To All,
Good Thursday Morning September 5..Testing went well last night. Having 9 Black Belts to help was great. It was a long day and the weather was hot into the 90s. I happened to look at my watch when I got home and had over 12,000 steps. I am way behind on email with over 300 in my in box but will catch up over the next few days but make up testing tonight will slow that down.
Tomorrow is the Bubba Breakfast and I hope to see many of you there.
Warm Regards,
skip
Make it a good Day
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams
Today in Naval and Marine Corps History
September 5
1776 The Continental Navy adopts the first uniforms for naval officers. The dress prescribed was extremely somber and reflected the attitude of the Congress to eliminate the ornate trappings evidenced in the Royal Navy and move towards a democratic society. The naval officers quickly rebelled and demanded a more ornate uniform with dark blue coat and tri-corner hat, colored facings, and cuffs with gold buttons and lace, a uniform strikingly similar to that of the Royal Navy.
1781 During the Battle of the Virginia Capes, the French prevent the British fleet from entering the Chesapeake Bay to relieve Maj. Gen. Lord Cornwallis' army at Yorktown, Va. After a siege by American and French forces, Cornwallis is forced to surrender on Oct. 19, 1781, leading the British to abandon the effort to prevent American independence.
1813 The schooner USS Enterprise captures the brig HMS Boxer off Portland, Maine in a 20-minute battle where both commanding officers die in battle.
1918 The transport, USS Mount Vernon (ID# 4508), is torpedoed by German submarine U-82 off France. Thirty-six of her crew are killed and another 13 are injured, but damage control efforts contain her flooding and keep her underway.
1923 The U.S. Asiatic Fleet arrives at Yokohama, Japan, to provide medical assistance and supplies after the Great Kanto earthquake, occurs just days prior. On Sept. 1, during the earthquake, Lt. j.g. Thomas J. Ryan rescues a woman from the burning Grand Hotel in Yokohama. For his "extraordinary heroism" on that occasion, he is awarded the Medal of Honor.
1946 USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB 42), and four escorts visit Greece to underscore U.S. support for the Greek Government which faces a Communist insurgency.
1990 During Operation Desert Shield, USS Acadia (AD 42) departs San Diego for the first war-time deployment of a male-female crew.
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Today in World History
September 5
1666 The Fire of London is extinguished after two days.
1664 After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.
1792 Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the National Convention in France.
1804 US Navy lieutenant Richard Somers and members of his crew are buried at Tripoli; they died when USS Intrepid exploded while entering Tripoli harbor on a mission to destroy the enemy fleet there during the First Barbary War.
1816 Louis XVIII of France dissolves the chamber of deputies, which has been challenging his authority.
1859 Harriot E. Wilson's Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.
1867 The first shipment of cattle leaves Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.
1870 Author Victor Hugo returns to Paris from the Isle of Guernsey where he had lived in exile for almost 20 years.
1877 The great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
1878 Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman and Clay Allison, four of the West's most famous gunmen, meet in Dodge City, Kansas.
1905 The Russian-Japanese War ends as representatives of the combating empires, meeting in New Hampshire, sign the Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan achieves virtually all of its original war aims.
1910 Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.
1944 Germany launches its first V-2 missile at Paris, France.
1958 Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.
1960 Leopold Sedar Sengingor, poet and politician, is elected president of Senegal, Africa.
1969 Charges are brought against US lieutenant William Calley in the March 1968 My Lai Massacre during Vietnam War.
1972 "Black September," a Palestinian terrorist group take 11 Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich; by midnight all hostages and all but 3 terrorists are dead.
1975 President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California.
1977 Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a German business executive who headed to powerful organization and had been an SS officer during WW2, is abducted by the left-wing extremist group Red Army Faction, who execute him on Oct. 18.
1977 Voyager 1 space probe launched.
1978 Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat begin discussions on a peace process, at Camp David, Md.
1980 World's longest tunnel opens; Switzerland's St. Gotthard Tunnel stretches 10.14 miles (16.224 km) from Goschenen to Airolo.
1984 Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
1996 Hurricane Fran comes ashore near Cape Fear, No. Car. It will kill 27 people and cause more than $3 billion in damage.
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OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For The List for the week beginning Monday, 2 September 2024 and ending Sunday, 8 September 2024… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972)
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post of 1 September 1969… Wrap-up on "Balky Company A" and a NYT OpEd by James Reston, "A Whiff of Mutiny." The Nixon Dilemma: how do you keep troops fighting forward while you are pulling out and going home? We lost more than 20,000 American brave hearts (KIA) while fighting the last three years of this lost cause.
(Please note the eye-watering ongoing revamp of the RTR website by Webmaster/Author Dan Heller, who has inherited the site from originators RADM Bear Taylor, USN, Retired, and Angie Morse, "Mighty Thunder")…
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 5 September
5-Sep: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=777
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info
https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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Thanks to Mike
And elsewhere in So Cal...Professional Video From Back Seat. 7 Min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmdt2Q8BULo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmdt2Q8BULo
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Thanks to Brett
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
Russian setbacks. More than half of industrial enterprises in Russia said they have been unable to find Russian suppliers of products they're no longer able to access abroad because of sanctions, according to a survey conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Economic Forecasting. The poll also found that 37 percent of enterprises were forced to significantly change their supply chains over concerns that they could not replace imported raw materials and components with alternatives from Russia or "friendly" countries.
Mending ties. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi arrived in Ankara on Wednesday on his first official visit to Turkey since taking office a decade ago. He will hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on strengthening bilateral ties and regional issues. The two leaders have had a contentious relationship since el-Sissi took power in a 2013 military coup, ousting Erdogan ally Mohamed Morsi.
Ultimatum. Russia has begun imposing sanctions on Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia for its failure to meet certain obligations, the region's foreign minister said. He was commenting on a document published online that purportedly indicated that Moscow had threatened to suspend financial aid to Abkhazia and charge commercial rates for electricity supplies unless it agreed to meet the Kremlin's demands. The official explained that his government had not officially received the document but that Moscow had said it would suspend financing used to support doctors, teachers, security forces and others.
Expanding ties. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held talks in Seoul on Wednesday. The two leaders discussed ways to expand relations on trade, investment, security and technology. They also agreed to launch an economic security dialogue to facilitate regular exchanges on economic opportunities and challenges. They further pledged to boost security cooperation and upgrade their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Military drills. Uzbekistan is hosting joint exercises of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States. Speaking on Tuesday at an international conference on tackling terrorism and extremism, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said the drills were aimed at strengthening cooperation and increasing the capabilities of member states' special forces.
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Thanks to Mike
Great Cobra Copter Rescue In Viet Nam
Pilot Upgraded To Medal Of Honor
I could not get the URL to work on my computer. Here is the write up…Amazing story
Sgt. David Hill's team leader gestured for him to get down. He and his two other teammates softly lowered themselves, careful not to make any noise.
Out on a standard reconnaissance mission, the four-soldier team had only moments ago reversed course after the team leader had used a Starlight scope to spot enemy soldiers blocking three sides around them in the pitch-black South Vietnam night.
Now with the fourth side blocked, the team squatted, boxed in and alone.
"We were in a Custer-like situation," Hill said.
The closest terrain feature was the Saigon River, about a mile away. But across swaths of open rice paddies, a crossing would have meant a death sentence.
At least a few squads, possibly platoons, of enemy soldiers had likely set up multiple ambush points.
Luckily a water buffalo trail, hard-packed by the massive beasts, formed a kind of natural parapet for at least some cover.
They put claymore mines around their position, and the four men set up back-to-back, each covering an entire cardinal direction, waiting for the rush to come.
Team leader Pfc. Robert Elsner, from Manhattan, New York called for everything — artillery, air support, help. The team leader had been a sergeant about a week before, and was now a private, having gotten on the bad side of some commander or other, but would soon be a sergeant again. Rank aside, he was the best leader for the job.
At about 2100, on the northeast side of Saigon, about 30 miles away, the plea crackled over staticky radio.
The call was answered by 1st Lt. Larry L. Taylor, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who alongside his co-pilot and gunner CWO2 J.O. Ratliff, of Cody, Wyoming jumped into a two-seat attack helicopter, the AH-1G Cobra, call sign "Dark Horse 32," and took flight alongside Taylor's wingman, Capt. Roger D. Trickler, 31, of Daleville, Alabama, and his co-pilot and gunner, Capt. Richard Driggs LeMay Jr., 27, of New Britain, Connecticut.
The four aviators were part of Troop D (Air), 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division. The men on the ground were out of "Wildcat 2″ the call sign for their four-soldier recon team under F Company, 52nd Infantry (Long Range Patrol) 1st Infantry Division.
The next half hour would witness one of the most daring rescues of the Vietnam War, and it would be carried out by a helicopter designed only for attack. In the weeks following, death after death hit the unit. Those who knew just what Taylor had done either spread out on other combat missions or died in tragic, but all too common events for that time in the war.
In those ensuing decades the men from that night would grow gray, reunite and Hill, among others, would fight a different battle, one with folders, yellowing documents and binder clips instead of M16s, grenade launchers and claymores.
But on both the fateful night of June 18, 1968, and now in the coming days, their tenacity, perseverance and intrepidity would prove victorious.
And that's the start of how former Capt. Larry L. Taylor will become, on Sept. 5, the most recent recipient of the nation's highest valor award: the Medal of Honor.
Capt. Larry Taylor, circa 1967. (Army)
Beginnings
Taylor, 81, grew up in the historic St. Elmo neighborhood of Chattanooga.
That area rests in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, where in November 1863, Union troops flowed up the northern slopes in what historians would later call the "Battle Above the Clouds." This followed a southern victory at the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia and what led to the Confederate siege of Chattanooga that the Union ultimately broke on their continued southern march and defeat of the Confederacy.
This served not as a history class lesson, but a direct connection for Taylor, whose great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. The family later sent his great-uncle to fight in World War I and both his father and uncles fought in World War II.
Taylor joined the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training program at the University of Tennessee just up the road from Knoxville, Tennessee shortly after high school. He graduated college in 1966.
The Army sent the Tennessee boy to Fort Knox, Kentucky for armor training. But as soon as he could, the young Taylor found his way into the fledgling Army aviation helicopter branch. By June 1967 he was an Army aviator.
Taylor's explained in multiple interviews why he decided to fly instead of stay in the armor branch, where the Army first put him.
He painted a stark picture of the life of ground troops in Vietnam in his soupy Tennessee drawl.
"I had been on the ground in Vietnam and it sucked, so I wanted to avoid all of that," Taylor said.
It was a place where someone might wait behind every tree to shoot you all day while they mortared your position all night. But in a Cobra, you can fly above that at 150 mph carrying 76 rockets and 16,000 rounds of machine gun ammo.
"So yeah, I'd rather be an ass kicker than have my ass kicked," Taylor said. "That settles that question."
At around the time Taylor was earning his wings, the Army was refining how it would fight in places such as Vietnam. Early work with the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter proved that an attack helicopter could provide support for larger transport helicopters, much like fighter planes and bombers paired together in World War II.
A Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter flies low over the treeline as protection for the Vietnam-era Air Assault and Rescue at Dawn, a simulated rescue of a downed pilot. (Spc. Jennifer Andersson/Army)
But the Iroquois wasn't purpose-built for that mission. So, the service worked with Bell Helicopter and adapted the Iroquois system into a newer, nimbler attack helicopter eventually dubbed the AH-1 Cobra.
The first prototype flew in September 1965, while Taylor still rooted for the Tennessee Volunteers at football games in Knoxville.
But by June 1967, when Taylor became an aviator, the Cobra was in the Army inventory and batches were being delivered to Vietnam. The same place Taylor found himself by August 1967.
The young lieutenant flew some of the first combat missions with the AH-1G Cobra. Eventually, he'd fly as many as 2,000 missions in both the Iroquois and Cobra. About 1,200 were combat missions. Taylor estimated that at least 1,000 of those combat flights involved supporting the long-range reconnaissance patrols. In 340 of those missions, he took enemy fire and was forced down five times, according to information provided by the Army.
By June 18, 1968, the war, which would continue for another seven years, was not going well. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had turned back the Tet Offensive earlier that year, but, as many historians now note, those events piled on an already dismal view of the war and paltry public support back home.
In May 1968, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and North Vietnamese leaders began peace talks. Johnson had already announced he would not seek reelection. That year alone nearly 17,000 U.S. troops would die in Vietnam.
But soldiers such as Taylor and Hill still had tours to complete and missions to accomplish.
Dark as an inkwell
When Taylor and his co-pilot approached Hill and his team's position south of Saigon, not a single light illuminated where they were. Taylor had to use radio direction-finding to somewhat gauge where the four-soldier team had hidden.
The team leader whispered on the radio microphone to avoid letting enemy troops know exactly where they lay.
"It was dark, there was nothing down there with a light on and I didn't think I was ever gonna find them," Taylor said in a recent phone interview.
Sgt. David Hill and his military working dog "Rex." Hill worked first as a dog handler while in Vietnam before joining the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol team. (Contributed)
Taylor radioed the team and said that he didn't want to start launching rockets without knowing their position. He told them that once he was directly over them they should say "now" in the radio and he would then fly on, circle back and come get them.
The tactical operations center tried to wave Taylor off. They said the team was trained to escape and evade. They could handle themselves.
"I told them there's no place for them to escape and evade to," Taylor said. "Please stay off my radio."
The chopper flew past, someone yelled over the rotor wash into the radio, "you're over us now."
Taylor told them to mark their position with flares, red star clusters popped in the night sky and what seemed like a wall of bullets began flying from both sides on the ground.
He knew where the team sat, he began firing rockets and ripping through 7.62mm ammunition from the Cobra's mini-gun.
Elsner fired his 5.56mm carbine, a shortened version of the standard issue M16.
Hill opened up with his Korea-era, .30 caliber M1 carbine which he'd sawed down the barrel for easier carry. The rear security man chose it because the .30 caliber rounds sounded like what their counterparts fired. If the team, which had been running patrols together since February, needed an indistinguishable, single-shot kill, they called up Hill with his M1.
Grenadier Spc. 4 William P. Cohn, or Billy, of Old Mystic, Connecticut, lugged the M79 grenade launcher, a specially made 18-round high explosive grenade carrier vest and a backup .45 caliber 1911 handgun.
Radio operator Cpl. Gerald Patty, of Marysville, Tennessee, fired off from his CAR-15.
Every team member carried an additional five extra 40mm grenades for Cohn's M79.
Sgt. David Hill in Vietnam carrying an M79 grenade launcher. (Contributed)
Each soldier had stepped off on that foot patrol with 650 rounds. The grenadier alone fired 75 grenades from his M79 launcher in the handful of minutes they'd repelled the onslaught from an unknown number of enemy troops in the night.
Within moments Taylor was out of rockets and machine gun ammo. The four-soldier team had fired all their ammunition. and had only a satchel full of fragmentation grenades and the trusty claymore antipersonnel mines. And their knives.
"We were all tapped out, we had nothing left," Hill said.
Taylor was out of ammo too, but not out of bluffs.
He told the ground team to reposition their claymores to the northeast and southeast. When they saw him begin his next run at the enemy, Taylor figured they'd think he would fire on them, distracting the enemy troops just enough.
"We're gonna blow a hole in that ring," Taylor said.
The lieutenant told the team to fire those claymores and then "run like hell" on a 135-degree azimuth, the opposite direction. "I'll be there, and I hope so are you."
Hill still had about a dozen grenades in his rucksack. He took rear security as the men skedaddled, lobbing a grenade every few seconds into inkwell night.
A new mission
Three decades later Hill and Taylor met at a unit reunion. The pair shared memories of that night and other escapades from before and after as the two had finished their tours a lifetime ago. A few of their comrades hadn't made it out of Vietnam alive. Others had or would succumb to the indignity of a car wreck, cancer and other quiet calamities.
It was at that 1999 reunion in Branson, Missouri when Hill learned that Taylor had received the third highest valor award available, the Silver Star Medal. But Hill knew how much that night meant, how daring, bold and, maybe a little crazy, things had been, and he knew what Taylor had done. This was something that never happened before and probably never will again. Others had received more prestigious awards for less.
Three of the surviving members from the June 18, 1968 rescue at a reunion in 1999. (Left to right) David Hill, Larry Taylor, Paul Elsner. (Contributed)
A few years later Hill retired from a career with the U.S. Department of Commerce. He moved from California to Nevada. He kept busy managing a golf course but had an itch.
The Silver Star Medal? It wasn't enough.
The former sergeant began a kind of bureaucratic trek to revisit the heroism of that fateful evening that saved his life.
He gathered documents, talked with politicians, researched websites and submitted a packet asking the Army to review the case. Hill hit hurdles and roadblocks that have stymied others for decades. The Army and most military branches are reluctant to second-guess the decisions of the commanders on the ground who recommend or approve valor award citations.
Part of the criteria involves evaluating whether what's being submitted in a review request was available to commanders at the time. Basically, did they have all the information, did the commanders know all of what happened?
After a few failed attempts, Hill met with retired Army Gen. B.B. Bell, a 39-year Army veteran who retired in 2008 after having led the United Nations Command in South Korea.
By The Numbers:
3,535 Medals of Honor awarded
268 for Vietnam
65 living Medal of Honor recipients
54 total Army aviators have received the Medal of Honor
12 Army aviators received the Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam
Source: The Army Aviation Museum; Congressional Medal of Honor Society
Bell retired to Signal Mountain, Tennessee where Taylor has lived now for decades.
The general asked questions that Hill hadn't yet considered — were any of the members of his four-soldier recon team interviewed following the June 18, 1968, rescue?
No.
The pair found the former Army officer who'd overseen awards and decorations for Taylor's unit in Vietnam. No, the officer confirmed they'd not interviewed the ground team.
Combat continued after that June night, getting witness statements and commanding officer approvals wasn't high on the priority list for a division engulfed in daily combat. But without that paperwork and those command approvals, only so much could be done.
Also complicating the decision process, nearly three weeks after the June mission on July 4, 1968, Taylor's commanding officer, Maj. Federick Terry, 31, died in a midair collision while responding to a call for help when a U.S. armored vehicle struck a landmine on a movement, injuring several soldiers.
Tragedy struck the unit again a few weeks later. On Sept. 12, 1968, LeMay, the co-pilot in the second helicopter on the June mission, died along with 1st Lt. William Henry Hanson, 31, Park Falls, Wisconsin, in a Cobra gunship crash while defending ground troops east of Quan Loi in Binh Long Province.
The next day, the division commander over Taylor's unit, Maj. Gen. Keith Lincoln Ware, who had received the Medal of Honor for his own actions in World War II, died in a helicopter crash near Cambodia.
Maj. Gen. Keith Ware in Vietnam. The general received the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II. He died in a helicopter crash near the Cambodian border on Sept. 12, 1968, months after the daring rescue made by Capt. Larry Taylor. (National Archives)
Armed with these new facts, Hill resubmitted his review request in 2021, for the third time.
Back on the battlefield that fateful night...
Empty on ammo, out of grenades and enveloped in a cacophony of explosions, rifle and machine gun fire, Hill and his team ran into a clearing as Taylor stomped on the left pedal and plopped his Cobra on the ground.
As they descended, Taylor's co-pilot asked, "what are we going to do with them?"
"I said, 'I don't know, I didn't think that far ahead,'" Taylor said.
The Cobra has no seating for passengers. It is a narrow fuselage aircraft with seats for a pilot and co-pilot, stacked atop each other. Its stubby wings and light frame hold weaponry — a minigun and rocket launchers — and two slender skids come between the aircraft and the ground.
"I didn't have to tell them to get on," Taylor said.
On June 18, 1968, Hill and Cohn straddled the rocket launchers like horses while Elsner and Patty hugged the skids.
"Which is exciting in the dark," Hill said.
They banged hard twice on the frame, that was technical military code for "haul ass."
Once airborne, Taylor knew that they couldn't fly these guys at 150 miles an hour back over Saigon and to Phu Loi Base where he was headquartered.
A photograph of a painting by Darren Hostetter depicting the ride that four soldiers took, clinging to an AH-1G Cobra to escape surrounding enemy soldiers on June 18, 1968. (Contributed)
At higher altitudes and speeds, the men would freeze and fall off the aircraft. So, he stayed as low as incoming fire would allow and dropped the quad at a nearby water plant where they radioed ahead so the team could link up with a friendly unit.
Hill remembers a glimpse of a vague profile outline of a helmeted Taylor through the plastic windshield.
They landed, the four men ran to the front of the aircraft so Taylor and his co-pilot could see them. The four saluted the men who'd saved their lives and then they were gone.
The memory halts Taylor's speech, sticking in his throat when he tells the story, even a lifetime later.
Recognition
On an early June morning, Taylor awakened to his ringing phone.
President Joe Biden told the old soldier that he'd "read his file."
The two talked for about 15 minutes, Taylor told local media outlets. He remembers telling the commander-in-chief, "I just did my job."
That's how, 55 years later, Taylor learned he would join an exclusive group, honoring the highest standards of combat valor in the U.S. military.
While the recognition is nice, bringing that team home alive proved the enduring reward for not only that half-hour mission but for the 2,000 or more missions he flew those many years ago so far from home.
"We never lost a man," Taylor said. "We lost some aircraft, but we never lost a man."
*This article drew information from the following sources: local media reports including the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press; the Chattanoogan; Cody (Wyo.) Enterprise; video published online of Gen. B.B. Bell speaking at The Walden Club; a media roundtable phone interview with Larry Taylor, David Hill and James Holden; A separate phone interview with David Hill; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund database; the Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs; whitehouse.gov; U.S. State Department; U.S. Department of Defense; honorstates.org; Google Earth; Freedom Sings Publishing; Pritzker Military Museum and Library; Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association.
About Todd South
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
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This Day in U S Military History
5 September
1863 – United States Foreign Minister to Great Britain, Charles Francis Adams, sends an angry letter to the British government warning that war between the two nations may erupt if it allows two powerful ironclad ships, designed to help the Confederates break the Union naval blockade, to set sail. In the early stages of the war, the British toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy. But Southern hopes of such support were dashed by the end of 1862, when President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation converted the war from one of reunification to a war to abolish slavery. British politicians would be hard pressed to explain to the British people why they were forming an alliance with a slave-holding nation. But in 1863 another thorn appeared in the side of Anglo-American relations. Throughout the war, Confederate agents in England acquired ships from British shipyards that were later used in the Confederate navy. This seemed to be in violation of Britain's own Neutrality Act of 1819, which forbade the building, equipping, or arming of warships to be used against any nation with which the British were at peace. During the American Civil War, the British argued that selling ships to the Confederates was not a violation of the law so long as they were not armed. So the Confederacy simply purchased the ships and then took them to another port before adding the armament. Confederate agent James Bulloch contracted the Laird Shipbuilding Company to construct two ironclads with large iron spikes attached to their prows in order to ram wooden Union blockade ships. In the summer of 1863, Union spies delivered the details of their construction to Adams, who then sent a series of angry and threatening letters warning the British of the consequences of allowing the ships to sail. On September 5, Adams concluded a letter to British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell with the words: "It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war." Adams became a hero in the United States, but the British government had already made the decision to hold the ships in England. A major foreign crisis was averted, and any glimmer of Confederate hope for British recognition vanished.
1877 – Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory. The battle, in which 265 members of the Seventh Cavalry, including Custer, were killed, was the worst defeat of the U.S. Army in its long history of warfare with the Native Americans. After the victory at Little Bighorn, U.S. Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles pursued Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffered from cold and starvation, and on May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook at the Red Cloud Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson, where he was killed in a scuffle with soldiers who were trying to imprison him in a cell.
1905 – The Russo-Japanese War comes to an end as representatives of the two nations sign the Treaty of Portsmouth in New Hampshire. Russia, defeated in the war, agreed to cede to Japan the island of Sakhalin and Russian port and rail rights in Manchuria. On February 8, 1904, following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launched a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent. In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Togo near the Tsushima Islands. These three major defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan's imperial designs for East Asia was hopeless, and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 1905. (He was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement.) Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. The Russian military's disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.
1975 – In Sacramento, California, an assassination attempt against President Gerald Ford is foiled when a Secret Service agent wrests a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson. Fromme was pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed it. Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him. Moore, a leftist radical who once served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a history of mental illness. She was arrested at the scene, convicted, and sentenced to life. In trial, Fromme pleaded not guilty to the "attempted assassination of a president" charge, arguing that although her gun contained bullets it had not been cocked, and therefore she had not actually intended to shoot the president. She was convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and sent to the Alderson Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia. Fromme remained a dedicated disciple of Charles Manson and in December 1987 escaped from the Alderson Prison after she heard that Manson, also imprisoned, had cancer. After 40 hours roaming the rugged West Virginia hills, she was caught on Christmas Day, about two miles from the prison. Five years were added to her life sentence for the escape.
1986 – Pan Am Flight 73, a Pan American World Airways Boeing 747-121, was hijacked while on the ground at Karachi, Pakistan, by four armed Palestinian men of the Abu Nidal Organization. The aircraft, with 360 passengers on board, had just arrived from Sahar International Airport in Mumbai, India, and was preparing to depart Jinnah International Airport in Karachi for Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, ultimately continuing on to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States. The motivation for the hijacking was to attack the Israeli defense ministry, using the aircraft as a missile, but the crew escaped while the hijackers were seizing the aircraft, making that impossible. The four hijackers were dressed as Karachi airport security guards and were armed with assault rifles, pistols, grenades, and plastic explosive belts. At about 06:00 a.m. local time, the hijackers drove a van that had been modified to look like an airport security vehicle through a security checkpoint up to one of the boarding stairways to Pan Am Flight 73. The hijackers stormed up the stairways into the plane, fired shots from an automatic weapon, and seized control of the aircraft. Flight attendants were able to alert the cockpit crew using intercom, allowing the pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer to flee through an overhead hatch in the cockpit. Flight attendants were ordered to collect the passports of all passengers. The flight attendants complied with this request,but during the collection of the passports, one stewardess, Neerja Bhanot, the senior flight purser, believed passengers with American passports would be singled out by the hijackers. She proceeded to hide some of the American passports under a seat, and dumped the rest down a trash chute. Twenty of the passengers were killed during the hijacking, of which 12 were from India and the rest were from United States, Pakistan and Mexico. All the hijackers were arrested and sentenced to death in Pakistan. However, the sentences were later commuted to life in prison against the wishes of India and the United States. Hijacker Zayd Hassan Abd al-Latif Safarini was captured by US authorities after his release from prison in Pakistan. He is serving his 160 year sentence at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Anotehr, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, was reported killed in a drone strike on January 9, 2010 in Pakistan. His death was never confirmed and he remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists and Rewards for Justice lists.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
MERLI, GINO J.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Sars la Bruyere, Belgium, 4-5 September 1944. Entered service at: Peckville, Pa. Birth: Scranton, Pa. G.O. No.: 64, 4 August 1945. Citation: He was serving as a machine gunner in the vicinity of Sars la Bruyere, Belgium, on the night of 4-5 1944, when his company was attacked by a superior German force Its position was overrun and he was surrounded when our troops were driven back by overwhelming numbers and firepower. Disregarding the fury of the enemy fire concentrated on him he maintained his position, covering the withdrawal of our riflemen and breaking the force of the enemy pressure. His assistant machine gunner was killed and the position captured; the other 8 members of the section were forced to surrender. Pfc. Merli slumped down beside the dead assistant gunner and feigned death. No sooner had the enemy group withdrawn then he was up and firing in all directions. Once more his position was taken and the captors found 2 apparently lifeless bodies. Throughout the night Pfc. Merli stayed at his weapon. By daybreak the enemy had suffered heavy losses, and as our troops launched an assault, asked for a truce. Our negotiating party, who accepted the German surrender, found Pfc. Merli still at his gun. On the battlefield lay 52 enemy dead, 19 of whom were directly in front of the gun. Pfc. Merli's gallantry and courage, and the losses and confusion that he caused the enemy, contributed materially to our victory .
*BENFOLD, EDWARD C.
Rank and organization: Hospital Corpsman Third Class, U.S. Navy, attached to a company in the 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Korea, 5 September 1952. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Born: 15 January 1931, Staten Island, N.Y. Citation: For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving in operations against enemy aggressor forces. When his company was subjected to heavy artillery and mortar barrages, followed by a determined assault during the hours of darkness by an enemy force estimated at battalion strength, HC3c. Benfold resolutely moved from position to position in the face of intense hostile fire, treating the wounded and lending words of encouragement. Leaving the protection of his sheltered position to treat the wounded when the platoon area in which he was working was attacked from both the front and rear, he moved forward to an exposed ridge line where he observed 2 marines in a large crater. As he approached the 2 men to determine their condition, an enemy soldier threw 2 grenades into the crater while 2 other enemy charged the position. Picking up a grenade in each hand, HC3c Benfold leaped out of the crater and hurled himself against the on-rushing hostile soldiers, pushing the grenades against their chests and killing both the attackers. Mortally wounded while carrying out this heroic act, HC3c. Benfold, by his great personal valor and resolute spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of almost certain death, was directly responsible for saving the lives of his 2 comrades. His exceptional courage reflects the highest credit upon himself and enhances the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for others.
*KAUFMAN, LOREN R.
Rank and organization: Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, Company G, 9th Infantry Regiment. Place and date: Near Yongsan, Korea, 4 and 5 September 1950. Entered service at: The Dalles, Oreg. Born: 27 July 1923, The Dalles, Oreg. G.O. No.: 61, 2 August 1951. Citation: Sfc. Kaufman distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. On the night of 4 September the company was in a defensive position on 2 adjoining hills. His platoon was occupying a strong point 2 miles away protecting the battalion flank. Early on 5 September the company was attacked by an enemy battalion and his platoon was ordered to reinforce the company. As his unit moved along a ridge it encountered a hostile encircling force. Sfc. Kaufman, running forward, bayoneted the lead scout and engaged the column in a rifle and grenade assault. His quick Vicious attack so surprised the enemy that they retreated in confusion. When his platoon joined the company he discovered that the enemy had taken commanding ground and pinned the company down in a draw. Without hesitation Sfc. Kaufman charged the enemy lines firing his rifle and throwing grenades. During the action, he bayoneted 2 enemy and seizing an unmanned machine gun, delivered deadly fire on the defenders. Following this encounter the company regrouped and resumed the attack. Leading the assault he reached the ridge, destroyed a hostile machine gun position, and routed the remaining enemy. Pursuing the hostile troops he bayoneted 2 more and then rushed a mortar position shooting the gunners. Remnants of the enemy fled to a village and Sfc. Kaufman led a patrol into the town, dispersed them, and burned the buildings. The dauntless courage and resolute intrepid leadership of Sfc. Kaufman were directly responsible for the success of his company in regaining its positions, reflecting distinct credit upon himself and upholding the esteemed traditions of the military service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for September 5, 2020 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
5 September
1923: Army bombing tests off Cape Hatteras, N.C., sank the condemned naval vessels New Jersey and Virginia by bombing.
1931: M. S. Boggs made the first solo blind landing using the Bureau of Air Commerce blind flying system.
1941: Nine B-17D Flying Fortresses began a mass transpacific flight from Hawaii to the Philippines. After flying through Midway, Wake, Port Moresby, and Darwin, Australia, the bombers landed at Clark Field, near Manila on 12 September. (21) (24)
1944: Capt William H. Allen of the 55th Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force, became an ace in one P-51 mission by scoring five aerial victories in just a few minutes. Flying with another ace, Capt William H. Lewis, Allen's flight encountered and shot down 16 German fighters. Between 3 and 11 September, the 55th shot down 106 enemy fighters to earn a Distinguished Unit Citation. (4)
1948: The Navy's Martin JRM Mars seaplane, the Caroline Mars, lifted 62,282 pounds, the heaviest payload to date, from Patuxent River to Cleveland, Ohio. (24)
1951: The USAF awarded a contract to Consolidated Vultee for the world's first atomic-powered plane. General Electric built the engine. (16)
1952: KOREAN WAR. In two daylight strikes, Far East Air Forces flew over 200 sorties against an ore and processing plant located northeast of Sinanju, damaging or destroying approximately 70 buildings and repair shops. (28)
1953: In a Piasecki YH-21 Workhorse, Capt Russell M. Dobyns set a 3-kilometer (1.86 miles) speed record of 146.743 MPH for helicopters at Dayton, Ohio.
1960: Lt Col T. H. Miller (USMC) piloted a McDonnell F4H-1 Phantom II at 1,216.77 MPH over a 500-kilometer (310 miles) course to set a new world's record. (24)
1968: President Johnson ended the Advisory Committee on Supersonic Transport, which had been set up on 1 April 1964.
1983: MACKAY TROPHY. Capt Robert J. Goodman and his KC-135 crewmembers (Capt Michael R. Clover, 1Lt Karol R. Wojcikoski and SSgt Douglas D. Simmons) from Loring AFB, Maine, refueled a group of F-4Es crossing the North Atlantic. When an F-4 lost power in an engine and diverted to Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, 500 miles away, Goodman took up escort duty. Later, the F-4 pilot shut down that engine and reduced power in the other, which forced him to lose altitude, airspeed, and jettison his centerline tank. Through four, interrupted refuelings and extreme peril as the fighter dropped to 2,000 feet, the KC-135 towed or escorted the fighter to Gander. For this meritorious flight, Goodman and his crew received the Mackay Trophy. (1) (18)
1984: The Space Shuttle Discovery completed its first flight (STS-41-D) with a landing at Edwards AFB, Calif. During 27 years of service, it launched and landed 39 times, logged more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date. Discovery became the third operational orbiter to enter service. It embarked on its final mission, STS-133, on February 24, 2011, and touched down for the last time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9, having spent a cumulative total of nearly a full year in space. Discovery performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions, and also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. The shuttle is now on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
1986: A C-141 Starlifter from United States Air Forces in Europe flew Americans injured during a hijacking at Karachi Airport, Pakistan, to Frankfurt, Germany, for medical treatment. (16) (26)
1984: The Discovery Space Shuttle completed its first flight with a landing at Edwards AFB, Calif. (3)
1996: HURRICANE FRAN. C-130s from the 145th Airlift Wing airlifted engineers, security police, generators, mobile kitchens, and showers to the Raleigh and Wilmington, N. C. (26)
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