TheList 5304

The List 5304 TGB




Good Saturday Morning May 2. .No politics, no Covid-19 just some history.

Regards,

skip



This day in Naval History May 2



1863 During the Civil War, the steam screw sloop Sacramento, commanded by Captain Charles S. Boggs, seizes the British blockade-runner Wanderer off Murrells Inlet, N.C.

1896 A landing party of 15 Marines and 19 Seaman from USS Alert arrive at Corinto, Nicaragua, to protect American lives and property during a period of political unrest.

1942 USS Drum (SS 228) sinks Japanese seaplane carrier, and USS Trout (SS 202) sinks a Japanese freighter off the southeast coast of Honshu.

1945 USS Springer (SS 414) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese frigate in the Yellow Sea and then sinks a Japanese coastal defense ship the next day.

1945 Hospital Apprentice Robert E. Bush administers aid to a wounded Marine officer and fires back at the Japanese at the same time, earning the Medal of Honor.

1992 USS Anzio (CG 68) is commissioned at her homeport of Norfolk, Va. The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser is named for the Italian allied amphibious assault in May 1944 during World War II.

2011 President Barack Obama announces Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed America's most wanted terrorist during Operation Neptune Spear.





Thanks to CHINFO



No CHINFO on the weekend







1972 End of an era at the FBI »



Today in History May 2



1670

The Hudson Bay Company is founded.


1598

Henry IV signs Treaty of Vervins, ending Spain's interference in France.


1748

Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of Devolution in France.


1776

France and Spain agree to donate arms to American rebels fighting the British.


1797

A mutiny in the British navy spreads from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.


1798

The black General Toussaint Louverture forces British troops to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.


1808

The citizens of Madrid rise up against Napoleon.


1813

Napoleon defeats a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen.


1863

Stonewall Jackson smashes Joseph Hooker's flank at Chancellorsville, Virginia.


1865

President Andrew Johnson offers a $100,000 reward for the capture of the Confederate President


1885

King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State.


1890

The Territory of Oklahoma is created.


1919

The first U.S. air passenger service starts.


1923

Lieutenants Oakley Kelly and John Macready take off from New York for the West Coast on what will become the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.


1941

Hostilities break out between British forces in Iraq and that country's pro-German faction.


1942

Admiral Chester J. Nimitz, convinced that the Japanese will attack Midway Island, visits the island to review its readiness.


1945

Russian forces take Berlin after 12 days of fierce house-to-house fighting.


1946

Prisoners revolt at California's Alcatraz prison.


1968

The U.S. Army attacks Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and begins a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.


1970

Student anti-war protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard takes control of campus.


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Now would be a good excuse to call your brother or sister if you have not done so during the current incarceration,….skip



From Al's archives

Brothers and Sisters Day is observed on May 2, 2017. It is a day in which siblings cherish one another. Of course, there may be times you don't like to talk to your brother or sister, but this day should not be one of them. Go visit them and give them a hug, or at least give them a call to let them know how important they are to you. Imagine how your life would be without them. If you don't have siblings, just act like a brother or sister by being nice to someone you like. Maybe you even have a friend who's like a brother or sister to you.

Today's truism--If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.

Best friends are the siblings God forgot to give us.

Older siblings—The only people who will pick on you for their own entertainment and beat up anyone else who tries.

Mom always said she didn't have a favorite child, which was tough because I don't have any brothers or sisters.

Brother/Sister Property Rules

If I like it, it's mine.

If I'm holding it, it's mine.

If I can take it from you, it's mine.

If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.

If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours anyway.

If it just looks like mine, it's mine.

If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.

If it's broken, it's yours.


Five-year-old Jimmy was playing with his little sister, one-year-old Jenny, in the playroom while their mother was in the kitchen. Hearing screams, she ran into the playroom and saw Jenny with a handful of Jimmy's hair, yanking away.
She separated the two, and Jimmy was yelling "Spank her! Spank her!"
"It's not her fault, son," their mom said. "She doesn't understand that it hurts when she pulls your hair."
The mom walked back into the kitchen, but 30 seconds later she heard screams again. She ran back into the playroom to see Jenny in tears.
"What happened?" she demanded.
"Not much," Jimmy said. "Only now she understands."


Submitted by Kelly Dodson and Rick Hein:

Two young boys walk into a pharmacy one day, pick out a box of Tampax and proceed to the checkout counter. The man at the counter asks the older boy, "Son, how old are you?"
"Eight," the boy replies.
The man continues, "Do you know what these are used for?"
"Not exactly," the boy says. "But they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now he can't do either one."



Submitted by Chuck Kincade:

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the Fourth Commandment to "Honor" thy father and thy mother," she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, "Thou shalt not kill."

TEACHER: "Desmond, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?"
DESMOND: "No, teacher, it's the same dog!"



Submitted by Mary Fisher:

Dear God,
My brothers told me about being born but it doesn't sound right. They are just kidding, aren't they?
Signed, Marsha



Submitted by Skip Leonard:

Mary was having a tough day and had stretched herself out on the couch to do a bit of what she thought to be well-deserved complaining and self- pitying.
She moaned to her mom and brother, "Nobody loves me ... the whole world hates me!"
Her brother, busily occupied playing a game, hardly looked up at her and passed on this encouraging word: "That's not true, Mary. Some people don't even know you."

A new law recently passed in Arkansas: When a couple gets divorced, they're still brother and sister.



Submitted by Bill Quintero:

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare &serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister.
I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save her."
As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away".
Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.


Have a great week,
Al



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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS

FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR APRIL 30

THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY





1918: Lt Col Henry J. Damm and Maj Oscar Brindley were killed while testing a DH-4 at Dayton.

(24)



1923: MACKAY TROPHY/DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS. After adding extra fuel tanks to

their Fokker T2 Liberty 400, Lts Oakley G. Kelly and John A. Macready flew the first nonstop

transcontinental flight from New York to San Diego, flying the 2,520 miles in 26 hours 50 minutes

3 seconds. (9) (18)



1948: The Navy successfully tested a submarine capable of firing guided missiles. (16) (24)



1957: The USAF accepted its first F-101A Voodoo. (12)



1963: Jacqueline Cochran flew a Lockheed TF-104G near Edwards AFB to a world speed record for

women of 1,203.94 MPH over a closed 100-kilometer course.



1965: Early Bird satellite went into operation as a public communications facility by shuttling TV

programs across the North Atlantic.

The Oklahoma ANG's "Talking Bird" C-97 Command Post flew to the Caribbean to support

US forces in the Dominican Republic. (See Operation POWER PACK) (16)



1970: Ground fire in Cambodia claimed an F-4, the first PACAF aircraft to be lost in combat operations

in that country. (17)



1971: At Lancaster, Calif., Lois Elmstrom flew a Piccard Balloon to a FAI duration record of 2 hours

6 minutes 10 seconds for balloons, subclasses AX-3 and AX-4 (400-900 cubic meters). (9)



1975: The Navy selected the Northrop and McDonnell-Douglas team to develop the twin-engine F-18

air combat fighter. (12)



1977: 1Lt Christine E. Schott became the first woman undergraduate pilot student to solo in the T-38

Talon. (16) (26)



1979: Through 3 May, two E-3A Sentry aircraft flew the first AWACS training mission over the Central

Region of Europe. (16) (26)



1981: Davis-Monthan AFB received TAC's first OA-37 Dragonfly. It replaced the O-2A in the forward

air control role. (11)

In a first, an airborne laser destroyed an aerial target, when the Airborne Laser Laboratory, a

modified KC-135 aircraft armed with a carbon dioxide laser, shot down a drone over White

Sands Missile Range. (21)



1988: Col Phillip J. Ford, the 384th Bomb Wing Commander, and Lt Gen Ellie G. "Buck" Shuler, Jr.,

the Eighth Air Force Commander, flew the last B-1B from the Rockwell International plant to

McConnell AFB. (http://www.sr-71.org/aircraft/b-1.php)



1999: Operation ALLIED FORCE. Serbian ground forces shot down an F-16 over Yugoslavia. It

was the second and last US aircraft lost in the operation. An MH-60 helicopter rescued the pilot.

(21)

An AFFTC aircrew from Edwards flew an NC-130J loaded with Red Cross supplies to Sofia,

Bulgaria in support of Operation ALLIED FORCE. (3)



2002: An AFFTC B-1B dropped three different weapons (a MK-82, a MK-84, and a CBU-89) on a

single pass. The B-1B released the bombs from separate bomb bays to strike individual targets

that were 10,000 feet apart. AFFTC conducted this Air Force "first" as part of the B-1 Block E

Computer Upgrade Test Program at Edwards AFB. (3)



2004: The 164 AW (Tennessee ANG) in Memphis phased out the last C-141 (tail no. 60157) from the

ANG inventory. The then unit converted to C-5s. (32)



2006: The Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate at Edwards AFB conducted the

first full-scale test of Thiokol's new solid-propellant motor for ICBMs. It was similar in size

and weight to the Minuteman III first stage motor, but used advanced case, propellant, and

thrust vector technologies. The new engine produced over 282,000 pounds of thrust, compared

to Minuteman motor's 202,000 pounds. (3)

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The German

Click on the photo or the link …



https://player.vimeo.com/video/31202906?autoplay=1








Thanks to Bob …



Great ACM footage between a Spitfire and German fighter .. and a tricky ending …. Well worth the time …





Learn something new … every day



This is a very good film … short and sweet with lots of action and you are in the pilot's seat. Watch to the end, it will surprise you!



Incredible six minute footage of desperate Spitfire vs. ME-109 aerial combat. You feel like you are there! Amazing computer work blended in with real photography.



Also an interesting factual story that most of us did not know. History is rarely 'over'.



Now sit back and strap on your parachute harness ... it is the Summer of 1940 over the skies of England. Listen to the perfect 'purr' of the Rolls Royce Merlin ...



Watch this full screen. It's very well done. [the nice landing w. only half a wing was a little overdone!]



Below is what happened after they Landed……Well they both walked away



Interesting.

Rob







Germans and Brits shared captivity at K-Lines in Ireland.

During World War II, a Canadian bomber flying from a base in Scotland crashed in what the crew thought was the vicinity of their airfield. Spotting a pub, they entered to celebrate their survival with a quick drink but were stunned to see a group of soldiers wearing Nazi uniforms and singing in German. Even more confusingly, the Germans responded to their entry by shouting at them to "go to their own bar." The crew was soon given an explanation: after getting lost they crashed in the Republic of Ireland… and now they were captured, just like the Jerries.



German prisoners in Ireland having a drink at a local pub

Having negligible military power, Ireland was a neutral nation during the war; Prime Minister Éamon de Valera went to great lengths to maintain that neutrality. As part of this policy, he made a deal with both the British and German governments: combatants of either country could be detained if found in Ireland and interned there for the duration of the war. Technically, the men were not prisoners of war but "guests of the State," with an obligation on the state to prevent them from returning to the war. A 19th century military camp named Curragh Camp or "K-Lines" was designated to hold "guests" of both nationalities – along with a much higher number of Irish citizens who were imprisoned because they were considered a threat to the country's neutrality, such as IRA men and pro-Nazi activists.

At first, authorities looked the other way when British aircraft crashed or emergency landed in Ireland, allowing the crews to make their way home. The appearance of a German aircrew in 1940, however, forced them to start taking their job seriously. Lieutenant Kurt Mollenhauer's Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft was taking meteorological readings off the Irish coast when they got lost in the mist and hit a mountain, with two crewmen suffering injuries.



Models crafted by a German airman during internment at Curragh

They were captured and taken to Curragh. They experienced some harsh treatment first but the Department of External Affairs quickly requested the army to improve their living conditions. With some Germans in actual custody, it was now also necessary to detain British pilots who landed in Ireland to maintain neutrality and the two sides had to be given the same treatment – preferably a lenient one to avoid angering Britain.



Exterior view of K-Lines. Being neutral, Ireland had no nighttime blackouts and spotlights made it much harder to escape at night.



Between 1940 and 1943, some 40 British and 200 German military personnel were taken to K-Lines, mainly air crews and men from shipwrecked U-boats. In appearance, the camp was a regular POW camp with guard towers, barbed wire and huts built on short stilts to prevent tunneling to freedom, though the fence separating the British and German sides was a mere four feet tall. Unlike in most camps, however, the guards had blank rounds in their rifles and the prisoners were allowed to run their own bars with duty-free alcohol.

The British bar was run on an honor system, with everyone pouring for themselves and recording their consumption in a book. Prisoners were also allowed to borrow bicycles and leave the camp, provided they signed a parole paper at the guardhouse, giving their word of honor not to escape and to return in time. Pub visits, with separate bars for groups of different nationalities, evening dances with the locals, fishing and golfing trips and fox hunts were the norm, with one English officer even having his horse transported there from home and others having their families join them in Ireland for the duration of the war. Some prisoners ended up marrying local girls and one German prisoner, Georg Fleischmann, stayed and became an important figure in Irish film industry.



Former German soldier Kurt Kyck with his Irish wife, Kyck spent most of his post-war life in Ireland.



While both sides enjoyed the chance to sit out the war in reasonable comfort and without dishonorable behavior such as desertion, the Germans were generally more uptight about their situation. Despite being given some money to buy themselves civilian clothes for trips to nearby towns, the preferred to stay in uniform inside the camp, planted gardens, made tennis courts, held exercise classes. On one occasion, they even set up a court to convict a comrade for treason, though the defendant couldn't be executed, as the Irish refused to furnish the Germans with a rifle and a single bullet. Sometimes, German prisoners sang Nazi songs just to piss off of their British co-internees. The two nations held boxing and soccer matches, with a historical record noting a German victory of 8-2 at one.



Some of the camp's German inhabitants

Escape attempts were rare. The Germans had no easy way of reaching continental Europe and the British had their own special problem, best demonstrated through the story of Roland "Bud" Wolfe. An American citizen, Wolfe signed up with the RAF before the U.S. entered the war, getting stripped of his American citizenship as a consequence. After flying cover for a ship convoy off Ireland, his Spitfire's engine overheated and he had to land in the Republic of Ireland, where he was taken to the Curragh. Unwilling to sit out the war, he made his move two weeks after his capture, in December 1941. One day he walked out of the camp, deliberately "forgetting" his gloves. He quickly went back for them and left again without signing a new parole paper, so he now considered his escape to be a legitimate one. He had lunch at a nearby hotel, left without paying and made his way to nearby Dublin, where he boarded the first train to Belfast in Northern Ireland. To his surprise, his superiors were far from pleased when he reported at his base and he was quickly sent back across the border to the internment camp.



Roland "Bud" Wolfe

The reason was that Ireland's neutrality was important not only to the Irish but to Great Britain as well. Though Churchill considered Ireland's refusal to fight a betrayal, he understood that a pro-Nazi Ireland would have allowed the Kriegsmarine to use its Atlantic ports and wreak havoc on vital convoys from America. In order to guarantee Ireland's neutrality, however, the British also had to play fair and prevent K-Line internees from jeopardizing the diplomatic status quo by escaping whenever they pleased. As a result, attempts were sparse: Wolfe tried to escape again only to be captured this time around as well, finally settling into the relaxed life of the camp. There was an aborted tunneling attempt and a successful mass rush on the gate, which the Irish decided was a "legal" escape and the men who made it back to British territory were not returned.



British prisoners at the camp

In 1943 it became clear that the Allies were slowly winning, British airmen were moved to a separate camp and secretly freed, while 20 Germans were allowed to rent residences in Dublin and attend the local colleges. All remaining German prisoners were repatriated after the war, ending the history of what might well have been history's strangest, and possibly most comfortable, POW camp.



Inmates making use of the camp's gym

The story of the British and German prisoners living together in Ireland, hushed up during and after the war, only came to light in the 1980s, when English novelist John Clive heard the story from a taxi driver who had served as a guard at Curragh, and decided to research the matter for a novel.





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This day in American Military History



. 1942 – The Japanese begin the concentration of forces for what will become the battle of the Coral Sea. Their objective is to occupy Port Moresby. Admiral Takagi commands a covering force including the aircraft carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku. Admiral Goto commands the naval support force for the landing, including the carrier Shoho and four heavy cruisers. Admiral Inouye is in command of the main invasion force concentrated at Rabaul. American code breaking allows Admiral Nimitz to concentrate Allied forces to oppose the Japanese forces. Initially these forces include only Admiral Fletcher's Task Force 17 with the carrier Yorktown. Later Task Force 11 (Admiral Fitch) with the aircraft carrier Lexington and Task force 44 (Admiral Crace) with Australian and American cruisers.



1945 – At noon the German surrender becomes effective. The long, difficult and controversial campaign in Italy is over. Allied forces reach Trieste, Milan and Turin during the course of the day, while others are advancing north toward Brenner Pass where they will link up with US 7th Army forces from the north. Approximately 1 million German soldiers lay down their arms as the terms of the German unconditional surrender, signed at Caserta on April 29, come into effect. Many Germans surrender to Japanese soldiers-Japanese Americans. Among the American tank crews that entered the northern Italian town of Biella was an all-Nisei (second-generation) infantry battalion, composed of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. Early that same day, Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov accepts the surrender of the German capital. The Red Army takes 134,000 German soldiers prisoner.



1945 – The US 14th Corps units advancing west along the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon link up, near Naga, with units from the Legaspi area that have moved east. On this part of the island, Japanese forces have now been scattered.



1945 – The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building.



1970 – American and South Vietnamese forces continue the attack into Cambodia that began on April 29. This limited "incursion" into Cambodia (as it was described by Richard Nixon) included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The operation began on April 29 with South Vietnamese forces moving into what was known as the "Parrot's Beak," the area of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta. During the first two days of the operation, an 8,000-man South Vietnamese task force, including elements of two infantry divisions plus four ranger battalions and four armored cavalry squadrons, killed 84 communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and 157 wounded. The second stage of the campaign began on May 2 with a series of joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operations aimed at clearing communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated "Fishhook" area of Cambodia (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon). The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with the South Vietnamese 3rd Airborne Brigade, killed 3,190 communists in the action and captured massive amounts of war materiel, including 2,000 individual and crew-served weapons, 300 trucks, and 40 tons of foodstuffs. By the time all U.S. ground forces departed Cambodia on June 30, the Allied forces had discovered and captured or destroyed 10 times more enemy supplies and equipment than they had captured inside South Vietnam during the entire previous year. Many intelligence analysts at the time believed that the Cambodian incursion dealt a stunning blow to the communists, driving main force units away from the border and damaging their morale, and in the process buying as much as a year for South Vietnam's survival. However, the incursion gave the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the operation set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the deaths of four students at the hands of Army National Guard troops. Another protest at Jackson State in Mississippi resulted in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women's dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would thenceforth severely limit the executive power of the president.



1975 – US Navy departs Vietnamese waters at end of evacuation.



2011 – Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan shortly after 1:00 am PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by U.S. Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation. In addition to DEVGRU, participating units included the U.S. Army Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and CIA operatives. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death. The United States had direct evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing.



Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day



BUSH, ROBERT EUGENE
Rank and organization: Hospital Apprentice First Class, U.S. Naval Reserve, serving as Medical Corpsman with a rifle company, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Okinawa Jima, Ryukyu Islands, 2 May 1945. Entered service at: Washington. Born: 4 October 1926, Tacoma, Wash. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Medical Corpsman with a rifle company, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Okinawa Jima, Ryukyu Islands, 2 May 1945. Fearlessly braving the fury of artillery, mortar, and machinegun fire from strongly entrenched hostile positions, Bush constantly and unhesitatingly moved from 1 casualty to another to attend the wounded falling under the enemy's murderous barrages. As the attack passed over a ridge top, Bush was advancing to administer blood plasma to a marine officer Iying wounded on the skyline when the Japanese launched a savage counterattack. In this perilously exposed position, he resolutely maintained the flow of life-giving plasma. With the bottle held high in 1 hand, Bush drew his pistol with the other and fired into the enemy's ranks until his ammunition was expended. Quickly seizing a discarded carbine, he trained his fire on the Japanese charging pointblank over the hill, accounting for 6 of the enemy despite his own serious wounds and the loss of 1 eye suffered during his desperate battle in defense of the helpless man. With the hostile force finally routed, he calmly disregarded his own critical condition to complete his mission, valiantly refusing medical treatment for himself until his officer patient had been evacuated, and collapsing only after attempting to walk to the battle aid station. His daring initiative, great personal valor, and heroic spirit of self-sacrifice in service of others reflect great credit upon Bush and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Medal of Honor on October 5, 1945. Bush was the youngest World War II Navy Sailor to receive the Medal of Honor.





BENAVIDEZ, ROY P.
Rank and Organization: Master Sergeant, Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group, Republic of Vietnam. Place and Date: West of Loc Ninh on 2 May 1968. Entered Service at: Houston, Texas June 1955. Date and Place of Birth: 5 August 1935, DeWitt County, Cuero, Texas. Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permit another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed from additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.





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