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April 1: This Day in U.S. Military History in the 1900s

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1917 – In Baltimore some 4,000 pro-war demonstrators stormed a meeting of the American League Against Militarism and threatened to hang the participants that included Stanford Univ. Chancellor David Starr Jordan.

1924 – Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for “Beer Hall Putsch.” Gen Ludendorff was acquitted for leading the botched Nazi’s “Beer Hall Putsch” in the German state of Bavaria.

1935 – General Electric Co. announces the first radio tube made of metal. Metal tubes were smaller and lighter than the glass vacuum tubes used in earlier radios and they improved short-wave radio reception. Radio had started to catch on as an entertainment medium in the 1920s, and its popularity grew until the rise of television in the early 1940s.

1941 – US Navy took over Treasure Island in SF Bay.

1942 – First Naval Air Transportation Service (NATS) squadron for Pacific operations commissioned

1942 – The Japanese resume major attack on the Bataan Peninsula. The American and Philippine troops have 24,000 of their men ill due to short rations (1/4 of normal ration size) and tropical diseases.

1943 – The Italian blockade-runner Pietro Orseolo is attacked off the coast of Spain by British Beaufort and Beaufighter torpedo bombers. Escorting German destroyers shoot down 5 of the aircraft. After dark, the US submarine Shad hits the ship with a torpedo, causing substantial damage.

1944 – US aircraft from Task Force 58 (Admiral Spruance) attack Woleai Island. In three days of attacks about 130,000 tons of Japanese shipping has been sunk as well as 7 small warships. American forces have lost 26 planes and claim 150 Japanese airplanes shot down.

1944 – Navigation errors lead to an accidental American bombing of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen.

1944 – US forces occupy Ndrilo and Koniniat in the Admiralties.

1945 – On Okinawa, American forces launch Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. Two corps of the US 10th Army (General Buckner) land in the area of Hagushi, in the southwest of the island. US Task Force 51 (Admiral Turner) provides the 1,200 transports and landing ships including seven Coast Guard-manned transports, 29 LSTs, the cutters Bibb and Woodbine, and 12 LCI(L)s, with over 450,000 Army and Marine Corps personnel embarked. The troops landed are from US 3rd Amphibious Corps (Geiger) with US 6th and 1st Marine Divisions, on the left or northern flank, and 24th Corps (Hodge) with US 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions, on the right or southern flank. On land, US forces encounter almost no resistance on the first day and establish a beachhead three miles deep and nine miles wide. (Okinawa is 70 miles long and a maximum of 10 miles wide.) Kadena and Yontan airfields are captured. Japanese forces on the island, consisting of the 130,000 troops of the Japanese 32nd Army (General Ushijima), are entrenched in concealed positions and caves, mostly to the south of the American landing area along the Shuri Line. (There are also 450,000 civilians on the island.) At sea, US TF58 and TF54 as well as the British Pacific Fleet conduct air and naval bombardments. Japanese conventional and Kamikaze air strikes hit the battleship USS West Virginia, and the carrier, HMS Indomitable, along with eight other ships.

1945 – The US 1st and 9th Armies link up at Lippstadt, cutting off the German forces in the Ruhr which consist of 325,000 men mostly from German 15th Army and 5th Panzer Army of German Army Group B (Field Marshal Model). Other elements of US 1st Army capture Paderborn while US 9th Army units take Hamm. To the north, forces of British 2nd Army have crossed the Mitteland Canal near Munster and are advancing to Osnabruck.

1945 – The US 158th Regiment (General MacNider) lands at Legaspi in the southeast of Luzon and takes the town and nearby airfield. Elsewhere on Luzon American forces are beginning to advance toward the southeast of Manila after much hard fighting against the Japanese forces of the Shimbu Group (General Yokoyama). Forces of the Japanese 14th Army (General Yamashita), in the north of the island, have also engaged by American and Filipino forces.

1948 – Soviet troops stop U.S. and British military trains traveling through the Russian zone of occupation in Germany and demand that they be allowed to search the trains. British and U.S. officials refused the Soviet demand, and the problems associated with the Soviet, British, and U.S. occupation of Germany grew steadily more serious in the following months. Soviet and U.S. differences over the post-World War II fate of Germany began even before the war ended in 1945. The Soviets were determined that Germany would never again pose a military threat to Russia and they also demanded huge postwar reparations. The United States shared the Soviet concern about German rearmament, but as the Cold War began to develop, American officials realized that a revitalized Germany might act as a bulwark against possible Soviet expansion into Western Europe. When Germany surrendered in 1945, it was divided into British, American, Russian (and, eventually, French) zones of occupation. Berlin was located within the Russian sector, but the city itself was also divided into occupation zones. As it became clear during 1946 and 1947 that the United States, acting with the British and French, were determined to economically revitalize and militarily rearm Western Germany, tensions with the Soviet Union began to mount. On April 1, 1948, Soviet troops began stopping U.S. and British military trains traveling through the Russian sector to and from Berlin. Both the British and American governments responded with indignant letters of reproach to the Soviet Union. Eventually, the stoppages ceased, but in June 1948 the Soviets began a full-scale blockade of all ground travel to and from the U.S.-British-French sectors of Berlin. Thus began the Berlin Blockade, which was only broken when U.S. aircraft carried out the amazing task of flying and dropping supplies into Berlin. Germany remained a major Cold War battlefield throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

1951 – U.N. forces again crossed the 38th Parallel in Korea.

 1952 – Air Force Colonel Francis S. Gabreski, flying his F-86 Sabre “Gabby” out of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the eighth ace of the Korean War and the third ranking U.S. ace of all time. Colonel Gabreski achieved a total of 37.5 aerial victories, including five in Korea. Air Force F-86 Sabres scored their second greatest victory of the war, shooting down 10 MiGs confirmed with two others probable.

1954 – U.S. Air Force Academy was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a permanent site near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.

1960 – The first weather satellite, TIROS 1, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

1960 – France exploded 2 atom bombs in the Sahara Desert.

1964 – Former Vice-President Richard Nixon begins a three day visit to Vietnam during which he sharply criticizes US policies for “compromises and improvisations,” calling for continued aid and promising to make this an issue in the upcoming US Presidential race.

1965 - 17 non-aligned nations appeal to the UN, the US, Britain, the Soviets, North and South Vietnam and other bodies in a call for a “peaceful solution through negotiations.”  President Johnson formally responds on 8 April that the US agrees with the goals, but cannot negotiate until North Vietnam ceases its aggression.

1965 - President Johnson agrees to send more US ground forces to Vietnam and to allow them to take offensive action.  Public statements do not mention this change in policy.

1966 – The command, US Naval Forces Vietnam established

1966 - The Vietcong set off a 200 pound bomb at a Saigon hotel housing US troops.  The building is heavily damaged.  Three US and 4 South Vietnamese troops are killed.

1967 – Helicopter squadron HAL 3 activated at Vung Tau.

1967 – The Coast Guard ended its 177-year association in the Treasury Department to enter the newly-created Department of Transportation when President Lyndon Johnson signed Executive Order 167-81. The Coast Guard was the largest agency in the new department.

1968 - Operation Pegasus/Lam Son 207 begins.  A two week joint combined operation between US 1st Air Cavalry, Marines and four ARVN airborne battalions.  The goal is to relieve the Marines besieged at Khesan.

1969 – Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announces that B-52 bomber raids in Vietnam will be decreased by 10% as a result in cuts in next year’s defense budget.

1969 - The Vietcong’s Liberation News Agency claims that their offensive has shattered General Creighton Abrams’ strategies following the 1968 Tet Offensive.

1970 - Captain Ernest Medina is formally charged with the murder of Vietnamese civilians by members of his company at Songmy.  Medina, speaking to the media reveals that he is accused of the premeditated murder of 175 people and denies participation in any mass killing.

1971 - Vice-President Spiro Agnew refers to war critics as “home-front snipers” accusing anti-war activists of garnering disproportionate coverage, overbalancing, what he sees as the majority view, that US forces in Vietnam have acted patriotically.

1971 – The Poseidon (C-3) missile becomes operational when USS James Madison began her 3rd patrol carrying 16 tactical Poseidon missiles.

1972 – Following three days of the heaviest artillery and rocket bombardment of the war, between 12,000 and 15,000 soldiers of Hanoi’s 304th Division–supported by tanks, artillery, and antiaircraft units equipped with surface-to-air missiles–sweep across the Demilitarized Zone. They routed the South Vietnamese 3rd Division and drove them toward their rear bases. This attack was the opening move of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the “Easter Offensive”), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the blow that would win them the war. The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south. North Vietnam had a number of objectives in launching the offensive: impressing the communist world and its own people with its determination; capitalizing on U.S. antiwar sentiment and possibly hurting President Richard Nixon’s chances for re-election; proving that “Vietnamization” was a failure; damaging the South Vietnamese forces and government stability; gaining as much territory as possible before a possible truce; and accelerating negotiations on their own terms. Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders were almost overwhelmed, particularly in the northernmost provinces, where they abandoned their positions in Quang Tri and fled south in the face of the enemy onslaught. At Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese were more successful in defending against the attacks, but only after weeks of bitter fighting. Although the South Vietnamese suffered heavy casualties, they managed to hold their own with the aid of U.S. advisors and American airpower. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders and 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, instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces.

 1975 – More than half of South Vietnam’s territory is now controlled by the North.  Communist forces begin the envelopment of Saigon, comming in from the south, threatening Highway 4, Saigon’s connection ot the Mekong Delta.

1979 – Iran proclaimed to be an Islamic Republic after the fall of the Shah.

1982 – The U.S. transferred the Canal Zone to Panama.

1984 – The CGC Gallatin made the largest maritime cocaine seizure to date when it boarded and seized the 33-foot sailboat Chinook and her crew of two. A boarding team had discovered 1,800 pounds of cocaine stashed aboard the Chinook.

1986 – The U.S. submarine Nathaniel Green ran aground in the Irish Sea.

1992 – Battleship USS Missouri (on which, Japan surrendered) was decommissioned.

1992 – President Bush pledged the United States would help finance a $24 billion international aid fund for the former Soviet Union.

1994 – In Guatemala Judge Gonzalez Dubon was assassinated. He had recently signed an order to extradite to the US former Army Lt. Col. Carlos Ochoa Ruiz on drug trafficking charges.

1995 – U.N. peacekeepers officially took over from the U.S.-led multinational force in Haiti.

1995 – With U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry looking on, Ukraine began the process of dismantling its nuclear missiles.

1996 – In Spokane, Wa., a US Bank branch was robbed and bombed. In 1997 three members of an anti-government militia were convicted for this and another robbery and 3 bombings.

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1996 – FBI officials in Jordan, Montana continued to guard a stronghold of Freemen, an anti-government group that does not recognize the legitimacy of US laws.

1999 – The United States branded as an illegal abduction the capture of three U.S. Army soldiers near the Macedonian-Yugoslav border; President Clinton demanded their immediate release.

1999 – Serbia planned to start criminal proceedings against the 3 US soldiers captured on the Macedonian border. Allied planes bombed the Danube bridge at Novi Sad.

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