This Day in US Military History (28 (29) February)

[RTO Trainer]

February 28 (29) . . .

1610 - The Virginia Company takes further steps to instituting
absolutist rule when it appoints Thomas West, Lord Delaware, as the
first lord-governor and captain-general of the Virginia colony. The
broad political and military powers granted to Lord Delaware reflect
the growing English concern with placing the colony on a sound footing
in terms of both political and economic organization.

(1704) - Native Americans and French attacked Deerfield, Mass.,
approximately forty-eight were killed in the attack. Thirty-nine were
residents and nine were soldiers. Between 109-112 people were taken
captive and force-marched to Canada. Approximately 140 remained alive
in Deerfield. Seventeen houses with barns were burned, nine houses
inside the stockade remained standing, and fifteen houses outside the
stockade remained standing. The events of that day were influenced by
the season and the time at which the attack occurred. Snow cover and
the predawn hour made it possible for the attackers to breach the
stockade quietly and surprise the villagers.

1786 - In answer to the November 30, 1785 demand of John Adams, the
British respond that they will not vacate their American military
garrisons along the northwest frontier-including Detroit,
Michilimackinac, Niagra, and Oswego-until the Americans carry out the
provisions of the Treaty of Paris with regard to the treatment of
Loyalists and the collection of debts.

(1796) - President Washington proclaimed Jay's Treaty, concluded in
1794 between the United States and Great Britain to settle
difficulties arising mainly out of violations of the Treaty of Paris
of 1783 and to regulate commerce and navigation, in effect.

1820 - The House of Representatives rejects the February 17 slavery
compromise measure passed by the Senate and will go on to pass its own
slavery prohibition bill.

(1844) - The USS Princeton received two 12-inch guns, the
British-built "Oregon," and the New York-built "Peacemaker." The ship
sailed to Washington, D.C., with a view to persuading Congress to
approve the fitting out of more ships with more heavy guns, a measure
endorsed by President John Tyler. Her third Potomac cruise, was
attended by 300 to 400 people including officials and their families
and, for the second time, Tyler. During the demonstration of the
"Peacemaker" the gun exploded, killing eight people. Among them were
Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas
Gilmer; nine were wounded, including Stockton and Senator Thomas Hart
Benson.

1847 - Colonel Alexander Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted
Volunteers ride to victory at the Battle of Sacramento, during the
Mexican War.

1848 - The House of Representatives and the Senate, acting on the
proposal of President-elect Polk, adopt a joint resolution for the
annexation of Texas. This is essentially a procedure to bypass
requirement of a two-thirds vote of the Senate alone to ratify a
treaty. The resolution also authorizes the President to negotiate a
new treaty with Texas, one that could be approved by either procedure,
but the President does not immediately exercise this choice.

1863 - Union gunboats destroyed the CSS Nashville near Fort
McAllister, Ga. CSS Nashville, a 1221-ton side-wheel steamer, was
originally a passenger steamer built at Greenpoint, New York, in 1853.
She was seized by the Confederacy at Charleston, South Carolina, in
1861 and converted to a lightly-armed cruiser. Nashville made one
combat cruise under the Confederate Navy flag, starting in October
1861. She captured and burned the sailing merchantman Harvey Birch in
the English Channel on 19 November, and spent some time at
Southampton, England. Returning to American waters early in 1862, she
captured and burned the schooner Robert Gilfillan on 26 February. Two
days later, she ran the blockade into Beaufort, North Carolina,
remaining there until mid-March, when she went to Georgetown, South
Carolina. Sold to private interests and renamed Thomas L. Wragg, she
operated as a blockade runner, but was hindered in this employment by
her deep draft. After arrival near Savannah, Georgia, she was sold
again in November 1862, to become a privateer under the name
Rattlesnake.

(1864) - A major Union cavalry raid begins when General Hugh Judson
Kilpatrick leads 3,500 troopers south from Stevensburg, Virginia.
Aimed at Richmond, the raid sought to free Federal prisoners and
spread word of President Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and
Reconstruction in hopes of convincing Confederates to lay down their
arms. The president's proclamation of December 1863 offered a pardon
and restoration of property (except slaves, who were freed by the
Emancipation Proclamation) to all Confederates. Kilpatrick took with
him Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren to conduct the prisoner release while
Kilpatrick covered him with the main force. To distract attention,
Union infantry under General John Sedgwick and another cavalry
detachment under General George Custer would feign an attack towards
western Virginia. The forces split after crossing the Rappahannock
River. Kilpatrick began tearing up the Virginia Central Railroad while
Dahlgren approached Richmond from the west. They were to rendezvous on
the outskirts of Richmond. Kilpatrick arrived there on March 1 with
General Wade Hampton's cavalry in hot pursuit. Dahlgren was delayed
when a black guide led him to a deep section of the James River.
Finding no possibility to cross, Dahlgren hung the guide on the spot.
Kilpatrick had to leave for the north before Dahlgren's arrival, so
Dahlgren and his men were cut off. The colonel and about 100 of his
men were ambushed as they tried to rejoin Kilpatrick. Dahlgren was
killed, and his body fell into Confederate hands. He was allegedly
carrying papers that included instructions to burn Richmond and kill
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. The papers were
published in the Richmond Daily Examiner, but it is not clear where
the orders had come from or if they were even authentic. Some
historians have suggested that they were forged by the Confederates to
stir morale in Virginia. Kilpatrick suffered about 335 men killed,
captured, or wounded. The raid accomplished little for the Union and
the Confederate victory lifted southern morale. (-AND-) Lt. William
B. Cushing led a landing party from the USS Monticello to Smithville,
NC, in an attempt to capture Confederate Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert, only
to discover that Hebert and his men had already moved on Wilmington.

1893 - Launching of USS Indiana (BB-1), first true battleship in U.S.
Navy. USS Indiana, a 10,288-ton battleship, was built at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and commissioned in November 1895. She
spent her entire career in the Atlantic area. During the
Spanish-American War, Indiana operated in the Caribbean, and
participated in the 3 July 1898 naval battle off Santiago, Cuba. In
the years following that conflict, the battleship operated with the
fleet and with the Naval Academy Practice Squadron. Indiana served as
a training ship during the First World War. Decommissioned for the
last time in January 1919, her name was changed to Coast Battleship #
1 a few months later. She was subsequently used as a target in
ordnance tests, being sunk in November 1920.

(1904) - President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a seven-member
commission to hasten completion of the Panama Canal.

1916 - The United States Marines had disbanded Haiti's army, which
consisted of an estimated 9,000 men, including 308 generals. To
replace it, the Haitian Constabulary (Gendarmerie d'Haďti) was formed.
United States Marine and United States Navy officers and
noncommissioned officers (NCOs) commanded the group. The Gendarmerie
attempted to secure public safety, initially by subduing the cacos
(local insurgents); to promote development, particularly road
construction; and to modernize the military through the introduction
of a training structure, a health service, and other improvements.
(-AND-) The German fleet is given orders to attack armed merchant
shipping without warning.

1924 - U.S. troops are sent to Honduras to protect American interests
during an election conflict. A pitched battle took place in La Ceiba
between government troops and rebels. Even the presence of the U.S.S.
Denver and the landing of a force of United States Marines were unable
to prevent widespread looting and arson resulting in over US$2 million
in property damage. Fifty people, including a United States citizen,
were killed in the fighting. In the weeks that followed, additional
vessels from the United States Navy Special Service Squadron were
concentrated in Honduran waters, and landing parties were put ashore
at various points to protect United States interests. One force of
marines and sailors was even dispatched inland to Tegucigalpa to
provide additional protection for the United States legation.

1928 - Marines participated in the Battle of Bromaderos, Nicaragua. A
packtrain escorted by 35 Marines is ambushed by 600 Sandinastas near
Bromaderos, Nicaragua. The Marines fight off the repeated attacks and
are relieved the next day.

1936 - The Japanese Army restores order in Tokyo and arrests officers
involved in a coup. (-AND-) The Second Neutrality Act is passed,
extending the act of 1935 to May 1, 1937 but adding a prohibition
against granting any US loans or credits to belligerents.

1942 - The Battle of the Java Sea continues. HMAS cruiser Hobart
joined up with two old British light cruisers, Dragon and Danae,
unable to join in the main naval battles of Java Sea, the former
because of enemy disruption to refuelling and the latter two due to
escort duties elsewhere, and began steaming out of the region
together. Later as a Japanese task force approached them at speed,
they were identified by Japanese arial recon flight and perhaps
wrongly mistaken as a battleship and two heavy cruisers, the
supposedly superior enemy battle line sent to engage and sink them
withdrew under air cover with an engagement elsewhere. The three steel
hulled Royal naval sister ships, making their way through the Sunda
Strait bottleneck at around 6.10am were sighted by another enemy
aircraft and perhaps this time falsely recognized as friendly, or of
no hostile threat, and steamed on unmolested. By 9.00am Hobart was
heading west south of Sumatra, so facilitating the escape of the last
big warships of the combined Far Eastern Fleet from the battle
drenched waters around Java. During the night all other allied
warships left harbor at different times with the intention of trying
to reach an Australian port. The American destroyer USS Stewart, in
dock at Surabaya after receiving damaging enemy gun-fire at Bandung
Strait sea battle, could not be made seaworthy in time to leave and
was demolished by explosive charges. The Perth, with only half the
normal oil supply and the Houston made for Sunda Strait being ordered
to Tjilatjap but were to discover a second enemy amphibious landing
taking place in Bantam Bay, off St. Nicholas Point at about 11.30pm.
And engaged the Japanese transports escorted by destroyers of the 5th
and 11th flotillas at once. As the two battle scarred warships wreaked
havoc amongst the enemy vessels, causing the Japanese to sink their
own transports, they were intercepted by a strong Japanese surface
force. The Mogami and Mikami arrived after receiving an urgent call to
assist the destroyers. And both allied cruisers running short of
ammunition, overwhelmed by some 90 Long-lance torpedoes launched at
them, were eventually pinned and sunk firing till the last.

1943 - Norwegian soldiers sabotage the Norsk Hydro Power Station,
being used by the Germans to produce Deuterium, or "heavy water" for
atomic research.

1944 - Hannah Reitsch, the first female test pilot in the world,
suggests the creation of the Nazi equivalent of a kamikaze squad of
suicide bombers while visiting Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Hitler
was less than enthusiastic about the idea. Reitsch was born in 1912
in Hirschberg, Germany. She left medical school (she had wanted to be
a missionary doctor) to take up flying full time, and became an expert
glider pilot--gliders were motorless planes that the Germans developed
to evade strict rules about building "war planes" after WWI. In
addition to gaining experience with gliders, Reitsch also did stunt
flying for the movies. In 1934, she broke the world's altitude record
for women (9,184 feet). An ardent Nazi and admirer of Hitler, she was
made an honorary flight captain by the Fuhrer, the first woman to
receive such an honor. In 1937, the Luftwaffe, the German air force,
put her to work as a test pilot. Reitsch embraced this opportunity to
fly as part of what she called Germany's "guardians of the portals of
peace." Among her signal achievements was the testing of a
proto-helicopter in 1939. Reitsch came closer than any other woman to
seeing actual combat during World War II, depositing German troops
along the Maginot Line in France during the Germans' 1940 invasion by
glider plane. She won an Iron Cross, Second Class, for risking her
life trying to cut British barrage-balloon cables (the balloons were
unmanned blimps, tethered in one place, from which steel cables
dangled so as to foul the wings and propellers of enemy aircraft).
Among the warplanes she tested was the Messerschmitt 163, a
rocket-power interceptor that she flew 500 mph. While testing the ME
163 a fifth time, she spun out of control and crash-landed (even
though she was injured during the crash, she nevertheless managed to
write down exactly what happened before she passed out from her
injuries). For this, Hitler awarded her an Iron Cross, First Class.
It was while receiving this second Iron Cross from Hitler in
Berchtesgaden in 1944 that she pitched the idea of a Luftwaffe suicide
squad of pilots who would fly specially designed versions of the V-1.
Hitler was initially put off by the idea, only because he did not
think it an effective or efficient use of resources. But Reitsch's
commitment persuaded him to investigate the prospect of designing such
planes, at which point she put together a Suicide Group and was the
first to take the following pledge: "I hereby...voluntarily apply to
be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I
fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own
death." The squad was never deployed. Reitsch was one of the last
people to see Hitler alive. On April 26, 1945, she flew to Berlin with
Gen. Ritter von Greim, who was to be given command of the Luftwaffe.
Greim was wounded when Reitsch's plane was hit by Soviet antiaircraft
fire. After saying farewell to the Fuhrer, tucked away in his bunker,
she flew Greim back out of Berlin. After the war, Reitsch was
captured and interned by the U.S. Army. She testified to the
"disintegration" of Hitler's personality that she claimed to have
witnessed during the last days of the war. When released, Reitsch
continued to set records, including becoming the first woman to fly a
glider over the Alps. In 1951, she published her autobiography, Flying
Is My Life, and from 1962 to 1966 she was director of the national
school of gliding in Ghana. She died in 1979, at 65 years old, only
one year after setting a new women's glider distance record. In her
career, she set more than 40 world records for flying powered and
motorless planes. -AND- The Germans begin a second offensive at
Anzio. The main weight falls on the US 3rd Division on either side of
the Cisterna-Anzio road. At midnight, German artillery signaled the
commencement of the new attack. -AND- Merrill's Marauders arrived in
the vicinity of Tanja Ga in the afternoon, they received orders from
General Stilwell to proceed as quickly as possible to Walawbum. The
steady advance of the Chinese on Maingkwan, forcing the enemy to
retreat southward on the Kamaing Road, required the immediate
employment of the 5307th. Coordinated with the Chinese operations, the
Marauders' first mission was to hasten the enemy's withdrawal south of
Walawbum by cutting his supply lines to forward troops. Walawbum was
40 miles away; 3 days' march will put the Marauders within striking
distance. (-AND-) US forces caught Japanese troops off-guard and
easily took control of the Admiralty Islands in Papua New Guinea. One
thousand men of General Chase's 5th Cavalry Regiment are landed at
Hyane Harbor on Los Negros. General MacArthur and Admiral Kinkaid
commanding 7th Fleet, are present offshore and decide to convert the
landings into a full-scale occupation. Japanese counterattacks during
the night fail.(-AND-) At Anzio, the LXXVI Panzer Corps, consisting of
the 114th Light Infantry, 362d Infantry, 26th Panzer, and Hermann
Goering Divisions began a drive to breach the outer beachhead defenses
from Carano to Isola Bella, which, if successful, would be exploited
by the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division all the way to Nettuno and
Anzio. The Americans, however, had anticipated this move. General
Truscott, who had replaced Lucas as VI Corps commander on 23 February,
had reinforced the line with additional artillery. Further, he made
certain that each unit had at least one battalion in reserve with
additional reinforcements available at the corps level. VI Corps and
3d Division artillery responded in mass, returning twenty shells for
each one fired by the Germans, expending 66,000 rounds on 29 February
alone. When the enemy infantry advanced at dawn at a half-dozen points
along the 3d Division front, only one attack made any progress,
penetrating 800 yards northeast of Carano before being halted with
heavy losses. The other attacks fared less well amid a hail of
American artillery and mortar fire. Attacking on too broad a front,
the Germans lacked the overwhelming strength needed to break through
anywhere, and by the end of the day they had barely dented the
American line. Over the next several days, the well-en-trenched
Americans, supported by closely coordinated artillery, armor, and air
support, shattered subsequent German attacks. Even though the 7th and
15th Infantry regiments and the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion
often were hard pressed and suffered heavy losses between 1 and 4
March at the hands of the 715th and the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier
Divisions, all three units held their positions and beat back
successive enemy assaults. The Germans continued to seek a
breakthrough, but their efforts gradually weakened.

1945 - U.S. tanks break the natural defense line west of the Rhine and
cross the Erft River. -AND- There are US landings at Puerto Princesa
on Palawan by 8,000 men of the 41st Infantry Division. Admiral
Fechtler leads a bombardment group of cruisers and destroyers and
there is also support from land-based aircraft. There is little
Japanese resistance to the landings.

1946 - The U.S. Army declares that it will use V-2 rocket to test
radar as an atomic rocket defense system.

1951 - A Senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., issued a
preliminary report saying at least two major crime syndicates were
operating in the United States. - and- UN ground forces eliminated the
last communist presence south of the Han River.

(1952) - Brigadier General Francis T. Dodd, the newly-appointed
commandant for POW camp Koje-do, was warned that many of the compounds
might "be controlled by the violent leadership of Communists or
anti-Communist groups." He was told "this subversive control is
extremely dangerous and can result in further embarrassment to the"
United Nations Command. Leaders were worried that rioting in the camps
would undermine armistice negotiations.

1953 - 3d ARG received two new and larger H-19 helicopters. MATS
C-124s had flown the dismantled helicopters directly from the factory
in the United States to Japan, where they were assembled and
test-flown before being ferried to Korea.

(1964) - President Lyndon B. Johnson revealed that the U.S. secretly
developed the Lockheed A-11. The A-11 was conceived as a replacement
for the U-2 in the strategic reconnaissance role. It was a light,
single-seat forerunner of the SR-71, and was operated by the CIA until
the USAF Blackbird became fully operational in 1968.

1968 - Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
returns from his recent round of talks with Gen. William Westmoreland
in Saigon and immediately delivers a written report to President
Lyndon B. Johnson. Wheeler stated that despite the heavy casualties
incurred during the Tet Offensive, North Vietnam and Viet Cong forces
had the initiative and were "operating with relative freedom in the
countryside." The communists had pushed South Vietnamese forces back
into a "defensive posture around towns and cities," seriously
undermined the pacification program in many areas, and forced General
Westmoreland to place half of his battalions in the still imperiled
northernmost provinces, thus "stripping the rest of the country of
adequate reserves" and depriving the U.S. command of "an offensive
capability." To meet the new enemy threat and regain the initiative,
according to Wheeler, Westmoreland would need more men: "The add-on
requested totals 206,756 spaces for a new proposed ceiling of
731,756." It was a major turning point in the war. To deny the
request was to concede that the United States could impose no military
solution in the conflict, but to meet it would require a call-up of
reserves and vastly increased expenditures. Rather than making an
immediate decision, President Johnson asked Defense Secretary Clark
Clifford to conduct a thorough, high-level review of U.S. policy in
Vietnam. A disgruntled staff member in the Johnson White House leaked
the Wheeler-Westmoreland proposal for additional troops. The story
broke in the New York Times on March 10, 1968. With the images of the
besieged U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive still fresh
in their minds, the press and the public immediately concluded that
the extra troops must be needed because the U.S. and South Vietnamese
had suffered a massive defeat. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was
subjected to 11 hours of hearings before a hostile Congress on March
11 and 12. A week later, 139 members of the House voted for a
resolution that called for a complete review of Johnson's Vietnam
policy. Discontent in Congress mirrored the general sentiment in the
country. In March, a poll revealed that 78 percent of Americans
expressed disapproval with Johnson's handling of the war. On March
22, President Johnson scaled down Westmoreland's request and
authorized 13,500 reinforcements. Shortly after, Johnson announced
that Westmoreland would be brought home to be Army Chief of Staff. He
was to be replaced by Gen. Creighton Abrams. -and- Elements of the
1st Marine Brigade landed at DaNang.

1980 - Crew of USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN-657) launches 4 Trident I
(C-4) missiles in first C-4 Operational Test. The TRIDENT C-4 is a
long-range, multiple-warhead missile that is launched from submerged
submarines. Depending upon the number of warheads carried, it has
almost double the range of the previous Poseidon missile. The C-4 is a
three-stage solid fuel missile which is powered only during the
initial phases of flight. When the third stage is exhausted the
missile follows a ballistic trajectory. When the first stage motor
ignites and aerospike extends from the missile's nose, cutting the
friction of the air flowing past the missile, thus extending its
range. The third stage includes the bus that aims and dispenses the
warheads at separate targets.

1990 - Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on
a secret mission to place a spy satellite in orbit.

1991 - Allied and Iraqi forces suspended their attacks as Iraq pledged
to accept all United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait. When the
cease-fire ordered by President Bush went into effect, ARCENT
divisions faced the beaten remnants of a once-formidable force. The
U.S. Army had contributed the bulk of the ground combat power that
defeated and very nearly destroyed the Iraqi ground forces. The Iraqis
lost 3,847 of their 4,280 tanks, over half of their 2,880 armored
personnel carriers, and nearly all of their 3,100 artillery pieces.
Only five to seven of their forty-three combat divisions remained
capable of offensive operations. In the days after the cease-fire the
busiest soldiers were those engaged in the monumental task of counting
and caring for an estimated 60,000 prisoners. And these surprising
results came at the cost of 148 Americans killed in action. In the
theater of operations Army Central Command had won the fastest and
most complete victory in American military history.

1993 - A gun battle erupted near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch
Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day
standoff began.

1994 - U.S. warplanes shoot down four Serb aircraft over Bosnia in the
first NATO use of force in the troubled area.

1995 - U.S. Marines swept ashore in Somalia to protect retreating U.N.
peacekeepers.

1997 - US Navy medium attack aircraft were retired by order of Pres.
Clinton. Any deep-strike mission would be in the hands of the Air
Force.

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken this Day

*WILLIS, JOHN HARLAN
Rank and organization: Pharmacist's Mate First Class, U.S. Navy. Born:
10 June 1921, Columbia, Tenn. Accredited to: Tennessee. Citation: For
conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above
and beyond the call of duty as Platoon Corpsman serving with the 3d
Battalion, 27th Marines, 5th Marine Division, during operations
against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 28
February 1945. Constantly imperiled by artillery and mortar fire from
strong and mutually supporting pillboxes and caves studding Hill 362
in the enemy's cross-island defenses, Willis resolutely administered
first aid to the many marines wounded during the furious close-in
fighting until he himself was struck by shrapnel and was ordered back
to the battle-aid station. Without waiting for official medical
release, he quickly returned to his company and, during a savage
hand-to-hand enemy counterattack, daringly advanced to the extreme
frontlines under mortar and sniper fire to aid a marine Iying wounded
in a shellhole. Completely unmindful of his own danger as the Japanese
intensified their attack, Willis calmly continued to administer blood
plasma to his patient, promptly returning the first hostile grenade
which landed in the shell-hole while he was working and hurling back 7
more in quick succession before the ninth 1 exploded in his hand and
instantly killed him. By his great personal valor in saving others at
the sacrifice of his own life, he inspired his companions, although
terrifically outnumbered, to launch a fiercely determined attack and
repulse the enemy force. His exceptional fortitude and courage in the
performance of duty reflect the highest credit upon Willis and the
U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

*ANDERSON, JAMES, JR.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, 2d
Platoon, Company F, 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, 3d Marine Division.
Place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 28 February 1967. Entered service
at: Los Angeles, Calif. Born: 22 January 1947, Los Angeles, Calif.
Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his
life above and beyond the call of duty. Company F was advancing in
dense jungle northwest of Cam Lo in an effort to extract a heavily
besieged reconnaissance patrol. Pfc. Anderson's platoon was the lead
element and had advanced only about 200 meters when they were brought
under extremely intense enemy small-arms and automatic weapons fire.
The platoon reacted swiftly, getting on line as best they could in the
thick terrain, and began returning fire. Pfc. Anderson found himself
tightly bunched together with the other members of the platoon only 20
meters from the enemy positions. As the fire fight continued several
of the men were wounded by the deadly enemy assault. Suddenly, an
enemy grenade landed in the midst of the marines and rolled alongside
Pfc. Anderson's head. Unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for
his personal safety, he reached out, grasped the grenade, pulled it to
his chest and curled around it as it went off. Although several
marines received shrapnel from the grenade, his body absorbed the
major force of the explosion. In this singularly heroic act, Pfc.
Anderson saved his comrades from serious injury and possible death.
His personal heroism, extraordinary valor, and inspirational supreme
self-sacrifice reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine
Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He
gallantly gave his life for his country.

*LEONARD, MATTHEW
Rank and organization: platoon Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company B, 1st
Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. place and date: Near
Suoi Da, Republic of Vietnam, 28 February 1967. Entered service at:
Birmingham, Ala. Born: 26 November 1929, Eutaw, Ala. Citation: For
conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his
life above and beyond the call of duty. His platoon was suddenly
attacked by a large enemy force employing small arms, automatic
weapons, and hand grenades. Although the platoon leader and several
other key leaders were among the first wounded, P/Sgt. Leonard quickly
rallied his men to throw back the initial enemy assaults. During the
short pause that followed, he organized a defensive perimeter,
redistributed ammunition, and inspired his comrades through his
forceful leadership and words of encouragement. Noticing a wounded
companion outside the perimeter, he dragged the man to safety but was
struck by a sniper's bullet which shattered his left hand. Refusing
medical attention and continuously exposing himself to the increasing
fire as the enemy again assaulted the perimeter, P/Sgt. Leonard moved
from position to position to direct the fire of his men against the
well camouflaged foe. Under the cover of the main attack, the enemy
moved a machine gun into a location where it could sweep the entire
perimeter. This threat was magnified when the platoon machine gun in
this area malfunctioned. P/Sgt. Leonard quickly crawled to the gun
position and was helping to clear the malfunction when the gunner and
other men in the vicinity were wounded by fire from the enemy machine
gun. P/Sgt. Leonard rose to his feet, charged the enemy gun and
destroyed the hostile crew despite being hit several times by enemy
fire. He moved to a tree, propped himself against it, and continued to
engage the enemy until he succumbed to his many wounds. His fighting
spirit, heroic leadership, and valiant acts inspired the remaining
members of his platoon to hold back the enemy until assistance
arrived. P/Sgt. Leonard's profound courage and devotion to his men are
in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and
his gallant actions reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S.
Army.

[Ugly Bob]

"RTO Trainer" <bill....@us.army.mil> wrote in message
news:82f06vkvhrhmi5ncn...@4ax.com...

<snip>

> 1893 - Launching of USS Indiana (BB-1), first true battleship in U.S.
> Navy. USS Indiana, a 10,288-ton battleship,

In the book Warships of the World to 1900, the Indiana is
described as being 11,688 tons displacement, though I've
seen the lower figure elsewhere, as well.

Here are some excellent shots of her:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-i/bb1.htm

-Ugly Bob

> was built at
> Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and commissioned in November 1895. She
> spent her entire career in the Atlantic area. During the
> Spanish-American War, Indiana operated in the Caribbean, and
> participated in the 3 July 1898 naval battle off Santiago, Cuba. In
> the years following that conflict, the battleship operated with the
> fleet and with the Naval Academy Practice Squadron. Indiana served as
> a training ship during the First World War. Decommissioned for the
> last time in January 1919, her name was changed to Coast Battleship #
> 1 a few months later. She was subsequently used as a target in
> ordnance tests, being sunk in November 1920.

<snip>