from the hostilities in Europe, but French seaborne raiders will cause minor damage to Canadian settlements in New Brunswick and Newfoundland.
1800 USS Constellation takes the French Vengence in a five-hour night battle
1810 Seville, Spain surrenders to French
1861 Texas becomes seventh state to secede
1862 Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of Republic" is published.
1864 Yazoo River Operation
1864 2nd German-Danish war begins
1864 Austrian/Prussian troops occupy Sleeswijk/Holstein
1865 General Sherman's march through South Carolina begins
1883 French Lt-colonel Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes reaches Bamako on the Niger
1923 Allied ultimatum on Lithuanian occupation of Memel
1923 Fascist Volunteer Militia formed in Italy by Mussolini
1933 German Parliament disolves, Gen Ludendorf predicts catastrophe
1940 President Roosevelt writes First Lord of the Admiralty Winston S. Churchill, concerning the detention of U.S. merchantmen, and frankly informs him of adverse American reaction to the British policy. "The general feeling is," Roosevelt informs Churchill, "that the net benefit to your people and the French is hardly worth the definite annoyance caused to us.
1940 U.S. freighter Exminster is detained by British authorities at Gibraltar; freighters Exochorda and Jomar are released.
1940 Russia begins new offensive against Finland
1941 Navy Department announces reorganization of U.S. Fleet, reviving old names Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleet; Asiatic Fleet remains unchanged.
1941 Marine Corps expansion occurs as the 1st and 2d Marine Brigades are brought up to division strength.
1941 UUS Naval Command Rotations:
*Rear Admiral H. Fairfax Leary relieves Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel as Commander Cruisers Battle Force.
*Admiral Husband E. Kimmel relieves Admiral J.O. Richardson as Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet in battleship USS Pennsylvania at Pearl Harbor, T.H.
*Vice Admiral Wilson Brown Jr. relieves Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews as Commander Scouting Force.
*Rear Admiral John H. Newton relieves Rear Admiral Gilbert J. Rowcliff as Commander Cruisers Scouting Force.
1941 Auxiliary Bear and Interior Department motorship North Star depart Bay of Whales; they will proceed via different routes to rendezvous off Adelaide Island to evacuate Antarctic Service's East Base
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*TF 8, formed around carrier USS Enterprise and TF 17, formed around carrier USS Yorktown, raid the Marshall and Gilbert Islands; TF 8 concentrates on Kwajalein and Wotje, with heavy cruiser USS Chester bombarding Maleolap atoll; TF 17 targets enemy installations on Jaluit, Makin, and Mili. TF 11, formed around carrier USS Lexington supports the operations from the vicinity of Christmas Island.
*At Kwajalein, SBDs (VB 6 and VS 6) and TBDs (VT 6) from USS Enterprise sink transport Bordeaux Maru and damage light cruiser IJN Katori, submarine I-23, minelayer IJN Tokiwa, auxiliary netlayer Kashima Maru, auxiliary submarine chaser No.2 Shonan Maru, submarine depot ship Yasukuni Maru, oiler Toa Maru, tanker Hoyo Maru, and army cargo ship Shinhei Maru; in the bombing of shore installations, Rear Admiral Yatsushiro Sukeyoshi (Commander Sixth Base Force) becomes the first Imperial Navy flag officer to die in combat when an SBD scores a direct hit on his headquarters. Off Wotje, gunfire from heavy cruisers USS Northampton and USS Salt Lake City sink gunboat Toyotsu Maru; destroyer USS Dunlap shells and sinks auxiliary submarine chaser No.10 Shonan Maru.
*Japanese retaliatory air attacks (Chitose Kokutai) on TF 8 result in damage to carrier USS Enterprise (near-miss of crash of land attack plane), 10°33'N, 171°53'E, and heavy cruiser USS Chester (by bomb dropped by carrier fighter), 08°45'N, 171°33'E.
*Planes from USS Yorktown cause less damage, due to a paucity of targets at the objective; nevertheless, SBDs (VS 5) bomb and strafe gunboat Nagata Maru at Makin, while SBDs (VB 5) bomb and strafe cargo ship Kanto Maru at Jaluit. Rear Admiral Fletcher detaches three of his four destroyers to look for downed TBD (VT 5) reported in the water astern of TF 17. During the search, a Japanese reconnaissance flying boat (Yokohama Kokutai) attacks (but does not damage) destroyer USS Sims. Soon thereafter, two F4Fs (VF 42) splash the flying boat. The TBD crew, however, is never found in the prevailing poor weather.
*Motor torpedo boats and USAAF P-40s repulse Japanese landing attempt on southwest Bataan. PT 32 damages Japanese minelayer Yaeyama off Subic Bay.
*Naval Base, Sydney, Australia, is established.
1942 US Seventh Naval District with headquarters at Key West, Florida, is reestablished.
1942 Airstaions established in the Caribbean:
Naval Air Stations, St. Lucia, British West Indies, and British Guiana; and Naval Auxiliary Air Facility, Antigua, British West Indies, are established.
1942 Paulus surrenders German 6th Army at Stalingrad
1943 Action in the Pacific:
*Japanese Destroyers evacuate thousands of troops from Guadalcanal before dawn
*U.S. CAM Div captures Cape Tassafaronga, to find Japanese gone.
*High speed transport USS Stringham and five tank landing craft (LCT) land Army 2d Battalion, 132d Infantry, at Verahue, Guadalcanal, covered by four destroyers. After unloading, three LCTs, escorted by destroyers USS Nicholas and USS DeHaven, come under attack from Japanese planes about three miles south of Savo Island. USS DeHaven is sunk by three bombs, 09°09'S, 159°52'E, while USS Nicholas is damaged by near-misses. Tank landing craft LCT-63 and LCT-181, aided by SOCs (VCS Detachment RINGBOLT), rescue 146 USS DeHaven sailors, including 38 wounded.
*To deny the Japanese "Tokyo Express" access to the channel between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, light minelayers USS Tracy, USS Montgomery and USS Preble sow 255 mines in those waters. The three ships clear the mining area as Japanese men-of-war are only 12,000 yards away and closing.
*Two waves of aircraft from Henderson Field (TBFs, SBDs, F4Fs, and USAAF P-38s, P-39s, and P-40s) attack Japanese destroyer force, en route to evacuate Japanese troops from Guadalcanal (Operation KE), damaging IJN Makinami (Hashimoto's flagship). U.S. motor torpedo boats later attack the Japanese force, but in that action PT-111 and PT-37 are sunk by gunfire from destroyer IJN Kawakaze; a Japanese floatplane sinks PT-123. Hashimoto's force extracts 4,935 soldiers.
*Submarine USS Tarpon sinks Japanese merchant passenger-cargo ship Fushimi Maru about 20 miles south of Omai Zaki, 34°08'N, 138°11'E.
*Japanese torpedo boat Kari is damaged by aircraft, Rangoon, Burma.
1943 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling premier of Norway
1943 Nazi Collaborationist Cabinet installed in Belgium
1944 Action in the Pacific:
*Command designated Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet, with headquarters at Pearl Harbor, is established. Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner, Commander Fifth Amphibious Force, is ordered to assume this command as additional duty.
*Naval Base, Finschhafen, New Guinea, is established.
*Invasion of the Marshalls continues as Marines (23rd & 24th Marine Regiments) land on Roi and Namur and Army troops (7th Infantry Division) land on Kwajalein under cover of heavy naval gunfire from battleships, cruisers and destroyers. During this day, heavy cruiser USS Louisville is damaged by richocheting 8-inch shell from heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, 09°00'N, 167°00'E; destroyer USS Anderson is damaged when she runs aground in northern Kwajalein lagoon, 09°10'N, 167°25'E; destroyer USS Haggard is damaged by accidental explosion, off northwestern end of Kwajalein, 09°00'N, 167°00'E; destroyer USS Colahan is damaged when she runs aground on a coral reef at the north end of Enubuj Island, Kwajalein, 08°52'N, 167°38'E; battleships USS Washington and USS Indiana, operating in TG 58.1, are damaged in collision, 07°00'Nh, 167°00'E; and minesweeper USS Chief is damaged by grounding, Marshalls, 09°00'N, 167°00'E.
*Japanese naval vessels destroyed in the preinvasion shelling and bombing at Kwajalein include auxiliary submarine chaser No.11 Fuji Maru and guardboats Kikyo Maru, Meiho Maru, Palau Maru, Takeura Maru, and Yamashiro Maru.
*Destroyers USS Guest and USS Hudson sink Japanese submarine I-171, 15 miles west of Buka Island, 05°37'S, 154°14'E.
*Submarine USS Guardfish attacks Japanese convoy heading for Truk's south pass, just off the reef, and sinks destroyer IJN Umikaze, 07°11'N, 151°44'E.
*Submarine USS Hake sinks Japanese army cargo ship Nanka Maru and transport Tacoma Maru off northeast coast of Halmahera, 01°32'N, 128°50'E.
*Submarine USS Seahorse attacks Japanese convoy on the Palau-Rabaul track, sinking transport Toei Maru about 175 miles south of Woleai, 04°24'N, 143°15'E.
*USAAF B-24s damage Japanese ship Hakka Maru, 02°43'S, 141°28'E, as she is en route from Hollandia to Aitape.
1944 Action in the Mediterranean:
German planes carry out torpedo attack on convoy UGS 30, freighter Richmond P. Hobson is damaged at 36°40'N, 01°10'E. There are no casualties among the crew (including the Armed Guard) and the ship reaches Port Said, Egypt, on 10 February. Freighter Edward Bates is torpedoed 65 miles from Oran, 36°34'N, 01°14'E, and is abandoned; one of the 46-man merchant complement is killed, but there are no casualties among the 38-man Armed Guard or the seven passengers.
1944 Supreme Soviet enlarges soviet republics' autonomy
1945 Action in the Pacific:
*Destroyers USS Jenkins, USS O'Bannon, and USS Bell, and destroyer escort USS Ulvert M. Moore sink submarine RO 115, 125 miles southwest of Manila, 13°20'N, 119°20'E.
*USAAF B-24s (14th Air Force), directed to the scene by USS Boarfish, complete the destruction of grounded Japanese cargo ship Taietsu Maru (damaged by USS Boarfish and run aground the previous day), off the coast of French Indochina, 14°56'N, 109°00'E.
*Motor torpedo boats PT-77 and PT-79 are damaged by friendly fire west of Mindoro, 13°55'N, 120°36'E.
*USAAF P-51s sink Japanese landing ship T.115 in Luzon Straits, 20°00'N, 121°00'E, and damage escorting submarine chaser Ch 28.
*Japanese netlayer No.16 Nissho Maru is sunk by mine west northwest of Mokpo, Korea, 35°00'N, 125°00'E.
*USAAF B-29s (20th Bomber Command) bomb Japanese shipping and harbor facilities at Singapore, damaging oiler Shiretoko, 01°20'N, 103°50'E. *British submarine HMS Spark sinks Japanese towboat No.203 Katsura Maru and damages motor sailboats Nanyo Maru, Nampo Maru and No.80 Tachibana Maru off Jabara, 06°41'S, 110°32'E.
*Japanese tanker No.26 Nanshin Maru is sunk by mine, 30°05'N, 135°15'E. 1945 Japanese take Kukong, last Chinese stronghold on the Hankow rail line.
1945 US Army reached Siegfried Line
1946 Trygve Lie, a Norwegian, becomes the first UN Secretary-General
1950 U.S.S.R. demands condemnation of Emperor Hirohito for war crimes
1951 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1951 Alfred Krupp & 28 other German war criminals freed
1955 Operation Deep Freeze: Research task force, established in Antarctic
1958 Army rocket launches Explorer I, 1st US satellite
1958 Egypt and Syria announced merger as the United Arab Republic..
1960 Rightist coup in Algeria
1961 1st full-scale test of U.S. Minuteman ICBM is successful
1967 Operation Prairie II Cam Lo area Vietnam began.
1968 Famous photo: Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to head
1968 Unification of the Canadian Armed Forces formally takes effect. Gone are the seperate services of Army, Navy, and Air Force. A single service uniform is to be worn by all ranks, despite wide-spread protests and resignations by some senior officers.
1979 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
1981 French government accord sends 60 Mirage fighter jets to Iraq
1983 U.S.S.R. performs underground nuclear test
1993 Soyuz TM-16 lands
2003 Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up on re-entry - seven die. The accident occured due to insulation from the fuel tank breaking away shortly after launch & striking the leading edge of a wing. The strike opened up the wing which allowed hot gases to enter & destroy the structural integrety during re-entry causing the entire Shuttle to break apart - thus dooming the crew.

[Cap. Teancum]

1781 - On this day in 1781, American Brigadier General William Lee Davidson dies in combat attempting to prevent General Charles Cornwallis’ army from crossing the Catawba River in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

Davidson’s North Carolina militia, numbering between 600 and 800 men, set up camp on the far side of the river, hoping to thwart or at least slow Cornwallis’ crossing. The Patriots stayed back from the banks of the river in order to prevent Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tartleton’s forces from fording the river at a different point and surprising the Patriots with a rear attack.

At 1 a.m., Cornwallis began to move his troops toward the ford; by daybreak, they were crossing in a double-pronged formation--one prong for horses, the other for wagons. The noise of the rough crossing, during which the horses were forced to plunge in over their heads in the storm-swollen stream, woke the sleeping Patriot guard.

The Patriots fired upon the Britons as they crossed and received heavy fire in return. Almost immediately upon his arrival at the river bank, General Davidson took a rifle ball to the heart and fell from his horse; his soaked corpse was found late that evening. Although Cornwallis’ troops took heavy casualties, the combat did little to slow their progress north toward Virginia.

General Davidson was the son of Ulster-Scot Presbyterian immigrants to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The family moved in 1748, two years after William’s birth, to what was then known as Rowan (now Iredell) County, North Carolina.

In 1835, Davidson’s son, William Lee Davidson II, gave the Concord Presbytery land on which to build a college in his father’s honor. The school was named Davidson College.

1908 - On February 1, 1908, King Carlos I of Portugal and his eldest son, Luis Filipe, are assassinated by revolutionaries while riding in an open carriage through the streets of Lisbon (in the Terreiro do Paço), the Portuguese capital.

Carlos ascended to the Portuguese throne in 1889 after the death of his father, King Luis I (who was a very popular king). Although he possessed considerable administrative talents, the kingdom Carlos inherited was beset with political stagnation and financial troubles, especially in regard to Portugal's rapidly declining colonial empire in Africa. Severe economic recession led to a revolt in 1906, and Carlos responded by empowering Joao Franco, head of the conservative Regenerative Party, to establish a dictatorial government. Carlos insisted that Franco's dictatorship was necessary to end the corruption and inefficiency that plagued the country's Parliament, but most citizens saw it as a betrayal and the king's court as the nation's main source of corruption. To this one must add that Carlos was particullary knowned for his extra-mariage affairs...

Widespread criticism of Franco's (it's not the same as General Franco in Spain)regime led to a revolt in early 1908, in the course of which the king and his eldest son were shot dead in the streets of Lisbon. Carlos' second son, Manoel, succeeded him to the throne, but in October 1910 a republican revolution forced King Manuel II to abdicate and flee to England with the rest of the royal family. In the same year, Teofilo Braga, a well-known writer, was chosen the first president of the newly democratic republic of Portugal.

More about D. Carlos I at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_I_of_Portugal

1920 - The 1st commercial armored car is introduced at St Paul Minnesota.

More on armored cars:

http://derela.republika.pl/austin.htm



1951 - By a vote of 44 to 7, the United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning the communist government of the People's Republic of China for acts of aggression in Korea. It was the first time since the United Nations formed in 1945 that it had condemned a nation as an aggressor.

In June 1950, communist forces from North Korea invaded South Korea in an attempt to unify the nation, which had been divided in 1945 when Soviet troops occupied the northern portion of the country and U.S. troops the southern in order to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea. In late 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed into North Korea to do battle with U.S. forces, which had earlier driven the invading North Korean forces out of South Korea. By 1951, the United States was deeply involved in Korea, having committed thousands of troops and millions of dollars in aid to South Korea.

The General Assembly vote followed unsuccessful attempts by the U.S. delegation to the United Nations to have the Security Council take action against the Chinese. Exercising his nation's veto power, the Soviet representative on the Security Council consistently blocked the U.S. effort. (The United States, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Nationalist China had absolute veto power of any Security Council proposal.) Turning to the General Assembly, the U.S. delegation called for the United Nations to condemn communist China as an aggressor in Korea. The final vote fell largely along ideological lines, with the communist bloc nations of the Soviet Union, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, joined by neutralists Burma and India, voting against the resolution. Despite the votes against it, the resolution passed, declaring that China was "engaged in aggression in Korea," and asked that it "cause its forces and nationals in Korea to cease hostilities against the United Nations forces and to withdraw from Korea."

The action was largely symbolic, because many nations-including some that voted for the resolution-were reluctant to take more forceful action against the People's Republic of China for fear that the conflict in Korea would escalate. While economic and political sanctions could have been brought against China, the United Nations decided to take no further action. The Korean War dragged on for two more bloody years, finally ending in a stalemate and cease-fire in 1953. By that time, over 50,000 U.S. troops had died in the conflict.

1964 - U.S. and South Vietnamese naval forces initiate Operation Plan (Oplan) 34A, which calls for raids by South Vietnamese commandos, operating under American orders, against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations.

Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. On August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese patrol boats, responding to an Oplan 34A attack by South Vietnamese gunboats against the North Vietnamese island of Hon Me, attacked the destroyer USS Maddox which was conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats.

Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam, and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.

Read more about it:

http://ausvets.tripod.com/oplan34a.htm

http://www.mrfa.org/Operation34a.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/tapes.htm

1979 - On February 1, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran in triumph after 15 years of exile. The shah and his family had fled the country two weeks before, and jubilant Iranian revolutionaries were eager to establish a fundamentalist Islamic government under Khomeini's leadership.

Born around the turn of the century, Ruhollah Khomeini was the son of an Islamic religious scholar and in his youth memorized the Qur'an. He was a Shiite--the branch of Islam practiced by a majority of Iranians--and soon devoted himself to the formal study of Shia Islam in the city of Qom. A devout cleric, he rose steadily in the informal Shiite hierarchy and attracted many disciples.

In 1941, British and Soviet troops occupied Iran and installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the second modern shah of Iran. The new shah had close ties with the West, and in 1953 British and U.S. intelligence agents helped him overthrow a popular political rival. Mohammad Reza embraced many Western ideas and in 1963 launched his "White Revolution," a broad government program that called for the reduction of religious estates in the name of land redistribution, equal rights for women, and other modern reforms.

Khomeini, now known by the high Shiite title "ayatollah," was the first religious leader to openly condemn the shah's program of westernization. In fiery dispatches from his Faziye Seminary in Qom, Khomeini called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1963, Mohammad Reza imprisoned him, which led to riots, and on November 4, 1964, expelled him from Iran.

Khomeini settled in An Najaf, a Shiite holy city across the border in Iraq, and sent home recordings of his sermons that continued to incite his student followers. Breaking precedence with the Shiite tradition that discouraged clerical participation in government, he called for Shiite leaders to govern Iran.

In the 1970s, Mohammad Reza further enraged Islamic fundamentalists in Iran by holding an extravagant celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy and replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. As discontent grew, the shah became more repressive, and support for Khomeini grew. In 1978, massive anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran's major cities. Dissatisfied members of the lower and middle classes joined the radical students, and Khomeini called for the shah's immediate overthrow. In December, the army mutinied, and on January 16, 1979, the shah fled.

Khomeini arrived in Tehran in triumph on February 1, 1979, and was acclaimed as the leader of the Iranian Revolution. With religious fervor running high, he consolidated his authority and set out to transform Iran into a religious state. On November 4, 1979, the 15th anniversary of his exile, students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took the staff hostage. With Khomeini's approval, the radicals demanded the return of the shah to Iran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The shah died in Egypt of cancer in July 1980.

In December 1979, a new Iranian constitution was approved, naming Khomeini as Iran's political and religious leader for life. Under his rule, Iranian women were denied equal rights and required to wear a veil, Western culture was banned, and traditional Islamic law and its often-brutal punishments were reinstated. In suppressing opposition, Khomeini proved as ruthless as the shah, and thousands of political dissidents were executed during his decade of rule.

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran's oil-producing province of Khuzestan. After initial advances, the Iraqi offense was repulsed. In 1982, Iraq voluntarily withdrew and sought a peace agreement, but Khomeini renewed fighting. Stalemates and the deaths of thousands of young Iranian conscripts in Iraq followed. In 1988, Khomeini finally agreed to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.

After the Ayatollah Khomeini died on June 3, 1989, more than two million anguished mourners attended his funeral. Gradual democratization began in Iran in early the 1990s, culminating in a free election in 1997 in which the moderate reformist Mohammed Khatami was elected president.

[Admiral]

February 2

Born...
1754 Charles de Talleyrand, French "silk stocking full of merde"
1803 Albert Sidney Johnston, Gen, C.S.A., KIA in 1862
1815 Nathaniel Collins McLean, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1905
1827 Abner Monroe Perrin, Brig Gen, C.S., KIA, 1864
1861 Sultan Mohammed VI of Turkey (1918-22)
1890 Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Marshal of France

Died...
1435 Queen Giovanna II of Naples (1414-35), at 61, after a risque reign
1451 Sultan Murad II of the Turks
1685 King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1660-85)
1945 Karl F Goerdeler, Mayor of Leipzig and anti-Nazi, hanged at 60

Events...
506 King Alarik II of Visigoten delegates Lex Romania Visigothorum out
1141 Battle at Lincoln: King Stephen captured
1437 Angevins surrender Gaeta (besieged from Dec 24) to the Aragonese
1451 Mehemet II becomes Sultan of the Turks
1461 Second Battle of St Albans: Lancastrians defeat Yorkists
1800 USS Constellation (Captain Thomas Truxtun) defeats la Vengeance
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War; U.S. acquires Texas California, New Mexico and Arizona for $15 million
1862 USS Hartford, Capt David G. Farragut, departs Hampton Roads for Mississippi River campaign
1864 CSS Florida begins a commerce raiding cruise, ends Oct 7th
1878 Greece declares war on Turkey
1894 Warship USS Kearsarge wrecked on Roncador Reef, near Solomon Island
1901 Army Nurse Corps established
1909 Marinetti publishes Futurist Manifest, calls for "cleansing" by war
1915 Turks attack the Suez Canal from the Sinai (retire on the 3rd)
1920 France occupies (German) Memel territory
1920 Tarto/Dorpat peace treaty: U.S.S.R. recognizes Estonian independence
1932 Geneva disarmament conference begins with 60 countries
1933 Chancellor for two days, Adolf Hitler dissolves the Reichsstag
1940 Atlantic:
*Light cruiser USS Helena, at Montevideo, Uruguay, on her shakedown cruise, sends party to inspect wreck of DKM Admiral Graf Spee.
*US passenger liner Manhattan is stopped by French auxiliary patrol vessel Vaillant about 25 miles southeast of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, and ordered to proceed to Gibraltar for examination.
1942 Pacific:
*Submarine USS Seadragon sinks Japanese army cargo ship Tamagawa Maru off Cape Bolinao, Luzon, P.I., 17°16'N, 119°48'E, but misses army cargo vessel Nisshu Maru in the same attack.
*Japanese minesweeper W.9 is sunk, and minesweepers W.11 and W.12 damaged, by Dutch mines off Ambon, N.E.I., 03°42'S, 128°10'E.
1942 Atlantic:
*Unarmed U.S. tanker W.L. Steed is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-103 about 90 miles east of the mouth of the Delaware River, 38°25'N, 72°43'W. Exposure to the frigid weather will eventually kill 34 of the 38-man crew who survive the loss of the ship at the outset
1942 LA Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
1942 U.S./Philippine troops counterattack in Bataan
1942 US ceases production of private cars to convert to war production
1943 Pacific:
*Japanese destroyer IJN Makigumo is damaged by mine laid by light minelayers USS Tracy, USS Montgomery and USS Preble off Cape Esperance the previous night; she is scuttled by destroyer IJN Yugumo, 09°10'S, 159°45'E. Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., Commander South Pacific Force, lauds the success of the mining mission as resulting from "bold execution of a sound plan," while Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, calls it a "splendidly conducted operation... carried out by old ships, inadequate in speed and gun power..."
*USAAF B-17s and P-39s sink Japanese cargo vessel Keiyo Maru off the Shortlands.
*USAAF B-24s (5th Air Force) sink Japanese cargo vessel Kenkoku Maru while en route from Kokope to New Guinea, between Lolobau Island and New Britain, 04°58'S, 151°12'E.
1943 Atlantic:
*German submarine U-456 attacks convoy HX 224 in the North Atlantic and torpedoes U.S. freighter Jeremiah Van Renssalaer at 54°50'N, 28°55'W; 10 of the 28-man Armed Guard are lost; the ship is scuttled by escorts later the same day.
1943 Australian guerrillas on Timor since Dec 8, 1941, are withdrawn by sea.
1944 Pacific:
*Roi and Namur Islands in the Marshalls are secured.
*Destroyer USS Walker sinks Japanese submarine RO-39 10 miles east of Wotje, Marshalls, 09°24'N, 170°32'E.
*Submarine USS Plunger attacks Japanese convoy south of Honshu, and sinks merchant cargo ships No.5 Toyo Maru and No.8 Toyo Maru off Kushimoto, 33°29'N, 135°59'E, and survives resultant depth-charging.
*Japanese transport Katsura Maru sinks after running aground off Futsing, China, 25°37'N, 119°47'E
1945 Europe:
*Christmas parcels finally arrive for Canadian troops fighting in the Ortona sector of Italy. The time since the Holidays has been spent in static battle lines, watching the Germans from across the muddy fields north of the town. Spirits will be brighter today as reminders of friends and familiy bring home a little closer.
*Escape attempt at Mauthausen concentration camp
1945 Pacific:
*Submarine USS Besugo, attacking Japanese convoy off Malay Peninsula, sinks Coast Defense Vessel No.144 off Cape Laguan, 04°32'N, 104°30'E.
*Submarine USS Hardhead sinks Japanese merchant tanker No.19 Nanshin Maru, 05°40'N, 103°17'E.
*USAAF B-24 attacks Japanese tanker Yashima Maru and forces her aground, damaged, off Flores Island.
*Japanese merchant tanker No.3 Kinyu Maru is sunk by aircraft off Phantiet, French Indochina.
1951 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1954 President Eisenhower reports detonation of 1st H-bomb, done in 1952
1957 United Nations adopts a resolution calling for Israeli troops to leave Egypt
1962 U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.
1968 Operation Hue City, Tet Offensive began in Vietnam.
1971 Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda
1977 Burn up of Salyut 4 Space Station (U.S.S.R.)
1982 Government troops and Muslim-fundamentalists battle in Hamah Syria

[Cap. Teancum]

1781 - On this day in 1781, American General Nathanael Greene receives two bags of specie (coin as opposed to paper currency) from Elizabeth Maxwell Steele at her tavern in Salisbury, North Carolina--an incident later memorialized in a painting by Alonzo Chappel.

General Greene spent the night of February 1 until midnight awaiting the remaining militia from the previous day’s encounter at Cowan’s Ford in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. But the militia never arrived at the appointed meeting spot, David Carr’s house on the road to the town of Salisbury, and General Greene soon learned of Brigadier General William Davidson’s death at Cowan’s Ford the previous day. He also learned that British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s Dragoons had launched a surprise attack on Davidson’s remaining forces gathered at Tarrant’s (or Torrence’s) Tavern six miles south of Carr’s, killing between 10 and 50 men. The battle-weary militia took significant casualties before alighting on horseback.

Greene rode overnight and arrived at Steele’s Tavern for breakfast on the morning of February 2. Once there, Greene told his physician, who was also at the tavern, that he was hungry and penniless. After overhearing their conversation, Mrs. Steele saw first to Greene’s hunger with breakfast and then gave him the much-needed money to supply both him and his army.

With his mood boosted, Greene inscribed the back of Mrs. Steele’s portrait of George III, “O George, Hide thy face and mourn,” before turning it to face the wall. The picture and inscription remain at the Thyatira Presbyterian Church Museum, in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Greene’s circumstances improved greatly while in Salisbury. First, he garnered Mrs. Steele’s aid. Second, he discovered a collection of more than 1,700 Continental arms stashed away for the militia. In writing Baron von Steuben the following day, Greene happily observed that the Patriot’s “distribution of publick stores is enough to ruin a nation.”

1916 - Two days after nine German zeppelins dropped close to 400 bombs throughout the English Midlands, the crew of the British fishing trawler King Stephen comes across the crashed remains of one of the giant airships floating in the North Sea.

Developed by a German army officer, Count Ferdinand Zeppelin, and first flown in 1900, the zeppelin was an impressive aircraft by the beginning of World War I. With the capacity to carry five machine guns and up to 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of bombs, it could reach a maximum speed of 136 kilometers per hour (84.5 miles per hour) and a height of 4,250 meters (13,943 feet).

The first zeppelin attack on England took place on January 19, 1915, when two of the airships bombed the English coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, killing a total of four people. The first bombing raid on London came on May 31 of that year, when a single zeppelin dropped 90 small bombs and 30 grenades on the city, leaving seven dead and 35 wounded.

The raid of January 31, 1916, by nine zeppelins was one of the largest Britain saw during the war. The Germans bombed the West Midlands towns of Bradley, Tipton, Wednesbury and Walsall. Across the region, more than 70 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the attacks.

Just before daybreak on February 2, King Stephen skipper William Martin spotted a downed airship partially submerged in the North Sea. The skipper and his crew waited at a safe distance until daylight when they confirmed the wreckage was that of a German zeppelin with the identification mark L-19. With three of its four engines failing, the L-19 had reportedly come under Dutch fire, which punctured its gas cells and brought it down, killing some of the crew.

The nine unarmed men aboard the King Stephen saw that about 20 German soldiers had survived the crash. Fearful that the German airmen could easily overpower them and take control of the ship, Martin and his crew refused the soldiers’ pleas for help and did not take the men aboard, choosing instead to return to Britain to report their discovery to the authorities. The remaining crew of the L-19 disappeared with their craft. Word of the incident soon got out in both Germany and Britain--some saw Martin’s decision as a necessary one to protect his crew, while others, including some Britons, vilified Martin for what they saw as an unpardonable act of cruelty, even for wartime.

1942 - On this day, Vidkun Quisling, a collaborator with the German occupiers of Norway, is established as prime minister of a puppet government.

On April 9, 1940, German warships entered major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deployed thousands of German troops, and occupied Norway. German forces were able to slip through the mines Britain had laid around Norwegian ports because local garrisons were ordered to allow the Germans to land unopposed. The order came from a Norwegian commander, Vidkun Quisling, who was loyal to Norway's pro-fascist former foreign minister.

Hours after the invasion, the German minister in Oslo demanded Norway's surrender. The Norwegian government refused, and the Germans responded with a parachute invasion. In September 1940, "commissarial counselors" in the control of the Germans replaced Norway's administrative council. Chief of these "counselors" was Quisling, who was given dictatorial powers and who proceeded to earn the enmity of Norwegians as he sent thousands of people to German concentration camps and executed members of the resistance movement.

On February 1, 1942, the commissarial counselors formed a formal government loyal to Germany, with Quisling as its prime minister. When Germany finally surrendered in May 1945, Quisling was arrested by Norway's Allied liberators, tried for treason, and executed. His name continues to be a synonym for "traitor."

1943 - On this day, the last of the German forces fighting at Stalingrad surrender, despite Hitler's earlier declaration that "Surrender is out of the question. The troops will defend themselves to the last!"

The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial center and a potential strategic coup. But despite repeated attempts, the German 6th Army, under Friedrich von Paulus, and part of the 4th Panzer Army, under Ewald von Kleist, could not break past the adamantine defense by the Soviet 62nd Army, despite pushing the Soviets almost to the Volga River in mid-October and encircling Stalingrad.

Diminishing resources, partisan guerilla attacks, and the cruelty of the Russian winter began to take their toll on the Germans. On November 19, the Soviets made their move, launching a counteroffensive that began with a massive artillery bombardment of the German position. The Soviets then encircled the enemy, launching pincer movements from north and south simultaneously, even as the Germans encircled Stalingrad. The German position soon became untenable. Surrender was their only hope for survival. But Hitler wouldn't hear of it: "The 6th Army will hold its positions to the last man and the last round." Von Paulus held out until January 31, 1943, when he finally surrendered. Of more than 280,000 men under Paulus' command, half were already dead or dying, about 35,000 had been evacuated from the front, and the remaining 91,000 were hauled off to Soviet POW camps.

Pockets of German belligerence continued until February 2. Hitler berated Von Paulus for not committing suicide. Von Paulus, captured by the Soviets, repaid Hitler by selling out to the Soviets, joining the National Committee for Free Germany, and urging German troops to surrender on other battlegrounds in the USSR.

1962 - The first U.S. Air Force plane is lost in South Vietnam. The C-123 aircraft crashed while spraying defoliant on a Viet Cong ambush site.

The aircraft was part of Operation Ranch Hand, a technological area-denial technique designed to expose the roads and trails used by the Viet Cong. U.S. personnel dumped an estimated 19 million gallons of defoliating herbicides over 10-20 percent of Vietnam and parts of Laos from 1962 to 1971. Agent Orange--so named from the color of its metal containers--was the most frequently used.

The operation succeeded in killing vegetation but not in stopping the Viet Cong. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who handled or were sprayed by the chemicals. Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans began to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer and birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliate agents were used.

1970 - Antiwar protestors take legal action in an attempt to prove that the Dow Chemical Company is still making napalm. Dow had claimed that it had stopped making napalm. Members of the antiwar movement filed suit against the Dow Chemical Company in a Washington, D.C., court. The plaintiffs were trying to force the company to disclose all government contracts to prove that the company was still making napalm.

[Admiral]

February 3

Born...
1368 King Charles VI of France (1380-1422)
1805 Samuel Ryan Curtis, Maj Gen, U.S., d. 1866
1807 Joseph Eggleston Johnston, Gen, C.S.A., d. 1891
1811 Horace Greeley, editor, "Go west, young man", inspired many, ultimately led to clash of civilizations.
1817 Samuel Ryan Curtis, Major General Union volunteers, d. 1866
1824 George Thomas "Tige" Anderson, Brig Gen, C.S.A.,
1824 Nathan George "Shanks" Evans, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1868
1831 Cyrus Ballou Comstock, Bvt Major General, Union volunteers, d. 1910
1851 Johannes B van Heutsz, Lt-General/Gov-Gen of Dutch East Indies
1894 Norman Rockwell, U.S., artist/illustrator, Sat Evening Post covers, Patriotic images in time of war.
1902 Charles Lindbergh, aviator, Nazi dupe
1907 James Michener, naval officer, author ("South Pacific")
1909 Simone Weil, born in Paris, social philosopher/Resistance fighter, WW II
1938 Vladimir Grigoryevich Fartushny, Russian Cosmonaut
1939 Vladimir Yevgenyevich Preobrazhensky, Russian Cosmonaut

Died...
474 Leo I, Byzantine Emperor (457-474)
1399 John of Ghent, son of Edward III, Duke of Lancaster/King of Castile and Leon, at 58
1451 Sultan Murad II of Turkey (1421-51)
1468 Johann Gensfleisch Gutenberg, printer, revolutionized the printed word & it's spread throughout society in general.
1697 Sjoucke Gabbes, Frisian sailor, buried on Dirk-Hartog Island
1922 Christiaan R de Wet, South African Boer General, at 67
1924 Woodrow Wilson, sometime 28th US President. Suffered debilitating stroke while in office. His wife conducted much of his day to day business afterwards.
1947 Marc A "Pete" Mitscher, U.S. Vice Admiral, (WW II-Task Force 58), at 60

Event...
1377 Mass execution: Robert of Geneva and John Hawkwood stage massacre in Cesena, Italy
1488 Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Diaz lands the Cape of Good Hope 1576 Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV) escapes from Paris
1660 General Moncks army reaches London
1781 Dutch West Indies island of St Eustatia taken by British
1783 Spanish recognition, of US independence
1801 Treaty ending Quasi-War ratified. US Senate approves peace treaty with France ending undeclared naval war that began 1798
1861 Confederate States of America formed in Montgomery
1864 Sherman's Meridian Campaign, in Mississippi occurs.
1865 Hampton Roads Peace Conference: Lincoln and Stephens reach an impasse.
1867 Prince Mutsuhito, 14, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan (1867-1912)
1901 Sumatra: Dutch troops under General Van Heutsz conquer Batu Ilie.
1915 Turkish and German army reach Suez Canal. The attack ultimately fails.
1917 US liner Housatonic sunk by German submarine. US/German diplomatic relations severed.
1919 League of Nations: This, the 1st meeting of this ill-fated organization was held in Paris.
1927 Uprising in Portugal: Against regime of General Carmona.
1939 The first group of Canadian volunteers from the Spanish Civil War return to Halifax. There is a great controversy over whether they should have even been allowed back in the country. By fighting in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion the volunteers broke Canadian law prohibiting enlistment in foreign armies. Of the 1,148 men who went overseas to fight against facism, 721 will finally return home.
1940 Light cruiser USS Helena departs Montevideo, Uruguay, for Brazilian waters as her shakedown cruise continues. She has been "keeping an eye" on foreign shipping & naval elements.
1940 U.S. passenger liner Manhattan is detained at Gibraltar by British authorities
1941 US Navy Department G. O. #143. It establishes three independent fleets, each commanded by an Admiral. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel becomes Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet (and also Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet in the event that two or more fleets operate together); Patrol Force U.S. Fleet becomes U.S. Atlantic Fleet under command of Admiral Ernest J. King; Admiral Thomas C. Hart continues as Commander in Chief U.S. Asiatic Fleet.
1941 Action in the Pacific:
*During routine exercises in Hawaiian Operating Area off Oahu, destroyers USS Dale and USS Hull contact what they believe is a submarine. With all U.S. boats accounted for, Commander Destroyers Battle Force orders USS Lamson to join USS Dale and USS Hull. The ships are to maintain contact and to take offensive action only if attacked. USS Mahan joins in search as well. With speculation that the only possible reason a submarine would be in those waters would be to obtain supplies or land agents, USS Lamson accordingly searches the shoreline east of Diamond Head.
1942 Action in the Pacific:
*Fil-American troops restore the Bagac-Orion line on Bataan
*Submarine USS Trout delivers ammunition to Corregidor, P.I., and removes gold, silver, securities and mail. She uses the gold as ballast on the return voyage to Pearl Harbor.
*Japanese naval land attack planes (Takao Kokutai) bomb ABDA operating base at Surabaya; other naval land attack planes (1st Kokutai) bomb Malang, Java. These raids indicate for the first time that substantial Japanese air forces have been moved south. En route home from Malang, 1st Kokutai aircraft report presence of the Allied naval force (ABDA) of Rear Admiral Karel W.F.M. Doorman, RNN off Madoera.
1942 Action in the Atlantic:
*Panamanian freighter San Gil is torpedoed, shelled, and sunk by German submarine U-103 approximately 15 miles south of Fenwick Island light, 38°05'N, 74°40'W. Two crewmen perish in the attack; Coast Guard cutter USCG Nike rescues the 38 survivors.
1943 Action in the Pacific:
*Aussie Kanga Force counterattacks from Wau, drives Japanese on Mubo. *Battleship USS Massachusetts begins operating in the Pacific.
*U.S. ships shell Japanese island of Paramushiro in the Kuriles.
1943 Command designated: U.S. Naval Forces Northwest African Waters is established with headquarters at Algiers.
1943 Action in the Atlantic:
*German submarine U-223 attacks Greenland-bound supply convoy SG 19 which is escorted by Coast Guard cutters USCG Tampa, USCG Escanaba, and USCG Comanche, and sinks War Department-chartered transport Dorchester about 150 miles west of Cape Farewell, Greenland, 59°22'N, 48°42'W, and damages Norwegian freighter Biscaya. Casualties on board Dorchester are heavy, 675 men (including 15 of 24 Armed Guard sailors) being lost. Four Army chaplains, representing four different faiths, bravely give up their lifebelts to soldiers who have none; all four perish with the ship.
1944 Action in the Pacific:
*Cruiser and destroyer gunfire supports landing of Army troops on Ebeye, Kwajalein Atoll, Marshalls.
*Submarine USS Tambor attacks Japanese convoy in East China Sea, sinking fleet tanker Goyo Maru and merchant fleet tanker Ariake Maru about 200 miles southeast of Shanghai, 28°53'N, 124°19'E. Although damaged by depth charges from escort vessels, the submarine remains on patrol.
*PBYs and USAAF B-25s (5th Air Force) attack Japanese convoy west of New Hanover and sink cargo ship Nichiai Maru, 03°27'S, 149°32'E.
1944 Action in Europe:
USAAF planes (8th Air Force) bomb German naval base at Wilhelmshaven, sinking accommodation ship Monte Pasqual and damaging minesweepers M 18 and M 19
1945 Action in the Pacific:
*Submarine USS Sea Robin damages Japanese transport Suiten Maru off Bawean Island N.E.I.
Japanese river gunboat Karatsu [ex-Luzon (PR-7)] is scuttled as blockship at Manila.
*Minesweeper W.102 (ex-HMS Waglan) is damaged (cause unspecified) north of Haitan Island 25°40'N, 119°50'E.
*Merchant tanker No.3 Nanryu Maru is sunk by aircraft off Takao, Formosa.
1945 Major air attack on Berlin; Almost 1000 Flying Fortresses drop 3000 tons of bombs on the city.
1950 Nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs arrested. He was charged with spying.
1962 Cuban embargo: President Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs.
1965 Orbiting Solar Observatory 2: Launched into Earth orbit (552/636 km)
1965 105 USAF cadets resign: They were caught cheating on exams.
1966 Soviet Luna 9: 1st soft landing on Moon.
1966 1st operational weather satellite: ESSA-1 launched by the US.
1972 Nuclear test: By US at the Nevada Test Site.
1982 Greatest helicopter lift: 56,888 kg, Podmoscovnoe, USSR.
1989 Military coup: Dictator Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay is overthrown.
1994 US lifts trade embargo against Vietnam. It is a prelude to normalized relations - virtually non-existant since American involvment in the Vietnam conflict during the 60s & 70s.