May 6th ~ {continued...} 1935 – The first flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk. The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, was an American-designed and built fighter aircraft of the 1930s and 40s. A contemporary of both the Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109, it was one of the first of a new generation of combat aircraft—a sleek monoplane design making extensive use of metal in its construction and powered by a powerful radial engine. Perhaps best known as the predecessor of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the P-36 saw little combat with the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was nevertheless the fighter used most extensively and successfully by the French Armee de l’air during the Battle of France. The P-36 was also ordered by the governments of the Netherlands and Norway, but did not arrive in time to see action over either country, before both were occupied by Nazi Germany. The type was also manufactured under license in China, for the Republic of China Air Force, as well as in British India, for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF). Axis and co-belligerent air forces also made significant use of captured P-36s. Following the fall of France and Norway in 1940, several dozen P-36s were seized by Germany and transferred to Finland; these aircraft saw extensive action with the Ilmavoimat (Air Force) against the Soviet Air Forces. The P-36 was also used by Vichy French air forces in several minor conflicts; in one of these, the Franco-Thai War of 1940–41, P-36s were used by both sides. From mid-1940, some P-36s en route for France and the Netherlands were diverted to Allied air forces in other parts of the world. The Hawks ordered by the Netherlands were diverted to the Dutch East Indies and later saw action against Japanese forces. French orders were taken up by British Commonwealth air forces, and saw combat with both the South African Air Force (SAAF) against Italian forces in East Africa, and with the RAF over Burma. Within the Commonwealth, the type was usually referred to as the Curtiss Mohawk. With around 1,000 aircraft built by Curtiss itself, the P-36 was a major commercial success for the company. It also became the basis not only of the P-40, but two other, unsuccessful prototypes: the YP-37 and the XP-42 . 1937 – The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crewmembers. Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the “zeppelin” after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard’s airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship. On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for the first of 10 scheduled journey’s across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. On its maiden voyage, the Hindenburg, stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries. Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II. 1941 – Bob Hope began broadcasting his first USO radio show from March Field at Riverside, Ca. The United Service Organizations (USO) began operations this year and provided free coffee, donuts, and entertainment to US military forces. The organization is supported entirely by private citizens and corporations.
May 6th ~ {continued...} 1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single piston engine. It was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to eight tons, and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack roles could carry five-inch rockets or a significant bomb load of 2,500 pounds; it could carry more than half the payload of the B-17 bomber on long-range missions (although the B-17 had a far greater range). The P-47, based on the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine—the same engine used by two very successful U.S. Navy fighters, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair—was to be very effective as a short-to-medium range escort fighter in high-altitude air-to-air combat and, when unleashed as a fighter-bomber, proved especially adept at ground attack in both the World War II European and Pacific Theaters. The P-47 was one of the main United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) fighters of World War II, and served with other Allied air forces, notably those of France, Britain, and Russia. Mexican and Brazilian squadrons fighting alongside the U.S. were equipped with the P-47. The armored cockpit was roomy inside, comfortable for the pilot, and offered good visibility. A modern-day U.S. ground-attack aircraft, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, takes its name from the P-47. 1942 – U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders all U.S. troops in the Philippines to the Japanese. The island of Corregidor remained the last Allied stronghold in the Philippines after the Japanese victory at Bataan (from which General Wainwright had managed to flee, to Corregidor). Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could hold the invader off no longer. General Wainwright, only recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese General Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops (he had already lost 800 men). He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila. General Wainwright remained a POW until 1945. As a sort of consolation for the massive defeat he suffered, he was present on the USS Missouri for the formal Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945. He would also be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman. Wainwright died in 1953, exactly eight years to the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony. 1942 – CAPT Milton Miles arrives in Chungking, China, to begin building an intelligence and guerilla training organization, Naval Group China.
May 6th ~ {continued...} 1943 – In Tunisia, US forces advance on three axes toward Bizerta, Ferryville and Protville. 1944 – A Japanese troopship convoy is destroyed by the American submarine Gurnard. 1944 – The first flight of the Mitsubishi A7M fighter (designed to replace the Zero) takes place. Technical problems and Allied bombing raids prevent mass production. 1945 – The US 97th Division, part of US 5th Corps of the US 3rd Army, occupies Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. The US 12th Corps advances toward Prague but the army is ordered to halt the advance and allow Soviets to occupy the rest of the country as has been arranged. 1945 – On Luzon, elements of the US 25th Division, part of US 1st Corps, capture the Kembu plateau. On Mindanao, the US 24th and 31st Divisions overrun Japanese positions north of Davao, where the Japanese 35th Army (General Morozumi) is concentrated. 1945 – On Okinawa, the Japanese offensive loses momentum. Japanese forces have sustain losses of at least 5000 killed. Even while it has been going on, American forces have made gains near Machinto airfield and Maeda Ridge. 1945 – Axis Sally made her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops. 1945 – The Coast Guard-manned frigate USS Moberly (PF-63), in concert with USS Atherton, sank the U-853 in the Atlantic off Block Island. There were no survivors. 1945 – Naval landing force evacuates 500 Marshallese from Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands. 1953 – Planes from the carriers Princeton and Valley Forge blasted a mining area northwest of Songjin, causing numerous secondary explosions and destroying buildings and a main transformer station. The heavy cruiser Saint Paul and the destroyer Nicholas fired on coastal supply routes and storage areas. 1955 – West Germany joined NATO. 1962 – In the first test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen fired a Polaris missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the Pacific Ocean. 1962 – Pathet Lao broke cease fire and conquered Nam Tha Laos. 1967 – Three US pilots shot down during a raid over Hanoi are paraded through the streets of that city. North Vietnam says the three pilots are based in Thailand. 1967 – Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, in a report to President Johnson, describes an encouraging turnout in recent village council elections. he estimates that 77 percent of eligible voters in participating villages cast ballots. 1969 – A US helicopter crashes 75 miles north of Saigon killing 34 and injuring 35 in what is believed to be the worst helicopter accident of the war. To this date, 2,595 helicopters have been lost. 1970 – More than 100 universities across the US shut down as thousands of students join a nationwide campus protest. Governor Ronald Reagan closes down the entire California university and college system until 11 may, involving more than 280,000 students on 28 campuses. A National Student Association spokesman reports that more than 300 campuses are boycotting classes. 1970 – Three new fronts are opened in Cambodia bringing to nearly 50,000 the number of allied troops there. One US spearhead, by troops of the 25th Infantry Division, moves across the border from Tayninh Province between the Fishhook and Parrot’s Beak areas. The US First Cavalry Division (Airmobile) is airlifted into the jungles 23 miles west of Phocbinh, South Vietnam, northeast of the Fishhook.
May 6th ~ {continued...} 1972 – The remnants of South Vietnam’s 5th Division at An Loc continue to receive daily artillery battering from the communist forces surrounding the city as reinforcements fight their way from the south up Highway 13. The South Vietnamese had been under heavy attack since the North Vietnamese had launched their Nguyen Hue Offensive on March 30th. The communists had mounted a massive invasion of South Vietnam with 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to An Loc in the south, were Quang Tri in the north, and Kontum in the Central Highlands. In Binh Long Province, the North Vietnamese forces had crossed into South Vietnam from Cambodia on April 5th to strike first at Loc Ninh. After taking Loc Ninh, the North Vietnamese forces then quickly encircled An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province, which was only 65 miles from Saigon. The North Vietnamese held An Loc under siege for almost three months while they made repeated attempts to take the city, bombarding it around the clock. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, including 2,300 dead or missing, but with the aid of U.S. advisers and American airpower, they managed to hold out against vastly superior odds until the siege was lifted on June 18th. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders and they retook Quang Tri in September. With the communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his Vietnamization program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces. 1968 – Astronaut Neil Armstrong was nearly killed in a lunar module trainer accident. 1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries. 1981 – US expelled Libyan diplomats. 1990 – Freed American hostage Frank Reed said at a news conference in Arlington, Va., that he had been savagely beaten by his captors in Lebanon after two unsuccessful escape attempts. 1993 – The space shuttle “Columbia” landed safely in California after a 10-day mission. 1993 – The Bosnian Serb parliament, for the third time, rejected a U.N. peace plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina. The president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, ordered a blockade of all supplies, except food and medicine, to the Bosnian Serbs. 1994 – The last HH-3F Pelican helicopter in Coast Guard service was retired. This ended the Coast Guard’s “amphibious era,” as no aviation asset left in service was capable of making water landings. 1995 – In London, thousands of World War II veterans celebrated the 50th anniversary of V-E Day.
May 6th ~ {continued...} 1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared. 1997 – Sergeant Delmar Simpson received a 25 year sentence for raping 6 female trainees at the Aberdeen, Md., Proving Ground Army base. 1999 – Russia joined NATO to back a framework for ending the conflict in Kosovo that included an international security presence to enforce peace. 1999 – Electricity was restored in Belgrade as NATO air strikes continued in Yugoslavia. A main railroad bridge was destroyed near the Romanian border and oil depots in Nis were hit. 2002 – Two mailbox pipe bombs were found in Colorado and another one in Nebraska. 2002 – In Afghanistan the CIA fired a missile from a Predator in an attempt to kill Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of Hezb-e-Islami, and his top aides outside Kabul. 2004 – President Bush told King Abdullah II of Jordan that he was sorry for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US guards. 2004 – An audio recording attributed to Osama bin Laden offered rewards in gold for the killing of top U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq or of the citizens of any nation fighting there. 2004 – U.S. soldiers backed by tanks and armored fighting vehicles seized control of the governor’s office from Shiite militiamen in the city of Najaf. 2011 – The United States Coast Guard closes a section of the Mississippi River near Caruthersville, Missouri due to heavy flooding. 2014 – Despite the clamor for Shinseki’s ouster, White House spokesman Jay Carney says Obama “remains confident in Secretary Shinseki’s ability to lead the department and take appropriate action.” Shinseki tells the Wall Street Journal he will not resign.
May 7th ~ 1718 – The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) was founded by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Monsieur de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe d’Orléans, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time. His title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris (1763). During the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a southern campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans (Spanish: Nueva Orleans) remained under Spanish control until 1801, when it reverted briefly to French oversight. Nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana (New France) to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians. Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. 1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion begins when a confederacy of Native American warriors under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacks the British force at Detroit. After failing to take the fort in their initial assault, Pontiac’s forces, made up of Ottawas and reinforced by Wyandots, Ojibwas, and Potawatamis, initiated a siege that would stretch into months. As the French and Indian Wars came to an end in the early 1760s, Native Americans living in former French territory found the new British authorities to be far less conciliatory than their predecessors. In 1762, Pontiac enlisted support from practically every Indian tribe from Lake Superior to the lower Mississippi for a joint campaign to expel the British from the formerly French lands. According to Pontiac’s plan, each tribe would seize the nearest fort and then join forces to wipe out the undefended settlements. In April, Pontiac convened a war council on the banks of the Ecorse River near Detroit. It was decided that Pontiac and his warriors would gain access to the British fort at Detroit under the pretense of negotiating a peace treaty, giving them an opportunity to seize forcibly the arsenal there. However, British Major Henry Gladwin learned of the plot, and the British were ready when Pontiac arrived in early May, and Pontiac was forced to begin a siege. At the same time, his allies in Pennsylvania began a siege of Fort Pitt, while other sympathetic tribes, such as the Delaware, the Shawnees, and the Seneca, prepared to move against various British forts and outposts in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. On July 31st, a British relief expedition attacked Pontiac’s camp but suffered heavy losses and were repelled in the Battle of Bloody Run. Nevertheless, they had succeeded in providing the fort at Detroit with reinforcements and supplies, which allowed it to hold out against the Indians into the fall. The major forts at Pitt and Niagara likewise held on, but the united tribes captured eight other fortified posts. At these forts, the garrisons were wiped out, relief expeditions were repulsed, and nearby frontier settlements were destroyed. In the spring of 1764, two British armies were sent out, one into Pennsylvania and Ohio under Colonel Bouquet, and the other to the Great Lakes under Colonel John Bradstreet. Bouquet’s campaign met with success, and the Delawares and the Shawnees were forced to sue for peace, breaking Pontiac’s alliance. Failing to persuade tribes in the West to join his rebellion, and lacking the hoped-for support from the French, Pontiac finally signed a treaty with the British in 1766. In 1769, he was murdered by a Peoria Indian while visiting Illinois. His death led to bitter warfare among the tribes, and the Peorias were nearly wiped out.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1769 – Revolution was in the air on this day in 1769, as George Washington launched a legislative salvo at Great Britain’s fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on the British policy of “taxation without representation,” Washington brought a package of non-importation resolutions before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The resolutions, drafted by George Madison largely in response to England’s passage of the Townshend Act in 1767, also decried parliament’s plan to send American criminals to England for trial. Though Virginia’s Royal Governor promptly fired back by disbanding the House of Burgesses, the revolutionaries were undeterred: during a makeshift meeting held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia’s delegates gave their support the non-importation resolutions. As a result, Virginia sealed off a good chunk of its trade with England pending the repeal of the Townshend Acts. This proved to be a contagious maneuver, as the other American colonies spent the summer adopting their own non-importation resolutions. 1779 – Continental Navy sloop Providence captures British brig Diligent off Cape Charles. 1792 – Captain Robert Gray discovered Gray’s Harbor in Washington State. 1800 – Congress divided the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part became the Indiana Territory and the eastern sections remained the Northwest Territory. 1862 – At the Battle of Eltham’s Landing in Virginia, Confederate troops struck Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley. 1862 – U.S.S. Wachusett, Commander W. Smith, U.S.S. Chocura, and Sebago escorted Army transports up the York River, supported the landing at West Point, Virginia, and countered a Confederate attack with accurate gunfire. U.S.S. Currituck, Acting Master William F. Shankland, sent on a reconnaissance of the Pamunkey River by Smith on the 6th, captured American Coaster and Planter the next day. Shankland reported that some twenty schooners had been sunk and two gunboats burned by the Confederates above West Point. 1864 – Following two days of intense fighting in the Wilderness forest, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, moves south. Grant’s forces had clashed with Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a pitched and confused two-day battle in which neither side gained a clear victory. Nonetheless, Lee could claim an advantage, since he inflicted more casualties and held off the Yankees, despite the fact that he was outnumbered. When Lee halted Grant’s advance, Grant proved that he was different than previous commanders of the Army of the Potomac by refusing to fall back. Many of his veteran soldiers expected to retreat back across the Rapidan River, but the order came down through the ranks to move the army south. The blue troops had just suffered terrible losses, and the move lifted their spirits. “We marched free. The men began to sing,” recalled one Yankee. In some ways, warfare would never be the same. Grant had promised President Abraham Lincoln that there would be no turning back on this campaign. He would aggressively pursue Lee without allowing the Confederates time to retool. But the cost was high: Weeks of fighting resulted in staggering casualties before the two armies dug in around Petersburg by the middle of June. 1864 – Steamers U.S.S. Sunflower, Acting Master Edward Van Sice, and Honduras, Acting Master John H. Platt, and sailing bark J. L. Davis, Acting Master William Fales, supported the capture of Tampa, Florida, in a combined operation. The Union ships carried the soldiers to Tampa and provided a naval landing party which joined in the assault. Van Sice reported of the engagement: “At 7 A.M. the place was taken possession of, capturing some 40 prisoners, the naval force capturing about one-half, which were turned over to the Army, and a few minutes after 7 the Stars and Stripes were hoisted in the town by the Navy.” The warships also captured blockade running sloop Neptune on 6 May with cargo of cotton.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1873 – US marines attacked Panama. 1877 – Indian chief Sitting Bull entered Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn. 1915 – British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter’s attempted quarantine of the British isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters around Britain. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the Lusitania liner from New York back to Liverpool. The sinking of merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel’s course. The captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7th the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship’s boilers, and the ship sunk in 20 minutes. It was revealed that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as further justification for the attack. The United States eventually sent three notes to Berlin protesting the action, and Germany apologized and pledged to end unrestricted submarine warfare. In November, however, a U-boat sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany. On January 31, 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced that it would resume unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22nd, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2nd President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted to declare war against Germany, and two days later the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration. With that, America entered World War I. 1934 – USS Constitution completes tour of principal U.S. ports 1939 – Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. 1940 – FDR orders Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1940 – There is a major debate in the House of Commons on the conduct of the war and especially of the Norwegian campaign. At the vote Chamberlain’s government has a majority of 281-200 but when compared to former support this is not sufficient to allow the government to continue to claim to be representative. Neville Chamberlain resigns. In fact the errors of the Norwegian campaign have been at least as much Churchill’s as any others. However, in a wider sense the responsibility is Chamberlain’s for failing to to establish a coherent decision-making structure to see that plans were properly coordinated and that subordinates worked sensibly and efficiently. 1942 – Battle of the Coral Sea: American Admiral Fletcher sends Task Force 44 to attack Japanese troop transports bound for Port Moresby. The Japanese retaliate with attacks from land based aircraft. The Japanese also sight the American tanker Neosho and the Sims, they send aircraft after the ships and the Neosho is sunk. The Americans find Japanese Admiral Goto’s close support force and they proceed to sink the carrier Shoho. Meanwhile, Japanese Admiral Takagi sends planes out in an attempt to find the American fleet. Twenty-one of the Japanese planes are lost without engaging the enemy, including a small group which attempt to land on the American aircraft carrier Yorktown. The Japanese troop transports return to Rabaul to await the outcome of the battle. 1942 – General Wainwright broadcasts the news of the American surrender at Corregidor from Japanese custody. He invites the remainder of the American forces in the Philippines to surrender. Despite the American surrender, the opposition faced by Japanese forces has been effective in disrupting their plans. General Homma was allocated 50 days to take the Philippines, the actual conquest took five months. The continuing resistance of the Filipino forces has prevented the release of his troops for other campaigns. 1943 – Tunis and Bizerta are both captured in the afternoon by British and American forces, respectively. The Axis defenses can no longer contain the Allied pressure. 1943 – Americans lay mines in the waters around New Georgia to prevent Japanese supplies reaching the island. 1944 – The US 15th Air Force and British Bomber Command attack railway yards in Bucharest during the day and night, leaving the city in flames. 1944 – The US 8th Air Force conducts a massive raid on Berlin with 1500 aircraft. 1944 – The US 9th Air Force attacks the railway yards at Mezieres-Charleville with Marauders and P-38 Lightning's. 1944 – Elements of the US 46th Division occupy Cape Hopkins Airfield in the Bismarck Archipelago. There is no Japanese resistance encountered. 1945 – At 0141, General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northwestern France. At first, General Jodl hoped to limit the terms of German surrender to only those forces still fighting the Western Allies. But General Dwight Eisenhower demanded complete surrender of all German forces, those fighting in the East as well as in the West. If this demand was not met, Eisenhower was prepared to seal off the Western front, preventing Germans from fleeing to the West in order to surrender, thereby leaving them in the hands of the enveloping Soviet forces. Jodl radioed Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler’s successor, with the terms. Donitz ordered him to sign. So with Russian General Ivan Susloparov and French General Francois Sevez signing as witnesses, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s chief of staff, signing for the Allied Expeditionary Force, Germany was-at least on paper-defeated. Fighting would still go on in the East for almost another day. But the war in the West was over. Since General Susloparov did not have explicit permission from Soviet Premier Stalin to sign the surrender papers, even as a witness, he was quickly hustled back East-into the hands of the Soviet secret police, never to be heard from again. Alfred Jodl, who was wounded in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, would be found guilty of war crimes (which included the shooting of hostages) at Nuremberg and hanged on October 16, 1946-then granted a pardon, posthumously, in 1953, after a German appeals court found Jodl not guilty of breaking international law.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1945 – On Luzon, the US 43rd Division advances about 5 miles toward Ipo. American troops attacking towards a ridge near Guagua are repulsed by Japanese defenders. 1945 – On Okinawa, the US 7th Division completes the elimination of Japanese units that infiltrated into the Tanabaru area. Fruitless attacks on the Japanese held Shuri Line continue. 1947 – General MacArthur approved the Japanese constitution. 1951 – The Air Force’s 3rd Air Rescue Squadron recovered its 50th behind-the-lines downed airman. 1952 – Communist prisoners rioting at Koje-do held the U.N. commander, Brigadier General Francis T. Dodd, hostage until May 11. At Panmunjom both sides announced a stalemate over the prisoner of war issue. 1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer. 1953 – Communist negotiators at Panmunjom presented an eight-point proposal regarding the repatriation of POWs, including the establishment of a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission. 1954 – US, Great Britain and France rejected Russian membership in NATO. 1954 – In northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days. The Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French colonial influence in Indochina and cleared the way for the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at the conference of Geneva. On September 2nd, 1945, hours after the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender in World War II, communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, hoping to prevent the French from reclaiming their former colonial possession. In 1946, he hesitantly accepted a French proposal that allowed Vietnam to exist as an autonomous state within the French Union, but fighting broke out when the French tried to reestablish colonial rule. Beginning in 1949, the Viet Minh fought an increasingly effective guerrilla war against France with military and economic assistance from newly Communist China. France received military aid from the United States. In November 1953, the French, weary of jungle warfare, occupied Dien Bien Phu, a small mountain outpost on the Vietnamese border near Laos. Although the Vietnamese rapidly cut off all roads to the fort, the French were confident that they could be supplied by air. The fort was also out in the open, and the French believed that their superior artillery would keep the position safe. In 1954, the Viet Minh army, under General Vo Nguyen Giap, moved against Dien Bien Phu and in March encircled it with 40,000 Communist troops and heavy artillery. The first Viet Minh assault against the 13,000 entrenched French troops came on March 12th, and despite massive air support, the French held only two square miles by late April. On May 7th, after 57 days of siege, the French positions collapsed. Although the defeat brought an end to French colonial efforts in Indochina, the United States soon stepped up to fill the vacuum, increasing military aid to South Vietnam and sending the first U.S. military advisers to the country in 1959. 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers. 1963 – The United States launched the Telstar II communications satellite. It made the first public transatlantic broadcast. 1965 – 6,000 Marines of the 4th marine Division are sent to Chu Lai, a sandy pine barren along the coast 55 miles south of Danang to build a second jet air base. Chu Lai will sport a new type of field, the Short Airfield for Tactical Support (SATS) — a 4,000 foot long airstrip of aluminum matting with arrestor wires like an aircraft carrier. Initially all planes will take off via jet assist, but a catapult will be installed two years later. By June 1st, A-4 Skyhawks and MAG-12ss will be using the field.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1975 – President Ford issues a proclamation designating this a the last day of the ‘Vietnam Era’ for military personnel to qualify for wartime benefits. 1975 – The Viet Cong celebrated the takeover of Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon. 1979 – During a city-wide strike by tugboat operators and longshoremen in New York City that began on 1 April 1979, Mayor Ed Koch of New York asked for federal assistance. The Secretary of Transportation, Brock Adams, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, ordered the Commandant, ADM John B. Hayes, to direct the commanding officer of the Third Coast Guard District, VADM Robert I. Price, “to cooperate with Mayor Koch in the movement of sanitation barges within the harbor.” Beginning on 7 May 1979, the cutters Sauk, Manitou and Red Beech began moving 16 garbage scows from a Staten Island landfill site to refuse pick-up points in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Although the Group received an anonymous bomb threat that proved to be a hoax, the towing effort was carried out without incident. These three cutters were relieved of “garbage duty” in June by the cutters Snohomish and Chinook. 1984 – Federal District Judge Jack B. Weinstein announces a $180 million out-of-court settlement against seven chemical manufacturers of the defoliant Agent Orange in a class-action suit brought by 15,000 Vietnam veterans. At least 40,000 veterans are involved in various suits against these companies, with potential claimants in the hundreds of thousands. 1992 – Astronaut and Coast Guard CDR Bruce Melnick made his second space flight when he served as a Mission Specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on her maiden flight, Space Shuttle Mission STS-49, which flew from 7 to 16 May 1992. During this mission, astronauts rescued and repaired the Intelsat VI satellite. Melnick, by this point, had logged more than 300 hours in space. 1992 – A 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise received enough votes for ratification as Michigan became the 38th state to approve it. 1996 – The first international war crimes proceeding since Nuremberg opened at The Hague in the Netherlands, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. A year later, he was convicted of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 1997 – The Army accused its top enlisted man, Army Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, of sexual misconduct. At his court-martial, McKinney was acquitted of sexual misconduct, but found guilty of obstruction of justice.
May 7th ~ {continued...} 1999 – NATO bombs hit a residential area in Nis and at least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded. NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and 3 people were killed and [20] 21 injured. An outdated map was blamed for the embassy bombing. The British Observer later reported that NATO bombed the Embassy because it was being used to transmit Yugoslav military communications. British, NATO and US officials denied the story. In 2000 the US CIA fired one officer and reprimanded 6 others for the bombing. President Clinton called the attack a “tragic mistake.” 2002 – Lucas John Helder (21) of Pine Island, Minn., was arrested following a car chase near Lovelock, Nevada, and charged for the recent series of mailbox pipe bombs. Helder said he was trying to make a “smiley face” pattern on the map of his bombings. 2003 – President Bush ordered U.S. sanctions against Iraq lifted, allowing U.S. humanitarian aid and remittances to flow into Iraq. 2004 – Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Secretary, testified before Congress for 6 hours and apologized for Iraqi prisoner abuse by US soldiers. 2004 – The CGC James Rankin set the historic “Francis Scott Key” buoy off of Fort McHenry, Maryland, near the Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. The buoy marks the spot where the British warship on which Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner, was held aboard during the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. Each year the buoy is set in the spring, marking the historic location of the event, and is then removed in the fall. 2004 – American businessman Nick Berg is beheaded by Islamic militants. The act is recorded on videotape and released on the Internet. 2007 – A group of six radical Islamist men, allegedly plotting to stage an attack on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey, United States, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They were subsequently charged with planning an attack against U.S. soldiers. The alleged aim of the six men was said to be to “kill as many soldiers as possible”. Five of the men arrested, according to news reports, intended to attack the Fort Dix military base and kill as many servicemen as they could. The sixth man arrested, Abdullahu, has been charged with aiding and abetting in the possession of firearms by the Duka brothers. The group revealed to the FBI informant (a conversation which was recorded) that the five other men intended to “hit a heavy concentration of soldiers […] You hit four, five or six Humvees and light the whole place [up] and retreat completely without any losses”. The men attempted to purchase weapons from an FBI informant, including AK-47s, M16s, M60s, rocket propelled grenades, rockets, semi-automatic Sig Sauer 9 mm handguns, Smith & Wesson 9 mm, C-4 plastic explosive, and nitroglycerin. The informant told them that the weapons would come from an underground military dealer from Baltimore, Maryland who had recently returned from Egypt. 2009 – The private military company Xe (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) ends its operations in Baghdad, Iraq. 2009 – Somali pirates hijack the Netherlands’ MV Marathon and attack the U.S. Navy cargo ship USNS Lewis and Clark which took evasive action to prevent a successful attack. Suspected pirates then fired small arms weapons from approximately two nautical miles toward Lewis and Clark, which fell one nautical mile short of the ship’s stern. Lewis and Clark continued to increase speed and the skiffs ceased their pursuit of the U.S. ship.
May 8th ~ 1541 – South of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River, one of the first European explorers to ever do so. After building flatboats, de Soto and his 400 ragged troops crossed the great river under the cover of night, in order to avoid the armed Native Americans who patrolled the river daily in war canoes. From there the conquistadors headed into present-day Arkansas, continuing their fruitless two-year-old search for gold and silver in the American wilderness. Born in the last years of the 15th century, de Soto first came to the New World in 1514. By then, the Spanish had established bases in the Caribbean and on the coasts of the American mainland. A fine horseman and a daring adventurer, de Soto explored Central America and accumulated considerable wealth through the Indian slave trade. In 1532, he joined Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. Pizarro, de Soto, and 167 other Spaniards succeeding in conquering the Inca empire, and de Soto became a rich man. He returned to Spain in 1536 but soon grew restless and jealous of Pizarro and Hernando Cortýs, whose fame as conquistadors overshadowed his own. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V responded by making de Soto governor of Cuba with a right to conquer Florida, and thus the North American mainland. In late May 1539, de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops, servants, and staff, 200 horses, and a pack of bloodhounds. From there, the army set about subduing the natives, seizing any valuables they stumbled upon, and preparing the region for eventual Spanish colonization. Traveling through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, across the Appalachians, and back to Alabama, de Soto failed to find the gold and silver he desired, but he did seize a valuable collection of pearls at Cofitachequi, in present-day Georgia. Decisive conquest eluded the Spaniards, as what would become the United States lacked the large, centralized civilizations of Mexico and Peru. As was the method of Spanish conquest elsewhere in the Americas, de Soto ill-treated and enslaved the natives he encountered. For the most part, the Indian warriors they met were intimidated by the Spanish horsemen and kept their distance. In October 1540, however, the tables were turned when a confederation of Indians attacked the Spaniards at the fortified Indian town of Mabila, near present-day Mobile, Alabama. All the Indians were killed along with 20 of de Soto’s men. Several hundred Spaniards were wounded. In addition, the Indian conscripts they had come to depend on to bear their supplies fled with the baggage. De Soto could have marched south to reconvene with his ships along the Gulf Coast, but instead he ordered his expedition northwest in search of America’s elusive riches. In May 1541, the army reached and crossed the Mississippi River, probably the first Europeans ever to do so. From there, they traveled through present-day Arkansas and Louisiana, still with few material gains to show for their efforts. Turning back to the Mississippi, de Soto died of a fever on its banks on May 21, 1542. In order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto’s claims of divinity, his men buried his body in the Mississippi River. The Spaniards, now under the command of Luis de Moscoso, traveled west again, crossing into north Texas before returning to the Mississippi. With nearly half of the original expedition dead, the Spaniards built rafts and traveled down the river to the sea, and then made their way down the Texas coast to New Spain, finally reaching Veracruz, Mexico, in late 1543. 1639 – William Coddington founded Newport, RI. 1725 – John Lovewell, US Indian fighter, died in battle. 1792 – New US Government established a military draft. 1792 – British Capt. George Vancouver sighted and named Mt. Rainier, Washington. 1808 – Marine Barracks, Charleston was established under Lt Pinckney and 22 Marines.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1846 – Before the United States formally declared war on Mexico, General Zachary Taylor defeats a superior Mexican force in the Battle of Palo Alto north of the Rio Grande River. The drift toward war with Mexico had begun a year earlier when the U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas as a new state. Ten years before, the Mexicans had fought an unsuccessful war with Texans to keep them from breaking away to become an independent nation. Since then, they had refused to recognize the independence of Texas or the Rio Grande River as an international boundary. In January 1946, fearing the Mexicans would respond to U.S. annexation by asserting control over disputed territory in southwestern Texas, President James K. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to move a force into Texas to defend the Rio Grande border. After a last-minute effort to settle the dispute diplomatically failed, Taylor was ordered to take his forces up to the disputed borderline at the Rio Grande. The Mexican General Mariano Arista viewed this as a hostile invasion of Mexican territory, and on April 25, 1846, he took his soldiers across the river and attacked. Congress declared war on May 13th and authorized a draft to build up the U.S. Army. Taylor, however, was in no position to await formal declaration of a war that he was already fighting. In the weeks following the initial skirmish along the Rio Grande, Taylor engaged the Mexican army in two battles. On May 8, near Palo Alto, and the next day at Resaca de la Palma, Taylor led his 200 soldiers to victories against much larger Mexican forces. Poor training and inferior armaments undermined the Mexican army’s troop advantage. Mexican gunpowder, for example, was of such poor quality that artillery barrages often sent cannonballs bouncing lazily across the battlefield, and the American soldiers merely had to step out of the way to avoid them. Following his victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Taylor crossed the Rio Grande and took the war into Mexican territory. During the next 10 months, he won four battles and gained control over the three northeastern Mexican states. The following year, the focus of the war shifted elsewhere, and Taylor’s role diminished. Other generals continued the fight, which finally ended with General Winfield Scott’s occupation of Mexico City in September of 1847. Zachary Taylor emerged from the war a national hero. Americans admiringly referred to him as “Old Rough and Ready” and erroneously believed his military victories suggested he would be a good political leader. Elected president in 1848, he proved to be an unskilled politician who tended to see complex problems in overly simplistic ways. In July 1850, Taylor returned from a public ceremony and complained that he felt ill. Suffering from a recurring attack of cholera, he died several days later. 1861 – Richmond, Va, was named the capital of the Confederacy. 1862 – General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson repulsed the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. 1862 – U.S.S. Monitor, Dacotah, Naugatuck, Seminole, and Susquehanna by direction of the President”-shelled Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, as Flag Officer L. M. Goldsborough reported, ”mainly with the view of ascertaining the practicability of landing a body of troops thereabouts” to move on Norfolk. Whatever rumors President Lincoln had received about Confederates abandoning Norfolk were now confirmed; a tug deserted from Norfolk and brought news that the evacuation was well underway and that C.S.S. Virginia, with her accompanying small gunboats, planned to proceed up the James or York River. It was planned that when Virginia came out, as she had on the 7th, the Union fleet would retire with U.S.S. Monitor in the rear hoping to draw the powerful but under-powered warship into deep water where she might be rammed by high speed steamers. The bombardment uncovered reduced but considerable strength at Sewell’s Point. Virginia came out but not far enough to be rammed. 1862 – Landing party from U.S.S. Iroquois, Commander James S. Palmer, seized arsenal and took possession of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1863 – Union Mortar Flotilla under Commander Charles H. B. Caldwell, supported by U.S.S. Richmond Captain Alden, opened the bombardment of the Confederate works at Port Hudson, Louisiana.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1864 – Yankee troops arrive at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Rebels already there. After the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-6), Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac marched south in the drive to take Richmond. Grant hoped to control the strategic crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House, so he could draw Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into open ground. Spotsylvania was important for a number of reasons. The crossroads were situated between the Wilderness and Hanover Junction, where the two railroads that supplied Lee’s army met. The area also lay past Lee’s left flank, so if Grant beat him there he would not only have a head start toward Richmond, but also the clearest path. Lee would then be forced to attack Grant or race him to Richmond along poor roads. Unbeknownst to Grant, Lee had received reports of Union cavalry movements to the south of the Wilderness battle lines. On the evening of May 7th, Lee ordered James Longstreet’s corps, which were under the direction of Richard Anderson after Longstreet had been shot the previous day, to march at night to Spotsylvania. Anderson’s men marched the 11 miles entirely in the dark, and won the race to the crossroads, where they took refuge behind hastily constructed breastworks and waited. Now it would be up to Grant to force the Confederates from their position. The stage was set for one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. 1864 – The Atlanta Campaign saw severe fighting at Rocky Face Ridge. 1884 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953), was born near Lamar, Mo. A history buff, President Harry Truman penned this description of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, “Pierce was the best looking President the White House ever had—but as President he ranks with Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge.” “If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.” He decided to drop the bomb that ended World War II and sent troops to Korea to halt communist aggression. 1904 – U.S. Marines landed in Tangier to protect the Belgian legation. 1911 – Navy ordered its first airplane, Curtiss A-1, Birthday of Naval Aviation. 1919 – First Lieutenant Elmer F. Stone, USCG, piloting the Navy’s flying boat NC-4 in the first successful trans-Atlantic flight, took off from the Naval Air Station at Rockaway, New York, at 1000 hours on 8 May, 1919, together with the NC-1 and NC-3. Although the NC-1 and NC-3 did not complete the journey, the NC-4 successfully crossed the Atlantic and landed in Lisbon, Portugal on 27 May 1919. Stone was decorated that same day by the Portuguese government with the Order of the Tower and Sword. 1942 – Both the Japanese and the American fleets become aware of each others positions due to aerial reconnaissance. In the battle that follows, the USS Lexington is badly damaged and abandoned. (She will later be sunk by an American destroyer) The USS Yorktown is also hit. On the Japanese side, the Shokaku is seriously damaged. Of major importance is the loss of trained pilots on the Japanese side, as they take severe aerial losses. The battle is noteworthy for several reasons. The Japanese are forced to abandon their attack on Port Moresby, the first real stumbling block in their expansion. It is also the first time that a naval battle has taken place without visual contact between the main combatants. The damage done to the ships was achieved by aircraft launched from carriers and not by naval guns. 1943 – Three Japanese destroyers are sunk by the American mines surrounding New Georgia Island. 1944 – The US Senate extends the term of Lend-Lease aid to June 1945. 1944 – General Eisenhower selects June 5th as D-Day for the Normandy invasion.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1945 – Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark–the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain. Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9th, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations…has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.” 1945 – On Luzon, the US 145th Infantry Regiment captures the ridge near Guagua, southeast of Mount Pacawagan and blocks a track along the Mariquina river. On Mindanao, units of the US 24th Division establish a bridgehead over the Talomo river, north of Mintal. The US 31st Division clears the Colgan woods, reaching the Maramag airfield. American units land on Samar. On Negros, American forces in the south continue to progress against strong Japanese resistance. 1945 – On Okinawa, torrential rain restricts military operations. The US 1st Marine Division eliminates several Japanese held cave positions on Nan Hill, with explosives. 1950 – US Secretary of State Dean Atcheson announces that an agreement has been reached with France for US arms assistance to the French Associated States of Indochina. This is the beginning of a long commitment. 1950 – Chiang Kai-shek asked US for weapons. 1951 – North Korea charged the U.N. Command with the use of germ warfare. 1952 – Allied fighter-bombers staged the largest raid of the war on North Korea. 1954 – Members of the nine delegations assemble in Geneva and start negotiations for ending the war in Vietnam as part of a larger settlement of Indochina problems. The French are publicly opposed to any solution that involves a partition of Vietnam but behind the scenes they are considering this as a compromise. For the French and the West, partition would at least salvage half of the country. The Chinese indicate a willingness to support partition, for they have no desire to continue a war that might spill over into China and they have their own motives for wanting to keep the Vietnamese from becoming too strong. Negotiations will drag on for six weeks as the French reject the demands made by the Vietminh’s chief delegate, Pham Van Dong. 1957 – During a visit to the United States by Diem from 5 to 19 May, Eisenhower calls him the ‘miracle man’ of Asia and reaffirms support for his regime. The Vietminh see a powerful America replacing a weak France as the major outside force in Indochina. After Diem’s visit, 6,000 hardcore guerrillas, exhausted after eight years of war with the French and underground since 1954, begin a program of harassment, sabotage, and assassination. 1958 – President Eisenhower ordered National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school. 1963 – 20,000 Buddhists in Hue, celebrating the traditional birthday of Guatama Siddhartha Buddah, are fired upon by the order of Catholic deputy province chief Major Dang Xi, who chose to enforce an old French decree forbidding Buddhists from flying their multicolored flag. Seven children and one woman are among the nine killed, and about 20 are wounded. Diem blames the incident on the Vietcong and refuses Buddhist demands that the officials responsible be punished. Major Xi and two others will eventually be dismissed, but it will be too little, too late. Buddhists comprise 70 percent of the Vietnamese population and Catholics, less than 10, but Diem and is family are Catholic, and in the armed services, the police, the civil service, universities and trade unions, Buddhists have all been pushed out of key positions and replaced by Catholics, who Diem views as more reliable.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1967 – Boxer Muhammad Ali was indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army. 1970 – More than 250 State Department and foreign aid employees sign a letter to Secretary of State Rogers criticizing US military involvement in Cambodia. 1970 – The Hard Hat Riot took place in Lower Manhattan. The riot started about noon when about 200 construction workers mobilized by the New York State AFL-CIO attacked about 1,000 high school and college students and others protesting the Kent State shootings, the American invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War near the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street. The riot, which spread to New York City Hall, lasted little more than two hours. More than 70 people were injured, including four policemen. Six people were arrested. 1971 – In Washington, DC, the Reverent Carl McIntire leads some 15,000 demonstrators carrying US flags and Bibles in support of military victory in Vietnam. members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and of New York Ironworkers Local 361 (the ‘hardhat movement’) also participate. 1972 – President Richard Nixon announces that he has ordered the mining of major North Vietnamese ports, as well as other measures, to prevent the flow of arms and material to the communist forces that had invaded South Vietnam in March. Nixon said that foreign ships in North Vietnamese ports would have three days to leave before the mines were activated; U.S. Navy ships would then search or seize ships, and Allied forces would bomb rail lines from China and take whatever other measures were necessary to stem the flow of material. Nixon warned that these actions would stop only when all U.S. prisoners of war were returned and an internationally supervised cease-fire was initiated. If these conditions were met, the United States would “stop all acts of force throughout Indochina and proceed with the complete withdrawal of all forces within four months.” Nixon’s action was in response to the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive. On March 30th, the North Vietnamese had initiated a massive invasion of South Vietnam. Committing almost their entire army to the offensive, the North Vietnamese launched a three-pronged attack. In the initial attack, four North Vietnamese divisions attacked directly across the Demilitarized Zone into Quang Tri province. Following that assault, the North Vietnamese launched two more major attacks: at An Loc in Binh Long Province, 60 miles north of Saigon; and at Kontum in the Central Highlands. With the three attacks, the North Vietnamese committed 500 tanks and 150,000 regular troops (as well as thousands of Viet Cong) supported by heavy rocket and artillery fire. The North Vietnamese, enjoying much success on the battlefield, did not respond to Nixon’s demands. The announcement that North Vietnamese harbors would be mined led to a wave of antiwar demonstrations at home, which resulted in violent clashes with police and 1,800 arrests on college campuses and in cities from Boston to San Jose, California. Police used wooden bullets and tear gas in Berkeley; three police officers were shot in Madison, Wisconsin; and 715 National Guardsmen were activated to quell violence in Minneapolis.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1973 – On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, armed members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) surrender to federal authorities, ending their 71-day siege of Wounded Knee, site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native-American leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had rights to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Their actions were acclaimed by many Native Americans, but on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Dick Wilson had banned all AIM activities. AIM considered his government corrupt and dictatorial, and planned the occupation of Wounded Knee as a means of forcing a federal investigation of his administration. By taking Wounded Knee, The AIM leaders also hoped to force an investigation of other reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and broken Indian treaties. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country’s lowest rates of life expectancy. On February 27, 1973, some 200 AIM-led Sioux seized control of Wounded Knee, taking 11 allies of Dick Wilson hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. The next day, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range. Russell Means began negotiations for the release of the hostages, demanding that the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pine Ridge, and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government. The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents. One federal agent was paralyzed after being shot. On May 8th, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after White House officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government’s unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence. Violence continued on the Pine Ridge Reservation throughout the rest of the 1970s, with several more AIM members and supporters losing their lives in confrontations with the U.S. government. In 1975, two FBI agents and a Native-American man were killed in a massive shoot-out between federal agents and AIM members and local residents. In a controversial trial, AIM member Leonard Peltier was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. With many of its leaders in prison, AIM disbanded in 1978. Local AIM groups continued to function, however, and in 1981 one group occupied part of the Black Hills in South Dakota. The U.S. government took no steps to honor broken Indian treaties, but in the courts some tribes won major settlements from federal and state governments in cases involving tribal land claims. Russell Means continued to advocate Native-American rights at Pine Ridge and elsewhere and in 1988 was a presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. 1979 – Radio Shack released TRSDOS 2.3. 1980 – The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that smallpox had been eradicated. 1984 – Claiming that its athletes will not be safe from protests and possible physical attacks, the Soviet Union announces that it will not compete in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Despite the Soviet statement, it was obvious that the boycott was a response to the decision of the United States to boycott the 1980 games that were held in Moscow. Just months before the 1984 Olympic games were to begin in Los Angeles, the Soviet government issued a statement claiming, “It is known from the very first days of preparations for the present Olympics the American administration has sought to set course at using the Games for its political aims. Chauvinistic sentiments and anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in this country.” Russian officials went on to claim that protests against the Soviet athletes were likely to break out in Los Angeles and that they doubted whether American officials would try to contain such outbursts. The administration of President Ronald Reagan responded to these charges by declaring that the Soviet boycott was “a blatant political decision for which there was no real justification.” In the days following the Soviet announcement, 13 other communist nations issued similar statements and refused to attend the games. The Soviets, who had been stung by the U.S. refusal to attend the 1980 games in Moscow because of the Russian intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, were turning the tables by boycotting the 1984 games in America. The diplomatic impact of the action was quite small. The impact on the games themselves, however, was immense. Without competition from the Soviet Union, East Germany, and other communist nations, the United States swept to an Olympic record of 83 gold medals.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 1985 – The largest cocaine seizure by the Coast Guard (to date) was made when Coast Guard units seized the Goza Now with 1,909 pounds of cocaine. The unlit speedboat, or “go-fast,” named Goza Now, was first located by the CGC Cape Shoalwater as the go-fast raced towards Miami. An AIRSTA Miami helicopter was dispatched to investigate and then began chasing her as she neared Miami Beach. As they approached the shoreline, the three-man crew of the go-fast jumped overboard and escaped but a TACLET seized the abandoned Goza Now and her illicit cargo. District 7 got a “Bravo Zulu” from Attorney General Edwin Meese. 1987 – Coast Guard units, including the CGC Ocracoke, make the largest seizure of cocaine by the Coast Guard (to date). They located 3,771 pounds (1.9 tons) aboard the La Toto off the northwest coast of St. Croix. 1989 – Former President Carter, a leader of an international team observing Panama’s elections, declared that the armed forces were defrauding the opposition of victory. 1990 – One crewman was killed, 18 others injured in a fire aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Conyngham in the Atlantic, about 100 miles southeast of Norfolk, Va. 1991 – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf War, received a hero’s welcome as he addressed Congress. 1993 – The Muslim-led government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and rebel Bosnian Serbs signed an agreement for a nationwide cease-fire. 1999 – The Citadel, South Carolina’s formerly all-male military school, graduated its first female cadet, Nancy Ruth Mace. 1999 – US warplanes bombed northern Iraq as Iraqi TV reported 3 people were killed when 18 bombs fell on civilian and military positions. 1999 – In China protestors attacked US diplomatic mission in demonstrations against the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Many of the demonstrations were organized by the government-controlled Beijing Students Assoc. NATO expressed regret for a mistaken attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, but pledged to pursue the bombing campaign. 2000 – In Puerto Rico the US Navy resumed practice bombing on Vieques Island with dummy bombs. 2001 – China rejected a US plan to repair EP-3 the spy plane and fly it away. China protested the resumption of U.S. surveillance flights off its coast and said it would refuse to let the United States fly out a crippled Navy spy plane.
May 8th ~ {continued...} 2002 – FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee an FBI memo from Phoenix warning that several Arabs were suspiciously training at a U.S. aviation school wouldn’t have led officials to the September 11th hijackers even if they’d followed up the warning with more vigor. 2002 – US Sec. of State Rumsfeld said the Pentagon would kill the $11 billion Crusader artillery system. 2002 – Abdullah Al Mujahir, also known as Jose Padilla, was arrested as he flew from Pakistan into Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Padilla was alleged to be al-Qaida connected and suspected of plotting to build and detonate a radioactive ”dirty” bomb in an attack in the United States. A public announcement of his arrest was delayed until June 10th. 2003 – The US Senate unanimously endorsed adding to NATO seven former communist nations: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. 2003 – A federal grand jury indicted Katrina Leung on charges that she’d illegally taken, copied and kept secret documents obtained from an FBI agent. 2004 – Gunmen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rampaged through Basra and Amarah, attacking British patrols and government buildings. Witnesses in Basra reported 9 militiamen killed in the fighting. One child was killed when his house was struck by a projectile. Attackers in Habhab set off a bomb outside the house of a police official killing three members of his family and wounding three others. A pipeline was bombed and slowed the flow of export oil by as much as 25%. 2005 – The Battle of Al Qaim (code-named Operation Matador) was a military offensive conducted by the United States Marine Corps, against insurgent positions in Iraq’s northwestern Anbar province, which ran from 8 May 2005 to 19 May 2005. It was focused on eliminating insurgents and foreign fighters in a region known as a smuggling route and a sanctuary for foreign fighters. Task Force 3/2 and elements of Task Force 3/25 (3rd Battalion/2nd Marines, 3rd Battalion/25th Marines, 4th Assault Amphibian Bn, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Bn,B Co 4th Combat Engineer Bn, 2nd Platoon A Co 1st Tank Bn, and a detachment of H-1’s from HMLA 269 ) conducted a sweep of an insurgent-held area near the Syrian border. 814th Engineer Company (MRB) led the initial offensive; breaching the river obstacle with a ribbon float bridge while conducting concurrent rafting. It lasted eleven days, during which the U.S. troops killed more than 125 suspected insurgents and captured 39 others. The Marines captured and/or destroyed many weapon caches and suffered 9 killed in action and 40 wounded in action. Notable among these casualties was a squad from 1st Platoon, Lima Company 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines which had all of its members killed or wounded, mostly while embarked in an AAV that was struck by an IED. 2007 – U.S. police arrest six Islamic men from the Republic of Macedonia and the Middle East based on a tip from a Mount Laurel, NJ resident who discovered their plot to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey, and “kill as many soldiers as possible.” 2008 – Russia expels two United States military attachés following earlier expulsion of two Russian diplomats from the United States. 2012 – A CIA double agent was involved in a foiled bomb plot by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to blow up an U.S.-bound flight, according to government officials. 2014 – The House Veterans Affairs Committee votes to subpoena Shinseki and others in relation to the Phoenix VA scandal.
