Newsletter & Updates

Military History

On 1 Feb 1943, during WWII, Japanese forces on Guadalcanal Island, defeated by our Marines, started to withdraw after the Japanese emperor finally gave them permission.

On 3 Feb 1944, during WWII, American forces invaded and took control of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese and used by them as a base for military operations.

The Marshalls, east of the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean, had been in Japanese hands since WWI. Occupied by the Japanese in 1914, they were made part of the “Japanese Mandated Islands” as determined by the League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles, which concluded WWI, stipulated certain islands formerly controlled by Germany–including the Marshalls, the Carolines, and the Marianas (except Guam)–had to be ceded to the Japanese, though “overseen” by the League. But the Japanese withdrew from the League in 1933 and began transforming the Mandated Islands into military bases. Non-Japanese, including Christian missionaries, were kept from the islands as naval and air bases–meant to threaten shipping lanes between Australia and Hawaii–were constructed.

On 4 Feb 1789, George Washington became the first and only president to be unanimously elected by the Electoral College. He repeated this notable feat on the same day in 1792.

On 6 Feb 1778, during our War for Independence, representatives from the US and France signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

These Treaties recognized the US as an independent nation and encouraged trade between France and the Americas provided for a military alliance against Great Britain, stipulating that the absolute independence of the US be recognized as a condition for peace and that France would be permitted to conquer the British West Indies.

With the treaties, the first entered into by the US government, the Bourbon monarchy of France formalized its commitment to assist the American colonies in their struggle against France’s old rival, Great Britain. The eagerness of the French to help the US was motivated both by an appreciation of the American revolutionaries’ democratic ideals and by bitterness at having lost most of their American empire to the British at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars in 1763.

On 6 Feb 1862, General Ulysses Grant provided the first major Union victory of the war when he captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Ten days later, he captured Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which gave the Yankees control of northern Tennessee and paved the way for the occupation of Nashville.

On 6 Feb 1917, just three days after President Woodrow Wilson’s speech of February 3, 1917—in which he broke diplomatic relations with Germany and warned that war would follow if American interests at sea were again assaulted—a German submarine torpedoed and sank the Anchor Line passenger steamer California off the Irish coast.

This type of blatant German defiance of Wilson’s warning about the consequences of unrestricted submarine warfare, combined with the subsequent discovery and release of the Zimmermann telegram—an overture made by Germany’s foreign minister to the Mexican government involving a possible Mexican-German alliance in the event of a war between Germany and the US—drove Wilson and the US to take the final steps towards war. On April 2, Wilson went before Congress to deliver his war message; the formal declaration of US entrance into WWI came four days later.

On 7 Feb 1775, in London, Benjamin Franklin published An Imaginary Speech in defense of American courage.

Franklin’s speech was intended to counter an unnamed officer’s comments to Parliament that the British need not fear the colonial rebels, because “Americans are unequal to the People of this Country [Britain] in Devotion to Women, and in Courage, and worse than all, they are religious.”

Franklin responded to the three-pronged critique with his usual wit and acuity. Noting that the colonial population had increased while the British population had declined, Franklin concluded that American men must therefore be more “effectually devoted to the Fair Sex” than their British brethren.

As for American courage, Franklin relayed a history of the Seven Years’ War in which the colonial militia forever saved blundering British regulars from strategic error and cowardice. With poetic flare, Franklin declared, “Indiscriminate Accusations against the Absent are cowardly Calumnies.” In truth, the colonial militias were notoriously undisciplined and ineffective at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War. New Englanders, unused to taking orders and unfamiliar with the necessary elements of military life, brought illness upon themselves when they refused to build latrines and were sickened by their own sewage. During the American Revolution, Washington repeated many of the same complaints spoken by British officers when he attempted to organize American farmers into an effective army.

With regard to religion, Franklin overcame his own distaste for the devout and reminded his readers that it was zealous Puritans that had rid Britain of the despised King Charles I. Franklin surmised that his critic was a Stuart [i.e. Catholic] sympathizer, and therefore disliked American Protestants, “who inherit from those Ancestors, not only the same Religion, but the same Love of Liberty and Spirit.”

On 8 Feb 1918, the US Army resumed publication of the military newsletter Stars and Stripes.

Begun as a newsletter for Union soldiers during our Civil War, Stars and Stripes was published weekly during WWI from 8 Feb 1918, until 13 June 1919. The newspaper was distributed to American soldiers dispersed across the Western Front to keep them unified and informed about the overall war effort and America’s part in it, as well as supply them with news from the home front.

The front page of the newspaper’s first WWI issue featured A Message from Our Chief, a short valedictory from General John Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force: The paper, written by the men in the service, should speak the thoughts of the new American army and the American people from whom the army has been drawn. It is your paper. Good luck to it.

On 8 Feb 1862, Union General Ambrose Burnside scored a major victory when he captured Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The victory was one of the first major Union victories of the war and it gave the Yankees control of the mouth of Albemarle Sound, a key Confederate bay that allowed the Union to threaten the Rebel capital of Richmond from the south.

The Yankees suffered 37 men killed and 214 wounded, while the Confederates lost 23 men killed and 62 wounded before the surrender. The Union now controlled a vital section of the coast. The victory came two days after Union General Ulysses Grant captured Fort Henry in northern Tennessee, and, for the first time in the war, the North had reason for optimism.

On 8 Feb 1943, Japanese troops evacuated Guadalcanal, leaving the island in Allied possession after a prolonged campaign. The American victory paved the way for other Allied wins in the Solomon Islands.

On 9 Feb 1965, a US Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion was deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key US airbase there.

This was the first commitment of American combat troops in South Vietnam and there was considerable reaction around the world to the new stage of US involvement in the war. Predictably, both communist China and the Soviet Union threatened to intervene if the US continued to apply its military might on behalf of the South Vietnamese. In Moscow, some 2,000 demonstrators, led by Vietnamese and Chinese students and clearly supported by the authorities, attacked the US Embassy. Britain and Australia supported the US action, but France called for negotiations.

On 10 Feb 1942, during WWII, a Japanese submarine launched a brutal attack on Midway, a coral atoll used as a US Navy base. It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by Japanese ships since December 7.

The capture of Midway was an important part of the broader Japanese strategy of trying to create a defensive line that would stretch from the western Aleutian Islands in the north to the Midway, Wake, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands in the south, then west to the Dutch West Indies. Occupying Midway would also mean depriving the US of a submarine base and would provide the perfect launching pad for an all-out assault on Hawaii.

Adm.Yamamoto, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack and commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet, knew that only the utter destruction of our naval capacity would ensure Japanese free reign in the Pacific. Japanese bombing of the atoll by ship and submarine failed to break through the extraordinary defense put up by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the US Navy in the Pacific, who used every resource available to protect Midway and, by extension, Hawaii. Yamamoto persevered with an elaborate warship operation, called Mi, launched in June, but the Battle of Midway was a disaster for Japan, and was the turning point for ultimate American victory in the Pacific.

On 12 Feb 1973, the release of US POWs began in Hanoi as part of the Paris peace settlement. The return of US POWs began when North Vietnam released 142 of 591 US prisoners at Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport. Part of what was called Operation Homecoming, the first 20 POWs arrived to a hero’s welcome at Travis Air Force Base in California on 14 Feb. Operation Homecoming was completed on 29 Mar 1973, when the last of 591 US prisoners were released and returned to the US.

On 13 Feb 1861, the earliest military action to be revered with a Medal of Honor award was performed by Colonel Bernard Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major US-Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona, Irwin, an Irish-born doctor, volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men of the Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches. Irwin and 14 men, initially without horses, began the 100-mile trek to Bascom’s forces riding on mules. After fighting and capturing Apaches along the way and recovering stolen horses and cattle, they reached Bascom’s forces on 14 Feb and proved instrumental in breaking the siege.

Although Irwin’s bravery in this conflict was the earliest Medal of Honor action, the award itself was not created until 1862, and it was not until January 21, 1894, that Irwin received the nation’s highest military honor.

On 14 Feb around the year 278 AD, Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.

Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families.

To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.

When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270.

Legend also has it that while in jail, Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it “From Your Valentine.”

For his great service, Valentine was named a saint after his death.

In truth, the exact origins and identity of St. Valentine are unclear Gradually, February 14 became a date for exchanging love messages, poems and simple gifts such as flowers.

The America’s Frontlines Newsletter is published twice monthly, at the beginning and middle of the month.

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