1940 – Himmler orders the construction of Auschwitz concentration camp.
1942 – The 1st convoys of Japanese detainees arrived at the Tanforan detention center south of San Francisco. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. Most of the Tanforan detainees were transferred to Abraham, Utah.
1944 – During the night (April 27-28), 3 American LST landing craft, conducting an invasion exercise (Exercise “Tiger”), are torpedoed by German E-boats in Lyme Bay. A total of 638 troops are killed. This incident is kept secret for fear of damaging Anglo-American relations.
1944 – US troops occupy the main airstrip at Hollandia, New Guinea.
1945 – Forces of US 5th Army liberate Genoa, which is already substantially controlled by Italian partisan forces.
1945 – Italian partisans captured Mussolini.
1945 – US forces capture Baguio, on Luzon. Fighting continues in the Bicol Peninsula.
1945 – A squadron of 3 cruisers and 6 destroyers, commanded by Admiral Berkey, make a preparatory bombardment of targets in the Tarakan area in the northeast of the island of Borneo.
1946 – 1st radar installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
1951 – Munsan fell to communist forces as the CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) Spring Offensive continued.
1953 – Operation Moolah is initiated by U.S. General Mark W. Clark against Communist pilots in the Korean War. Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force (USAF) effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. Communist forces introduced the MiG-15 to Korea on November 1, 1950. USAF pilots reported that the performance of the MiG-15 was superior to all United Nations (U.N.) aircraft, including the USAF’s newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a MiG for a financial reward. The success of the operation is disputable since no Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. However, on September 21, 1953, North Korean pilot Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, unaware of Operation Moolah.
1955 – After a meeting with General J. Lawton Collins in Washington, Secretary Dulles reluctantly agrees to replace Diem and cables the embassy in Saigon to find an alternative. CIA Colonel Lansdale, who has already helped foil General Hinh’s coup against Diem by organizing an effective palace guard, rallies to Diem’s side. he presses the embassy to support Diem and takes ‘all measures possible under narrow limits permitted by US policy.’
1959 – US State Dept. announced small arms stored in Canal Zone will be provided to Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders.
1960 – The 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
1965 – President Johnson renews his offer of ‘unconditional discussions…with any governments concerned,’ and defends US bombing raids. “Our restraint was viewed as weakness. We could no longer stand by while attacks mounted.”
1966 – After a US Air Force B-57 became reported overdue, the US Coast Guard Eastern Area Commander commenced an intensive air search. The 2-day, large-scale, over water search for the missing aircraft, all of which was coordinated by the U.S. Coast Guard, unfortunately, yielded negative results.
1968 – Vice-President Hubert Humphrey announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. In an interview he supports the current US policy of sending troops ‘where required by our own national security.’
1972 – Official Vietnam peace talks, suspended on 23 March, resume in Paris.
1972 – Apollo 16 returned to Earth.
1972 – North Vietnamese troops shatter defenses north of Quang Tri and move to within 2.5 miles of the city. Using Russian-built tanks, they took Dong Ha, 7 miles north of Quang Tri, the next day and continued to tighten their ring around Quang Tri, shelling it heavily. South Vietnamese troops suffered their highest casualties for any week in the war in the bitter fighting. This was the northern-most front of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, launched on March 30 when more than 120,000 North Vietnamese troops invaded South Vietnam. The attacks on Quang Tri were followed by attacks on Binh Long province, just 75 miles north of Saigon, and Kontum in the Central Highlands. Hanoi’s 304th Division, supported by tanks, artillery, and antiaircraft units, swept across the Demilitarized Zone and routed the South Vietnamese division that had been guarding outlying positions on the approach to Quang Tri. The attackers quickly overwhelmed the South Vietnamese troops, who fell back toward the city of Quang Tri. The North Vietnamese encircled the city and continued to pound it with artillery and rockets. On May 1, the North Vietnamese captured the city as the South Vietnamese 3rd Division collapsed as a fighting force. This was the first provincial capital to fall during the North Vietnamese offensive and ultimately the North Vietnamese controlled the entire province. Hanoi claimed 10,000 South Vietnamese and Allied casualties were captured during the battle for Quang Tri.
1975 – Saigon was encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
1978 – Afghanistan President Sardar Mohammed Daoud is overthrown and murdered in a coup led by procommunist rebels. The brutal action marked the beginning of political upheaval in Afghanistan that resulted in intervention by Soviet troops less than two years later. Daoud had ruled Afghanistan since coming to power in a coup in 1973. His relations with the neighboring Soviet Union had grown progressively worse since that time as he pursued a campaign against Afghan communists. The murder of a leading Afghan Communist Party leader in early April 1978 may have encouraged the communists to launch their successful campaign against the Daoud regime later that month. In the political chaos that followed the death of Daoud, Nur Mohammed Taraki, head of the Afghan Communist Party, took over the presidency. In December 1978, Afghanistan signed a 20-year “friendship treaty” with the Soviet Union, by which increasing amounts of Russian military and economic assistance flowed into the country. None of this, however, could stabilize the Taraki government. His dictatorial style and his decision to turn Afghanistan into a one-party state alienated many people in the heavily Moslem country. In September 1979, Taraki was himself overthrown and murdered. Three months later, Soviet troops crossed into Afghanistan and installed a government acceptable to the Russians, and a war between Afghan rebels and Soviet troops erupted. The conflict lasted until Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew the Soviet forces in 1988. In the years following the Soviet intervention, Afghanistan became a Cold War battlefield. The United States responded quickly and harshly to the Soviet action by freezing arms talks, cutting wheat sales to Russia, and boycotting the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow. Tension increased after Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. The United States provided arms and other assistance to what Reagan referred to as the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan. For the Soviets, the Afghanistan intervention was a disaster, draining both Soviet finances and manpower. In the United States, commentators were quick to label the battle in Afghanistan “Russia’s Vietnam.”
1978 – Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
1989 – In China more than 150,000 students and workers calling for democracy marched, cheered and sang as they took over Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
1989 – President George Bush dedicated the Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Center East, otherwise known as C3I, in south Florida. The facility, manned by Coast Guard and Customs personnel, was designed to give law enforcement agencies instant access to air and marine smuggling information.
1990 – The aperture door of the Hubble Space Telescope was opened by ground controllers as the space shuttle Discovery, which had carried the Hubble into orbit, prepared to return home.
1991 – A group of 250 Kurds became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in northern Iraq.
1997 – A Texas militia group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain Resort community in a standoff with 300 police officers. They advocated independence for the state. The hostages were released later the next day in exchange for a jailed comrade, but the standoff continued. Richard McLaren and Robert Otto were later captured, convicted and sentenced to 99 and 50 years in prison.
1998 – A Pentagon panel said remains of the Vietnam veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery should be exhumed to determine whether they belonged to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, as his family believed. The remains were later positively identified as Blassie’s.
1998 – The UN extended security sanctions against Iraq but agreed to reviews every 60 days. It was earlier reported that Iraq recently had executed 1,500 political prisoners.
1999 – The US Pentagon announced a call for 33,102 reservists for active duty in Kosovo.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/april-27/
