To All
Good Tuesday morning June 16 Same weather different day. The clouds are clearing and heating up to 80 by 1
A bit behind this morning. Workers in the back yard and the plate is full.
Classes went well last night and many boards were broken by hands and feet.
Warm regards,
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HAGD
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Go here to see the director’s corner for all 97 H-Grams
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/
June 16
1943 At Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, Japanese aircraft conduct the largest raid since April 7. Although a large number of enemy planes are shot down, LST-340 and USS Celeno (AK-76) are damaged.
1953 During the Korean War, USS Princeton (CVS 37) launches 184 sorties against enemy front-line positions, a new record for offensive sorties flown from a carrier during the Korean War in a single day.
1959 A P4M "Mercator" is fired on by two North Korean MiG aircraft while on a routine flight over international waters off Korea. The attack wounds one crewman and damages the plane, forcing an emergency landing at Miho, Japan.
1965 The U.S. Navy schedules the reactivation of USS Repose (AH 16), which is the first hospital ship active for the Vietnam War.
1990 USS Monterey (CG 61) is commissioned at Mayport, Fla. The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser is named for the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican-American War in 1846.
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Today in World History June 16
455... Rome is sacked by the Vandal army.
1815... Napoleon defeats the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny.
1858... Abraham Lincoln, in accepting the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, declares that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
1864... The siege of Petersburg and Richmond begins after a moonlight skirmish.
1907... The Russian czar dissolves the Duma in St. Petersburg.
1910... The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.
1925... France accepts a German proposal for a security pact.
1932... The ban on Nazi storm troopers is lifted by the von Papen government in Germany.
1935... President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legislation is passed by the House of Representatives.
1940... French Chief of State, Henri Petain asks for an armistice with Germany.
1952... Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl is published in the United States.
1955... The U.S. House of Representatives votes to extend Selective Service until 1959.
1961... Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union while in Paris.
1971... An El Greco sketch, "The Immaculate Conception," stolen in Spain 35 years earlier, is recovered in New York City by the FBI.
1977... Leonid Brezhnev is named president of the Soviet Union.
One more
On June 16, 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters around the country.
Coney Island, a name believed to have come from the Dutch Konijn Eilandt, or Rabbit Island, is a tract of land along the Atlantic Ocean discovered by explorer Henry Hudson in 1609. The first hotel opened at Coney Island in 1829 and by the post-Civil War years, the area was an established resort with theaters, restaurants and a race track. Between 1897 and 1904, three amusement parks sprang up at Coney Island–Dreamland, Luna Park and Steeplechase. By the 1920s, Coney Island was reachable by subway and summer crowds of a million people a day flocked there for rides, games, sideshows, the beach and the two-and-a-half-mile boardwalk, completed in 1923.
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Thanks to History Facts
There’s a Russian proverb that speaks to the country’s love affair with a certain spirit: “Vodka is our enemy, so we’ll utterly consume it.” Russia and vodka are almost synonymous with each other, for better or, sometimes, worse. The problems associated with overconsumption have been known to Russia’s leaders for a long time — so long, in fact, that Tsar Nicholas II announced his intention to ban the liquor on September 28, 1914, in a telegram that read simply, “I have already decided to abolish forever the government sale of vodka in Russia.” He did so at considerable financial risk, as the government’s centuries-old vodka monopoly was responsible for a third of its revenue, but he felt it was important that the treasury was no longer “dependent on the ruination of the spiritual and economic forces of the majority of My faithful subjects.”
The tsar’s motivations weren’t purely altruistic, however. Russia’s 1905 loss in the Russo-Japanese War was attributed in part to soldiers’ drunkenness, and Nicholas II didn’t want to see a repeat of that in the looming conflict we now know as World War I. It didn’t work: Vodka prohibition stunted the country’s finances, infrastructure, and morale at a time when all three were of the utmost importance, and Russia was defeated in WWI as well. The prohibition law was repealed following the ascendance of Joseph Stalin, who reinstated the government monopoly in 1925.
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This is a great read…skip
A very perceptive article from Feldman, a “female Victor Davis Hanson”!
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/peering_through_the_fog_of_war.html
June 15, 2025
Peering Through the Fog of War
By Clarice Feldman
In wartime, it’s particularly difficult to ascertain what’s happening. Governments have a natural and healthy instinct to hide from public eyes what is going on, even those fully democratic ones that in peace have some constraints on official censorship. Nevertheless, the fact that so many people around the world have video-capable mobile phones and access to the internet makes it harder to hide what is happening.
All week long I’ve been looking at these videos, reading official IDF reports and statements by leaders of involved countries, and they show that Stacey McCain and Lee Smith, whose takes I link to below, are in full accord with what I’ve seen. The Israelis pulled off the most astonishing, most brilliant offensive in modern military history; the President orchestrated a genius misdirection allowing the Israelis to cap off 20 years preparation for this attack; Iran’s regime is on its back feet from which it will not recover; Israel has saved the world with the assistance of a number of Arab countries and the U.S.; Britain under Keir Starmer has earned the disregard of the western world and was prudently left entirely out of advance knowledge of the attacks. Obama and Biden’s loony foreign policy gave the mullahs an almost two-decade opportunity to build their nuclear capacity, which Israel, with Trump’s assistance, has destroyed. Finally, the war will continue for about a week or two, but I, at least, have no doubt about the outcome -- the end of the Mullahcracy.
Misdirection
Ido Hilbany wrote of the brilliant misdirection campaign Trump orchestrated with Netanyahu, which allowed Israel to get into position if, as was certain, the mullahs would dither in negotiations to end their nuclear enrichment program.
THE ART OF THE MISDIRECT:
I know some people are so broken they will never be able to muster a compliment for Trump, but the level of misdirection and coordination with Israel on this Iran attack was brilliant. Trump used his public platforms to lull Iran into complacency while privately coordinating with Israel. Trump and Netanyahu went so far as to meet privately this week to finalize things while publicly both leaking that Trump was urging restraint.
The problem here for the press corps is that so many of them hate Trump so much, they cannot nuance the cleverness of this. They must either approach it as Trump is a failure who even Israel does not respect or Trump is a liar who lied to everyone to get Iran.
The reality is everyone honest knows Iran has always been the liar, claiming it had no nuclear ambitions even as it plotted a bomb. The Obama/Biden policies helped Iran, which embedded agents within the Biden Administration. And Trump has turned the tables on it all, including probably taking advantage of Iran’s embedded agents to amplify his misdirection.
And now Iran has been set back significantly and the world is safer today.
But scream about Orange Man Bad if you must. The press corps that does not deal with the truth of what happened is just going to further discredit itself. They couldn’t detect Biden’s decline and cannot accept Trump’s calculated misdirection.
It’s amazing what allies can accomplish when they actually act like allies.
He played a straight course between those in his party who wanted the U.S. to militarily intervene and those who said we should have nothing to do with this. He let Steve Witkoff play at allowing the Iranian regime to do its usual dithering while he said on April 11 that they had 60 days to end the enhancement program. Doubtless, they thought they were dealing with the Obama/Biden-type vanishing red line. They weren’t. On the 61st day, Israel struck.
Lee Smith has been a longtime critic of America’s Middle East policies. This week, he thinks Trump finally got it right:
At last, an American president kept his word. He was very clear about it even before his second term started: Iran can’t have a bomb. Trump wanted it to go peacefully, but he warned that if the Iranians didn’t agree to dismantle their program entirely, they’d be bombed. Maybe Israel would do it, maybe the United States, maybe both, but in any case, they’d be bombed. Trump gave them 60 days to decide, and on day 61, Israel unleashed Operation Rising Lion.
Until this morning, when Trump posted on Truth Social to take credit for the raid, there was some confusion about the administration’s involvement. As the operation began, Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a statement claiming that it was solely an Israeli show without any American participation. But even if details about intelligence sharing and other aspects of Israeli-U.S. coordination were hazy, the statement was obviously misleading: The entire operation was keyed to Trump. Without him, the attack wouldn’t have happened as it did, or maybe not at all.
Trump spent two months neutralizing the Iranians without them realizing he was drawing them into the briar patch. Iranian diplomats pride themselves on their negotiating skills. Generations of U.S. diplomats have marveled at the Iranians’ ability to wipe the floor with them: It’s a cultural thing -- ever try to bargain with a carpet merchant in Tehran? And Trump also praised them repeatedly for their talents -- very good negotiators! The Iranians were in their sweet spot and must have imagined they could negotiate until Trump gave in to their demands or left office. But Trump was the trickster. He tied them down for two months, time that he gave to the Israelis to make sure they had everything in order.
Has Operation Rising Lion enhanced America’s peace? If it ends Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, the answer is absolutely yes. When American partners advance U.S. interests, it adds luster to American glory.
There’s already lots of talk about Trump’s deception campaign, and in the days and weeks to come, we’ll have more insight into which statements were real and which were faked and which journalists were used, without them knowing it, to print fake news to ensure the operation’s success. One Tablet colleague says it’s the most impressive operational feint since the Normandy invasion. [snip] It’s now clear that the insanely dense communications environment -- including foreign actors like the Iranians themselves, anti-Bibi Israeli journalists, the Gulf states, and the Europeans -- served the purpose of the deception campaign. But most significant was the domestic component. Did the Iranians believe reports that the pro-Israel camp was losing influence with Trump and that the “restraintists” were on the rise? Did Iran lobbyist Trita Parsi tell officials in Tehran that his colleagues from the Quincy Institute and other Koch-funded policy experts who were working in the administration had it in the bag? Don’t worry about the neocons -- my guys are steering things in a good way. It seems that, like the Iranians, the Koch network got caught in its own echo chamber.
The Brilliant Israeli Military Campaign
Stacy McCain described what I saw: a brilliant military campaign by Israel. He compared what we saw to Michael Corleone’s elimination of rival Mafia heads.
Can you imagine the kind of long-term surveillance and planning that went into this operation? Like, figuring out where the Iranian air force leaders would meet in an emergency, mapping out the location of that bunker, giving them some kind of signal of an impending attack, then watching them scurry to their bunker and -- WHAM! -- you took out the leadership at the outset of the campaign, so “that there was nobody to give the order” for the Iranian counter-attack. Meanwhile, you’ve got Mossad spies sneaking around all over Iran, ready to play their part in wrecking the enemy’s air defenses, so that the Israeli Air Force can fly in without danger of getting shot down.
One standard deviation -- it’s a lethal advantage.
He detailed some of the campaign:
As it became clear Israel was about to attack, the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ air force convened in a bunker to coordinate the response.
But Israel knew that emergency protocol, and the location of the bunker. They destroyed it, killing the overall commander and the heads of the drone and air defense forces. “The fact that there was nobody to give the order neutralized an immediate Iranian response,” an Israeli official said.
They were among the more than two dozen Iranian commanders targeted in a sprawling attack on Iran’s military command-and-control. The heads of the IRGC, the Iranian military, and Iran’s emergency military headquarters were all eliminated in the opening salvo.
Another key target was Iran’s air defense systems and radars. Israeli intelligence mapped their locations, and most were hit by the Israeli Air Force in the opening strike. That gave the IDF virtually unchallenged freedom of operation in Iran’s skies.
Meanwhile on the ground, Israel’s Mossad spy agency was conducting a series of covert sabotage operations deep inside Iran to take out air defenses and ballistic missile launchers...
In central Iran, Mossad commando units had positioned guided weapons systems in open areas near Iranian surface-to-air missile launchers.
In another area inside Iran, Mossad covertly deployed weapon systems and sophisticated technologies hidden in vehicles. When the Israeli attack began, these weapons were launched and destroyed Iranian air defense targets.
Iran Stood Alone
It helps that Iran really has no friends that matter.
The coordination went deeper, though. While it is unlikely that Arab nations in the region knew the time and scope of Israeli attacks, they were all prepared to help Israel beat back any Iranian counterstrike, and they did. While many of them are making noises about how unhappy they are regarding the Israeli attacks on Iran, they are also helping Israel defend itself against retaliation.
So far, around 100 Iranian drones have been launched against Israel, and none have hit anything important.
If your knowledge of the Middle East comes from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or one of many loony U.S. universities, you may be astonished to realize how hated Iran’s regime is.
“Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates allowed Israel to use their airspace and/or defended Israel against Iranian drone attacks last night. That also suggests Russia was likely OK with the Israeli strike and China at least knew about it.” Apparently, left in the dark was onetime ally Great Britain.
One of the architects of Obama’s disastrous policy on Iran reared his head, Ben Rhodes. The Great Iowahawk (David Burge) shot it off:
@Iowahawkblog
“No matter how absurd and lunatic the White House inner circle is right now, it will never top assigning a failed creative writing grad student and campaign van drivers [sic] -- to concoct a strategy of appeasing Iran with a billion dollar airdrop of $100 bills.”
Iowahawk did, however, find some joy in this because some of this money went to Hezb’allah and was used by them to buy pagers which the Israelis had tricked out to blow up their private parts.
By week’s end, numbers of Europeans who share a never-ending delusion that the Middle East is just like us marched, drove, and flew to Egypt expecting to be allowed to breach the border into Gaza to stand with Hamas. They were beaten up by Egyptian police and civilians and tossed out bodily, left in shock and tears. You must see this video of one of them on his knees to a group of Egyptians enforcing the border with Gaza as they roll their eyes at his stupid entreaty that all Islamic believers should stick together.
Israel now so completely controls the skies over Iran that, reportedly, it is refueling over Tehran. The IRGC is so weakened that its officers are not reporting and are being threatened with treason for not showing up. Elon Musk has activated Starlink over Iran so that civilians can more easily transmit outside the country after what’s left of the government shut down internet access. I’ve seen videos of Iranians dancing in the streets, apparently no longer fearful of recriminations. Finally, there are reports of private airplanes ferrying out what’s left of the regime elsewhere, perhaps to Russia, where they can play backgammon with Assad, who also fled there from Syria earlier.
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My favorite Tiger story is the one that makes it into the list every year or so. The tiger was raised by some special ops guys in Vietnam and they used him to make VC tell them where his buddies were. They put the VC in a chair and put a bag over his head then pulled the hood off and there was the tiger sitting in front of him. They had trained him to open his jaws wide and roar on que. The VC always talked…skip
From the archives
Thanks to Newell and Cowboy for finding this info
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOI4FYI3FMs
BUBBA, The Asian Tiger Cub
(As told by a Special Operations (SOG) soldier,
Circa 1968)
We got him in Laos back in 1968 after his mom tramped on a land mine. He was only two days old, but I had him in my jungle jacket wrapped in a towel, and when we were extracted from that mission, we fed him milk and raised him as if one of us. He did well because he got much larger than the average Asian Tiger.
His weakness was beer (He had two cans a day.) which he slurped down, went to a corner of the hooch, rolled on his back, showed his junk, and snored like it was his last day on earth!
If the Bubster wanted to get in your bunk with you, you just rolled over and dealt with it. It's such a shame so many tigers were killed over there, because most were killed for sport and not in human defense. When our team cycled out-of-theater the question was what the hell do with Bubba? He couldn't survive in the wild because he only knew of life with us, the SOG, SF, Seals etc.
Here is where we got creative. We had access to things normal military didn't. So we got creative, and a phone call went to a research zoo in Sidney, Australia, and they were asked if they wanted a free young Asian Tiger. When the lady at the other end realized we were for real, she pissed her pants and said yes, but how do we get him?
I don't want to reference Air America, but we flew the Bubster to his new home, and I got off the airplane with him walking beside me like a dog on a leash. They all went nuts when he walked up to the lady and heeled by her side looking at her for instructions.
He must have had a very good time and life there because he sired tons of babies. When I was back in Sidney in ’87, I saw a bronze plaque telling about the SF Asian Tiger that came to them in 1969 and had sired lots of great baby tigers. That part of my life is gone like Bubba, who lived to '85, but every time I hear a Tiger make those special noises of theirs, my head and heart go back to a tiny baby tiger we found in Laos in 1968. God, I miss him!
BTW, Bubba never lived in a cage. He was always shown love from a bunch of very dangerous men whose hearts had melted when they found him. To discipline him you grabbed a handful of hair and flesh on his shoulder and simply said no. He never retaliated; he just complied. When I said he never lived in a cage, the decision about the zoo where he ended up was a research zoo that was very excited [to have him] because of gene diversity. It also had the new concept of no animals in cages. People were the ones in cages or behind glass.
It took a bit for him to get back to being a tiger, but after he figured out the male female thing, nature took its course. He was off to the races and made a ton of tiger babies, who were shared with zoos around the world. God Bless! To my knowledge Bubba became the only SF Asian Tiger in the history books.
An interesting side note is that SF and MAC V were in many ways involved with the CIA. The coats and ties back in Langley, VA couldn't understand how our intel-gathering always proved to be so accurate.
Short Explanation: Picture an NVA prisoner strapped into a chair and being questioned. Also picture the prisoner telling us in multiple languages to go F**K ourselves. So, a hood goes back on his head, and the prisoner was told to spill the beans, or we were going to feed him to our tiger. They all laughed their asses off and said we were crazy. Enter the Bubster. We placed his head about two feet in front of the prisoner. We pull the hood off the NVA prisoner, and at the same time I would pinch the back of Bubbas neck. He roared in the dink’s face with his extremely nasty tiger breath. The prisoner pissed his pants or worse, then he sang like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
God, I miss that stuff. BTW, our intel-gathering proved so accurate that the pencil-necks were constantly amazed. But those rear-echelon-pogues never found out why!
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Christopher Lee
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2015/06/fullbore-friday_12.html
Fullbore Friday
Sometimes we forget that we are surrounded by those who served.
We hear plenty about those who did not serve, but claim they had for psychological, monetary, or professional gain - but we often miss the order of magnitude more that served yet go about their lives more or less keeping it to themselves.
Service was part of what make them what they are, but does not define them. Most had standardesque service, some exceptional - but most do keep it to themselves unless it comes out in context of a conversation.
A perfect example is the man who, after a great and full life, recently passed on to his reward; Sir Christopher Lee.
Let's go to BadAssOfTheWeek for the right vibe:
He's also a 6'5" tall world champion fencer, speaks six languages, does all of his own stunts, has participated in more on-screen sword fights than any actor in history, served for five years defending democracy from global fascism as a British Commando blowing the shit out of Nazi asses in World War II, and became the oldest person to ever record lead vocals on a heavy metal track when, at the age of 88, he wrote, performed on, and released a progressive symphonic power metal EP about the life of Charlemagne ...
...
Christopher Lee was born somewhere in England in 1922. His mother was an Italian Countess who was actually descended from the line of Charlemagne, and she was so important that she was allowed to wear the royal seal of Frederich Barbarossa and so MILF-y she had her portrait painted by something like a half-dozen famous Italian artists. One of Lee's ancestors on that side was the Papal Secretary of State who refused to attend the coronation of Napoleon and is buried in the Pantheon in Rome next to Raphael (the painter not the ninja turtle), which seems like kind of a big deal. Lee's father, meanwhile, was a distant relative of Robert E. Lee and was multi-decorated war hero who'd served as a Colonel in the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps during World War I and the Boer War. Growing up, Lee studied Classics at Wellington College, where he was also a champion squash player, a ridiculously-badass fencer, and spent his spare time playing on the school hockey and rugby.
...
... in 1939 when Christopher Lee quit his day job, caught a boat to Finland, and decided to enlist in the Finnish Army to help them fight off the Soviet invasion of Finland. Lee got geared up to kick some commie asses up and down the frozen wastes of mid-Winter Finland, but didn't see much action, returning home in 1940 to deal with a much bigger and more England-centric problem: Nazis.
Christopher Lee enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1940, where he worked as an intelligence officer specializing in cracking German ciphers ... In North Africa he was attached to the Long Range Desert Patrol, the forerunner of the SAS, ... After working with the LRDP, Lee was assigned to the Special Operations Executive – better known as Winston Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – a group that did shit like lead a twelve-man assault that destroyed the German top secret nuclear weapons development facility in Norway and assist brave Eastern European partisans and rebels sabotage Nazi supply lines to prevent them from bringing reinforcements up to fight the Soviets. ... Lee doesn't talk much about his service (when pressed on the subject, he reportedly asks his interviewer, "Can you keep a secret?". When they excitedly say yes, he leans in close and says, "So can I."), but we do know that by the time he retired as a Flight Lieutenant in 1945 he'd been personally decorated for battlefield bravery by the Czech, Yugoslavian, English, and Polish governments and was good friends with Josip Broz Tito, so draw your own conclusions.
Well played, sir. Well played and well done.
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June 16
Hello All,
Thanks to Dan Heller and the Bear
Links to all content can now be found right on the homepage http://www.rollingthunderremembered.com. If you scroll down from the banner and featured content you will find "Today in Rolling Thunder Remembered History" which highlights events in the Vietnam war that occurred on the date the page is visited. Below that are links to browse or search all content. You may search by keyword(s), date, or date range.
An item of importance is the recent incorporation of Task Force Omega (TFO) MIA summaries. There is a link on the homepage and you can also visit directly via https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/task-force-omega/. There are 60 summaries posted thus far, with about 940 to go (not a typo—TFO has over 1,000 individual case files).
If you have any questions or comments about RTR/TFO, or have a question on my book, you may e-mail me directly at acrossthewing@protonmail.com. Thank you Dan
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url elow and get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft. ……Skip
Thjs one was close to home as the pilot Paul Ringwood ‘Worm”was my roommate on the USS Midway and a long time friend and best man at my wedding and godfather to my son who has been in a really bad place for the last couple of months can not be mentioned and we had been the first two to fly aboard the ship when it left for Vietnam on very short notice.( about 70 hours). The tasking for this run was a road railroad Recce from Than Hua to Vinh We hit the middle and he went north and I went south. We have pictures from his escort showing the rear of his aircraft in flames. He was accused of walking on water to get into his raft because he saw sharks where he was going to land,
June 16: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=2916
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear’s Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip
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
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend . The site works, find anyone you knew in “search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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This Day in U S Military History…….June 16
1944 – US battleships, under the command of Admiral Ainsworth, shell Guam. The invasion of the island is deferred, however, because of the approach of the Japanese fleet. On Saipan, the elements of US 5th Amphibious Corps link the two beachheads by capturing Charan Karoa and Afetna Point. There is substantial use of artillery by the Japanese and American counter battery fire in addition to the infantry combat.
1944 – Admiral Clark leads two groups of US carrier forces raiding Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima. The Japanese fleets link up and refuel. US patrols make two sightings.
1945 – On Okinawa, Mount Yuza is captured by the US 381st Infantry Regiment. Fighting continues on the south of the island. At sea, the Japanese air offensive against American ships slackens, but the Japanese still sink 1 destroyer and damage 1 escort carrier.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
GREGG, JOSEPH O.
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 133d Ohio Infantry. Place and date: Near the Richmond & Petersburg Ry., Va., 16 June 1864. Entered service at: ——. Born: 5 January 1841, Circleville, Ohio. Date of issue: 13 May 1899. Citation: Voluntarily returned to the breastworks which his regiment had been forced to abandon to notify 3 missing companies that the regiment was falling back; found the enemy already in the works, refused a demand to surrender, returning to his command under a concentrated fire, several bullets passing through his hat and clothing.
JACKSON, FREDERICK R.
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company F, 7th Connecticut Infantry. Place and date: At James Island, S.C., 16 June 1862. Entered service at: New Haven, Conn. Birth: New Haven, Conn. Date of issue: 1863. Citation: Having his left arm shot away in a charge on the enemy, he continued on duty, taking part in a second and a third charge until he fell exhausted from the loss of blood.
LEWIS, DEWITT CLINTON
Rank and organization: Captain, Company F, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Secessionville, S.C., 16 June 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: West Chester, Pa. Date of issue: 23 April 1896. Citation: While retiring with his men before a heavy fire of can1ster shot at short range, returned in the face of the enemy’s fire and rescued an exhausted private of his company who but for this timely action would have lost his life by drowning in the morass through which the troops were retiring.
*McCARD, ROBERT HOWARD
Rank and organization: Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 25 November 1918, Syracuse, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as platoon sergeant of Company A, 4th Tank Battalion, 4th Marine Division, during the battle for enemy Japanese-held Saipan, Marianas Islands, on 16 June 1944. Cut off from the other units of his platoon when his tank was put out of action by a battery of enemy 77mm. guns, G/Sgt. McCard carried on resolutely, bringing all the tank’s weapons to bear on the enemy, until the severity of hostile fire caused him to order his crew out of the escape hatch while he courageously exposed himself to enemy guns by hurling hand grenades, in order to cover the evacuation of his men. Seriously wounded during this action and with his supply of grenades exhausted, G/Sgt. McCard then dismantled one of the tank’s machineguns and faced the Japanese for the second time to deliver vigorous fire into their positions, destroying 16 of the enemy but sacrificing himself to insure the safety of his crew. His valiant fighting spirit and supreme loyalty in the face of almost certain death reflect the highest credit upon G/Sgt. McCard and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
*SARNOSKI, JOSEPH R. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 43rd Bomber Group, Place and date: Over Buka Area, Solomon Islands, 16 June 1943. Entered service at: Simpson, Pa. Born. 30 January 1915, Simpson, Pa. G.O. No.: 85, 17 December 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty. On 16 June 1943, 2d Lt. Sarnoski volunteered as bombardier of a crew on an important photographic mapping mission covering the heavily defended Buka area, Solomon Islands. When the mission was nearly completed, about 20 enemy fighters intercepted. At the nose guns, 2d Lt. Sarnoski fought off the first attackers, making it possible for the pilot to finish the plotted course. When a coordinated frontal attack by the enemy extensively damaged his bomber, and seriously injured 5 of the crew, 2d Lt. Sarnoski, though wounded, continued firing and shot down 2 enemy planes. A 20-millimeter shell which burst in the nose of the bomber knocked him into the catwalk under the cockpit. With indomitable fighting spirit, he crawled back to his post and kept on firing until he collapsed on his guns. 2d Lt. Sarnoski by resolute defense of his aircraft at the price of his life, made possible the completion of a vitally important mission.
The action below was known as the 4 motored dogfight and has been in the list before.
ZEAMER, JAY JR. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Army Air Corps. Place and date: Over Buka area, Solomon Islands, 16 June 1943. Entered service at: Machias, Maine. Birth: Carlisle, Pa. G.O. No.: 1, 4 January 1944. Citation: On 16 June 1943, Maj. Zeamer (then Capt.) volunteered as pilot of a bomber on an important photographic mapping mission covering the formidably defended area in the vicinity of Buka, Solomon Islands. While photographing the Buka airdrome. his crew observed about 20 enemy fighters on the field, many of them taking off. Despite the certainty of a dangerous attack by this strong force, Maj. Zeamer proceeded with his mapping run, even after the enemy attack began. In the ensuing engagement, Maj. Zeamer sustained gunshot wounds in both arms and legs, 1 leg being broken. Despite his injuries, he maneuvered the damaged plane so skillfully that his gunners were able to fight off the enemy during a running fight which lasted 40 minutes. The crew destroyed at least 5 hostile planes, of which Maj. Zeamer himself shot down 1. Although weak from loss of blood, he refused medical aid until the enemy had broken combat. He then turned over the controls, but continued to exercise command despite lapses into unconsciousness, and directed the flight to a base 580 miles away. In this voluntary action, Maj. Zeamer, with superb skill, resolution, and courage, accomplished a mission of great value.
HOWARD, JIMMIE E.
Rank and organization: Gunnery Sergeant (then S/Sgt.) U.S. Marine Corps, Company C, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 16 June 1966. Entered service at: Burlington, Iowa. Born: 27 July 1929, Burlington, Iowa. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty. G/Sgt. Howard and his 18-man platoon were occupying an observation post deep within enemy-controlled territory. Shortly after midnight a Viet Cong force of estimated battalion size approached the marines’ position and launched a vicious attack with small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire. Reacting swiftly and fearlessly in the face of the overwhelming odds, G/Sgt. Howard skillfully organized his small but determined force into a tight perimeter defense and calmly moved from position to position to direct his men’s fire. Throughout the night, during assault after assault, his courageous example and firm leadership inspired and motivated his men to withstand the unrelenting fury of the hostile fire in the seemingly hopeless situation. He constantly shouted encouragement to his men and exhibited imagination and resourcefulness in directing their return fire. When fragments of an exploding enemy grenade wounded him severely and prevented him from moving his legs, he distributed his ammunition to the remaining members of his platoon and proceeded to maintain radio communications and direct air strikes on the enemy with uncanny accuracy. At dawn, despite the fact that 5 men were killed and all but 1 wounded, his beleaguered platoon was still in command of its position. When evacuation helicopters approached his position, G/Sgt. Howard warned them away and called for additional air strikes and directed devastating small-arms fire and air strikes against enemy automatic weapons positions in order to make the landing zone as secure as possible. Through his extraordinary courage and resolute fighting spirit, G/Sgt. Howard was largely responsible for preventing the loss of his entire platoon. His valiant leadership and courageous fighting spirit served to inspire the men of his platoon to heroic endeavor in the face of overwhelming odds, and reflect the highest credit upon G/Sgt. Howard, the Marine Corps, and the U.S. Naval Service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for June 16, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD “PHIL” MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
16 June
1922: Lt Clayton Bissell initiated night cross-country flights from Bolling Field to Langley Field and back. (18) (24) Henry Adler Berliner made the first US helicopter flight of importance at College Park before representatives of the US Bureau of Aeronautics. (24)
1928: Successful tests made at Wright Field of superchargers designed to give sea level pressure at 30,000 feet, and a new liquid oxygen system for high altitude flying. (24)
1936: Seversky Aircraft Company received a contract to build P-35s for the Army. It was the Army’s first single-seat fighter with a closed cockpit and retractable landing gear. (21)
1941: Consolidated’s B-24 Liberator entered the Air Corps inventory. It flew faster and farther than the B-17. Eventually, more than 18,000 B-24s entered the inventory. (21)
1945: FIRST HELICOPTER MEDEVAC MISSION. Through 29 June, R-4Bs and R-6As of the 5th and 6th Aircraft Repair Units (Floating) evacuated 70 wounded soldiers from frontlines on Luzon, Philippines.
1953: North American delivered its 1000th T-28 Trojan to the Air Force. (20)
1959: The first F-105s arrived at Seymour Johnson AFB.
1961: Using simultaneous dynamite blasts, General Robert Lee of Air Defense Command and General Laurence Kuter of North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) symbolically broke ground on NORAD’s new Combat Operations Center inside Cheyenne Mountain outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The new facility would host multiple space command and control centers over the years including the Space Defense Operations and the Space Surveillance Centers.
1965: AFSC directed its Aeronautical Systems Division to begin the prerequisite studies for the F-X fighter. (30)
1966: In the first Titan III-C launch from the Eastern Test Range, the USAF placed seven Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP) repeaters and one gravity-gradient satellite into a random, near synchronous, equatorial orbit. This formed the nucleus of a world-wide military communications system that would have 15 other satellites. (26)
1971: The USAF and NASA signed an agreement to conduct joint Transonic Aircraft Technology (TACT) Program to explore application of supercritical wing technology to highly maneuverable advanced aircraft. The F-111 became the test bed aircraft. Operation BONNY JACK. Through 18 July, four C-130s from Pope AFB flew 308 sorties to support the humanitarian airlift of East Pakistani refugees from the Indian border state of Tripura to resettlement areas in Gauhati further inland. On return flights, the C-130s carried more than 1,750 tons of rice to feed refugees remaining in Tripura. On the deployment from the CONUS, the aircraft delivered one million doses of anti-Cholera vaccine to India. (16) (26)
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