Newsletter & Updates

Military History

On 16 Mar 1802, the United States Military Academy–the first military school in the US–was founded by Congress for the purpose of educating and training young men in the theory and practice of military science. Located at West Point, New York, the US Military Academy is often simply known as West Point.

On 17 Mar 1776, British forces were forced to evacuate Boston following General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south.

On 19 Mar 2003, the US, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiated war on Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” President Bush and his advisors built much of their case for war on the idea that Iraq, under dictator Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building weapons of mass destruction—which was reasonable as Saddam had used WMD several times in the previous decade.

Hostilities began about 90 minutes after the US-imposed deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war passed. The first targets, which Bush said were “of military importance,” were hit with Tomahawk cruise missiles from fighter-bombers and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf. In response to the attacks, Republic of Iraq radio in Baghdad announced, “the evil ones, the enemies of God, the homeland and humanity, have committed the stupidity of aggression against our homeland and people.”

In June 2004, the provisional government in place since soon after Saddam’s ouster transferred power to the Iraqi Interim Government. In January 2005, the Iraqi people elected a 275-member Iraqi National Assembly. A new constitution for the country was ratified that October. On November 6, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. After an unsuccessful appeal, he was executed on December 30, 2006.

On 22 Mar 1917 – The first Coast Guard aviators graduated from Pensacola Naval Aviation Training School. Third Lieutenant Elmer Stone became Naval Aviator #38 (and later Coast Guard Aviator #1).

On 22 Mar 1944, during WWII, German Admiral Doenitz ordered all U-boats to disperse from groups and work singly. This decision represented the final victory of the Allied escort forces over the German U-boats. The Germans decided to give up on convoy attacks until new U-boat designs became available.

23 Mar 1775, during a speech before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry responded to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies by declaring, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Following the signing of the American Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776, Patrick Henry was appointed governor of Virginia by the Continental Congress.

On 24 Mar 1864, during our Civil War, a closely coordinated Army-Navy expedition departed Beaufort, North Carolina, on board side-wheel steamer USS Britannia. Some 200 soldiers were commanded by Colonel James Jourdan, while about 50 sailors from USS Keystone State, Florida, and Cambridge were in charge of Commander Benjamin M. Dove. The aim of the expedition was the capture or destruction of two schooners used in blockade running at Swansboro, North Carolina, and the capture of a Confederate army group on the south end of Bogue Island Banks. Arriving off Bogue Inlet late at night, the expedition encountered high winds and heavy seas which prevented landing on the beach. Early on the morning of the 25th, a second attempt was made under similarly difficult conditions, but a party got through to Bear Creek where one of the schooners was burned. Bad weather persisted throughout the day and the expedition eventually returned to Beaufort on the 26th with its mission only partially completed.

On 24 Mar 1944 – 76 Allied officers escaped Stalag Luft 3. In 1949 Paul Brickall authored “The Great Escape.” The story of Jackson Barrett Mahon (d.1999 at 78), an American fighter pilot, and the Allied POW escape from Stalag Luft III in Germany during WWII. The 1963 film “The Great Escape” starred Steve McQueen, was directed by John Sturges and was based on the true story.

On 24 Mar 1958 – Elvis Presley was inducted into the army. Although he had been drafted the previous December, the army granted him a deferral so he could finish shooting his film, King Creole.

On 24 Mar 1999 – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commenced air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Former Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians on March 20.

On 25 Mar 1994, at the end of a largely unsuccessful 15-month mission, the last US troops departed Somalia, leaving 20,000 UN troops behind to keep the peace and facilitate “nation building” in the divided country. In 1992, civil war, clan-based fighting, and the worst African drought of the century created famine conditions that threatened one-fourth of Somalia’s population with starvation. In August 1992, the United Nations began a peacekeeping mission to the country to ensure the distribution of food and medical aid. On December 4, with deteriorating security and UN troops unable to control Somalia’s warring factions, U.S. President George Bush ordered 25,000 US troops into Somalia.

On 26 Mar 1941, during WWII, Italy attacked the British fleet at Suda Bay, Crete, using detachable warheads to sink a British cruiser. This was the first time manned torpedoes had been employed in naval warfare, adding a new weapon to the world’s navies’ arsenals.

The manned torpedo, also known as the “Chariot,” was unique. Primarily used to attack enemy ships still in harbor, the Chariots needed “pilots” to “drive” them to their targets. Sitting astride the torpedo on a vehicle that would transport them both, the pilot would guide the missile as close to the target as possible, then ride the vehicle back, usually to a submarine. The Chariot was an enormous advantage; before its development, the closest weapon to the Chariot was the Japanese Kaiten–a human torpedo, or suicide bomb, which had obvious drawbacks.

The first successful use of the Chariot was by the Italian navy, although they referred to their version as Maiali, or “Pigs.” On March 26, six Italian motorboats, commanded by Italian naval commander Lt. Luigi Faggioni, entered Suda Bay in Crete and planted their Maiali along a British convoy in harbor there. The cruiser York was so severely damaged by the blast that it had to be beached.

The manned torpedo proved to be the most effective weapon in the Italian naval arsenal, used successfully against the British again in December 1941 at Alexandria, Egypt. Italian torpedoes sank the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, as well as one tanker. They were also used against merchant ships at Gibraltar and elsewhere.

The British avenged themselves against the Italians, though, by sinking the new Italian cruiser Ulpio Traiano in the port of Palermo, Sicily, in early January 1943. An 8,500-ton ocean liner was also damaged in the same attack.

After the Italian surrender, Britain, and later Germany, continued to use the manned torpedo. In fact, Germany succeeded in sinking two British minesweepers off Normandy Beach in July 1944, using their Neger torpedoes.

On 28 May 1941, during WWII, Andrew Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, ordered the British Royal Navy’s destruction of three major Italian cruisers and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean. The destruction, following on the attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto by the British in November 1940, effectively put an end to any threat the Italian navy posed to the British.

On 29 Mar 1865, the final campaign of the Civil War began in Virginia when Union troops of General Ulysses Grant moved against the Confederate trenches around Petersburg. General Robert Lee’s outnumbered Rebels were soon forced to evacuate the city and begin a desperate race west.

Eleven months before, Grant moved his army across the Rapidan River in northern Virginia and began the bloodiest campaign of the war. For six weeks, Lee and Grant fought along an arc that swung east of the Confederate capital at Richmond. They fought some of the conflict’s bloodiest battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor before they settled into trenches for a siege of Petersburg, 25 miles south of Richmond. The trenches eventually stretched all the way back to Richmond, and for ten months the armies glowered at each other across a no man’s land. Periodically, Grant launched attacks against sections of the Rebel defenses, but Lee’s men managed to fend them off.

Time was running out for Lee, though. His army was dwindling in size to about 55,000, while Grant’s continued to grow–the Army of the Potomac now had more than 125,000 men ready for service. On 25 March, Lee attempted to split the Union lines when he attacked Fort Stedman, a stronghold along the Yankee trenches. His army was beaten back, and he lost nearly 5,000 men. Grant seized the initiative, sending 12,000 men past the Confederates’ left flank and threatening to cut Lee’s escape route from Petersburg. Fighting broke out there, several miles southwest of the city. Lee’s men could not arrest the Federal advance. Two days later, the Yankees struck at Five Forks, soundly defeating the Rebels and leaving Lee no alternative. He pulled his forces from their trenches and raced west, followed by Grant. It was a race that even the great Lee could not win. He surrendered his army on 9 April at Appomattox Court House.

On 29 Mar 1973, two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last US combat troops left South Vietnam as Hanoi freed the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct 8-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.

On 30 April 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam later in the day, remarked, “You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated.” The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in US history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed during that period; many more South Vietnamese were killed by the victorious North Vietnamese as punishment for opposing them.

On 30 Mar 1867, Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”

On 31 Mar 1865 – The final offensive of the Army of the Potomac gathered steam when Union General Phil Sheridan moved against the left flank of Confederate General Robert Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The limited action set the stage for the Battle of Five Forks on April 1. This engagement took place at the end of the Petersburg line. For 10 months, the Union had laid siege to Lee’s army at Petersburg, but the trenches stretched all the way to Richmond, 25 miles north of Petersburg. Lee’s thinning army attacked Fort Stedman on March 25 in a futile attempt to break the siege, but the Union line held. On March 29, General Ulysses Grant, General-in-Chief of the Union Army and the field commander around Petersburg, began moving his men past the western end of Lee’s line. Torrential rains almost delayed the move. Grant planned to send Sheridan against the Confederates on March 31, but called off the operation. Sheridan would not be denied a chance to fight, though. “I am ready to strike out tomorrow and go to smashing things!” he told his officers. They encouraged him to meet with Grant, who consented to begin the move. Near Dinwiddie Court House, Sheridan advanced but was driven back by General George Pickett’s division. Pickett was alerted to the Union advance, and during the night of March 31, he pulled his men back to Five Forks. This set the stage for a major strike by Sheridan on April 1, when the Yankees crushed the Rebel flank and forced Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg.

On 31 Mar 1916, General Pershing and his army routed Pancho Villa’s army in Mexico.

On 31 Mar 1948, Congress passed a $6.2 billion foreign aid bill, the Marshall Aid Act, to rehabilitate war-torn Europe.

On 31 Mar 1992 – USS Missouri (BB-63), the last active American battleship was decommissioned.

On 31 Mar 2003 – In the 13th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US-led troops fought pitched battles with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard within 50 miles of the capital. B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers struck communication and command centers in Baghdad, and cruise missiles set Iraq’s Information Ministry ablaze. Casualties from the war to date US total: 40 dead, 7 captured, 18 missing; British total: 25 dead. Of 8,000 precision bombs dropped since the war began, 3,000 fell in the last 3 days. Port operations at Umm Qasr looked to be delayed for weeks.

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