https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/october-4/4 October
1597 – The first Guale uprising begins against the Spanish missions in Georgia. Guale was an historic Native American chiefdom along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th century. During the late 17th century and early 18th century, Guale society was shattered from extensive epidemics of new infectious diseases and warfare from other tribes. The first Guale rebellion would be largely ineffective.
1648 – Peter Stuyvesant established America’s 1st volunteer firemen. Governor of New York, Peter Stuyvesant appointed a group of four fire wardens to inspect chimneys of the thatched-roof houses and to levy a fine of three guilders for each unswept chimney. The money received from these fines was used to import leather buckets, hooks, and ladders. These instruments were then put to use by concerned citizens to protect their communities from destructive fires. Thus the tradition of Americans volunteering their time for fire protection began.
1776 – Marines participated in the USS Wasp’s capture of a British ship off the coast of New England.
1777 – George Washington’s troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn., resulting in heavy American casualties. British General Sir William Howe repelled Washington’s last attempt to retake Philadelphia, compelling Washington to spend the winter at Valley Forge. Following the British capture of Philadelphia after the Battle of Brandywine, Howe’s troops encamped in Germantown to the North of the city. The camp stretched in a line astride the main northern road. Washington determined to surprise the British army in camp. His plan required a strong column under Major General Nathaniel Greene (with McDougall, Muhlenberg, Stephen and Scott) to attack the right wing of the British army comprising Grant’s and Donop’s troops, the second column which he commanded (with Stirling and Sullivan) to advance down the main Philadelphia road and launch an assault on the British center, while forces of militia attacked each wing of the British force comprising on the right the Queen’s Rangers and on the left near the Schuylkill River, Hessian Jagers and British Light Infantry. Washington’s plan required the four attacks to be launched “precisely at 5 o’clock with charged bayonets and without firing”. The intention was to surprise the whole British army in much the way the Hessians had been surprised at Trenton. The American columns started along their respective approach roads on the evening of 3rd October 1777. Dawn found the American forces well short of their start line for the attack and there was an encounter with the first British picket which fired its guns to warn of the attack. The outpost was supported by a battalion of light infantry and the 40th Foot under Colonel Musgrave. It took a substantial part of Sullivan’s division to drive back the British contingent. General Howe rode forward, initially thinking the advanced force was being attacked by a raiding party, his view impeded by a thickening fog that clouded the field for the rest of the day. During the fighting Musgrave caused 6 companies of the 40th to fortify the substantial stone house of Chief Justice Chew and use it as a strong point. The American advance halted while furious attacks were launched against the house aided by an artillery barrage. Hearing the firing, Stephen heading the other main attack, ignored his orders to continue along the lane to the attack of the British right wing, swung to the right and made for the Chew House. His brigade joined the attack on the house which was assailed for a full hour by the infantry and guns of several American brigades. The rest of Greene’s division launched a savage attack on the British line as planned and broke through, capturing a number of British troops. In the meantime Sullivan and Wayne had continued past the Chew House and begun their attack. In the fog Wayne’s and Stephen’s brigades encountered each other and exchanged fire. Both brigades broke and fled. Sullivan’s brigade was attacked on both flanks, by Grant with the 5th and 55th Foot on his left and by Brigadier Grey on his right. Sullivan’s brigade broke. The British then turned on Greene’s isolated division capturing Colonel Matthews and his 9th Virginia Regiment.Attacked by the British Guards, the 25th and 27th Foot, Greene withdrew up the main road to the North West, assisted by the efforts of Muhlenberg’s brigade. As the American army retreated its condition deteriorated and Washington was forced to withdraw some sixteen miles, harried by the British light dragoons. The American militia forces did not develop their attacks and finally retreated.
1779 – The Fort Wilson Riot began. After the British had abandoned Philadelphia, James Wilson, a signer of teh Declaration of Independence, successfully defended at trial 23 people from property seizure and exile by the radical government of Pennsylvania. A mob whipped up by liquor and the writings and speeches of Joseph Reed, president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council, marched on Congressman Wilson’s home at Third and Walnut Streets. Wilson and 35 of his colleagues barricaded themselves in his home, later nicknamed Fort Wilson. In the fighting that ensued, six died, and 17 to 19 were wounded. The city’s soldiers, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry and Baylor’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons, eventually intervened and rescued Wilson and his colleagues. The rioters were pardoned and released by Joseph Reed.
1821 – LT Robert F. Stockton sails from Boston for Africa to carry out his orders to help stop the international slave trade. Stockton will be instrumental in the founding of Liberia.
1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president (R) of the United States, was born in Delaware, Ohio. Hayes was a major-general in the Civil War, then an Ohio congressman, then succeeded Grant as president (1877-81). Hayes won the Electoral College by a margin of one vote after his opponent won the popular vote in an election so fraught with charges of vote fraud that there were even fears of a coup. Hayes refused to seek a second term. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio the son of Rutherford and Sophia Birchard Hayes. His father having died before he was born, he was reared by his uncle, Sardis Birchard. He graduated from Kenyon College in 1842 and studied at Harvard Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1845, he moved (1849) to Cincinnati and married Lucy Webb on Dec. 30, 1852. The couple had eight children. Hayes resolved as a young man “to maintain steady nerves if possible, under the most trying circumstances.” Initially a Whig, Hayes joined the Republican party in the 1850s and was chosen city solicitor of Cincinnati in 1858. At the start of the U.S. Civil War he became a major in the 23d Ohio Volunteers. His wartime career took him through several battles, ending with service under Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. He left the army as a brevet major general. Elected to Congress in 1864, Hayes took his seat in December 1865 and was reelected in 1866. He served two terms (1868 72) as governor of Ohio, retired, and then was elected to a third term in 1875. As a moderate with a clean record and as governor of a critical Midwestern state, Hayes won a seventh-ballot victory over James G. Blaine at the Republican National Convention in 1876. On election night, however, it seemed that Hayes had lost to his Democratic rival, Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden had a popular majority and 184 of the 185 electoral votes needed to win. Hayes had 165 electoral votes. A total of 20 in Oregon, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were disputed. If Hayes had won all of these, as the Republicans claimed, he would have won. With competing returns from the contested states, Congress created an electoral commission, which decided that Hayes should receive all 20 disputed ballots and thus ensured his inauguration in March 1877. A series of sectional bargains, which have been called the Compromise of 1877, brought about this peaceful result. Southerners in Congress accepted Hayes because of Republican assurances that Reconstruction would end with the withdrawal of federal troops. Republicans also made less definite commitments about appropriations for internal improvements in the South, while the South’s representatives said that the political rights of black Americans would be safeguarded. None of these informal deals survived the early months of Hayes’s term. On the race issue and the South, Hayes attempted to carry out his policy “to wipe out the color line, to abolish sectionalism, to end the war and bring peace.” He named a southerner David M. Key from Tennessee as postmaster general and withdrew the federal army from the South. Republicans assailed him, and the South repudiated his initiative. The last two Republican governments in the South Louisiana and South Carolina fell, and by 1878 the solidly Democratic South had emerged. “I am reluctantly forced to admit that the experiment was a failure,” Hayes said. Like most of American society in the 1870s, the president believed that blacks would have to survive in the South and complete the journey to freedom through their personal efforts without government support. Hayes had more success with other issues. An advocate of civil service reform, he waged a two-year battle with Sen. Roscoe Conkling of New York over that state’s patronage. In the end Hayes won confirmation for his appointees to the New York Custom House, removing Chester A. Arthur from his position there, and thus gave important impetus toward later adoption of civil service reform. On monetary issues Congress passed the mildly inflationary Bland-Allison Act over the president’s veto in 1878, but the administration did bring about the resumption of gold payments for Civil War greenback currency on Jan. 1, 1879. When the elections of 1878 produced a Democratic House of Representatives, Hayes resisted opposition efforts to attach crippling riders to appropriation bills that would have weakened the presidency. He also vetoed (1879) Congress’s first attempt to ban Chinese immigration. Fulfilling his pledge to serve only a single term, Hayes handed over the government to his Republican successor, James A. Garfield, in 1881 and retired to his estate, Spiegel Grove, in Fremont, Ohio. Humanitarian causes, especially prison reform and international peace, and speaking engagements filled out his remaining years. Lucy Hayes died in 1889, and the former president on Jan. 17, 1893. Hayes’s reputation has been tarnished by the circumstances under which he became president. Contemporaries gibed at “His Fraudulency”; modern critics deplore the way in which the Compromise of 1877 betrayed blacks. In office, however, he made a creditable record and left the presidency stronger than when he came to it.
1861 – The Union ship USS South Carolina captured two Confederate blockade runners outside of New Orleans, La.
1862 – Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, ended in a Union victory, though failing to destroy Van Dorn’s Confederate force.
1874 – Kiowa leader Santanta, known as “the Orator of the Plains,” surrendered in Darlington, Texas. He was later sent to the state penitentiary, where he committed suicide October 11, 1878.
1906 – Marines protected Americans during revolution in Cuba. Revolution broke out in Cuba in 1906, and a Marine expeditionary force was sent to the island to establish and maintain law and order. In mid-1906 Cuban internal strife caused the United States to invoke the Platt Amendment and send troops to the island nation in an attempt to restore order. William Howard Taft, now Secretary-of-War, sent his Philippine Insurrection veterans.
1912 – Gen. Zeledon, Nicaraguan opponent of US occupation, was killed by his troops as he attempted to desert them at the conclusion of the Battle of Coyotepe.
1918 – Under an Anglo-French offensive, General max von Boehn’s Germany Army Group is forced to abandon the Hindenburg Line. This precipitates retreat of other German forces, which form a hasty defensive line along the Selle River, 10 miles behind their original positions.
1918 – There was an explosion at the T.A. Gillespie Co. munitions yard in Morgan, NJ. Coast Guardsmen from Perth Amboy responded. When fire threatened a trainload of TNT, these men repaired the track and moved the train to safety, thus preventing further disaster. Two Coast Guardsmen were killed in this effort.
1940 – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps, where the Nazi leader sought Italy’s help in fighting the British.
1943 – U.S. captures Solomon Islands.
1943 – Aircraft from USS Ranger sink 5 German ships and damage 3 in Operation Leader, the only U.S. Navy carrier operation in northern European waters during World War II. Ranger departed Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet 2 October to attack German shipping in Norwegian waters. The objective of the force was the Norwegian port of Bodö. The task force reached launch position off Vestfjord before dawn 4 October completely undetected. At 0618, Ranger launched 20 Dauntless dive bombers and an escort of eight Wildcat fighters. One division of dive bombers attacked the 8,000-ton freighter LaPlata, while the rest continued north to attack a small German convoy. They severely damaged a 10,000-ton tanker and a smaller troop transport. They also sank two of four small German merchantmen in the Bodö roadstead. A second Ranger attack group of 10 Avengers and six Wildcats destroyed a German freighter and a small coaster and bombed yet another troop-laden transport. Three Ranger planes were lost to antiaircraft fire. On the afternoon of 4 October, Ranger was finally located by three German aircraft, but her combat air patrol shot down two of the enemy planes and chased off the third.
Ranger returned to Scapa Flow 6 October.
1952 – Task Force 77 aircraft encounter MIG-15 aircraft for the first time.
1952 – Flying an F-86 Sabre, future jet ace Captain Manuel J. Fernandez, Jr., 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, scored his first aerial victory of the war.
1956 – Two U.S. Air Force F-89 aircraft crashed in rugged mountain terrain about four miles from Mount Olympus, WA. For seven days, the Coast Guard directed a highly coordinated search for the lost plane and crews. Finally, aircraft and helicopters from the CG Air Station, Port Angeles, WA, assisted by aircraft and ground search elements from other services located and evacuated the four crew members, one of whom had died.
1957 – The Space Age and “space race” began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (traveler), the first man-made space satellite. The satellite, built by Valentin Glushko, weighed 184 pounds and was launched by a converted Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Sputnik orbited the earth every 96 minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. The event was timed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. In 1958, it reentered the earth’s atmosphere and burned up. It was followed by 9 other Sputnik spacecraft.
1985 – Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying it had killed American hostage William Buckley. Fellow hostage David Jacobsen, however, later said he believed Buckley had died of torture injuries four months earlier. USALC and CIA Station Chief, William Francis Buckley, 57, was kidnapped from Beirut, Lebanon on March 16, 1984 before being taken to Iran where he was brutally tortured and killed. He was held captive for 15 months before dying from the torture he had received. In 1991 his body, wrapped in blankets was dumped on a road near the Beirut airport. He is survived by Candace Hammond and two sisters. Lt Colonel Buckley is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1989 – Fawaz Younis, a Lebanese hijacker convicted of commandeering a Jordanian jetliner in 1985 with two Americans aboard, was sentenced in Washington to 30 years in prison.
1993 – Last US KIA in Somalia. A Green Beret is killed during a mortar attack at the Mogadishu Airport. 12 GIs are WIA. Three Marines are WIA elsewhere.
1993 – In Somalia US troops blasted their way out of Bakara Market in Mogadishu and left an estimated 500 Somalis dead. Dozens of cheering, dancing Somalis dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.
1994 – Exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vowed in an address to the U.N. General Assembly to return to Haiti in 11 days.
1995 – Hurricane Opal hit the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall in Destin, Florida. Coast Guard units provided relief efforts, surveyed damage, and restored aids to navigation. The CGC Kodiak Island contacted the CGC Courgeous and requested assistance. The Kodiak Island was battling 10 to 12-foot waves 100 miles west of Gasparilla, Florida, and experiencing flooding and a loss of steering control due to a hydraulic fluid leak. A HC-130 from AIRSTA Clearwater flew to the scene to provide assistance and the Courageous went to escort the Kodiak Island to Group St. Petersburg.
1997 – From Bosnia it was reported that an Egyptian ship loaded with Soviet-made T-55 tanks was sitting at anchor in the Croatian port of Ploce. The shipment was registered with officials of the foreign peace force. An error on the manifest said the tanks were intended for the Bosnian Army.
1997 – In Columbia rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces killed 17 policemen near San Juan de Arama. The rebels were staging a growing campaign to disrupt municipal elections. They had already killed 26 candidates and forced more than 1,500 to withdraw.
1998 – U.S. and Algierian Navies conduct first bilateral exercise since Algerian independendence in 1962. It was a search and rescue operation involving USS Mitscher.
1998 – In Iraq a Palestinian burst into a Baghdad synagogue and sprayed the crowd with gunfire. 2 Jews and 2 Muslims were killed.
1998 – Russian envoys warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that NATO might launch air-strikes unless he took “decisive measures” to end the humanitarian crisis in the southern province of Kosovo.
1999 – Israeli PM Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed on terms for the first safe route between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1999 – In Russia Prime Minister Putin planned to resettle thousands of Chechens in areas under Russian control, an indication that Moscow planned to split Chechnya in two. Chechen fighters shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24 warplane that was searching for another downed plane.
2000 – In Indonesia Pres. Wahid denied clemency to Tommy Suharto and ordered the arrest of a Timorese militia chief.
2000 – In Israel Prime Minister Barak agreed to withdraw heavy arms from the West Bank and Gaza in a bid to halt violence. Amid fresh bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat together for talks in Paris.
2000 – In the Ivory Coast a bus-station bombing killed 4 people and a state of emergency was declared.
2000 – In Serbia the Constitutional Court set aside part of the Sep 24 voting results in a move seen to buy time for Pres. Milosevic. Citizens blocked an attempt by the government to use force against strikers and protesters. Major protests were planned to force Milosevic from office.
2001 – The US pledged $320 million in aid to Afghan refugees.
2001 – Reagan National Airport re-opened.
2001 – NYC officials estimated that the damage from the Sep 11 attacks would cost as much as $105 billion over the next 2 years. Depending on the number of jobs permanently shifted out of the city, the September 11th attacks could cost New York City as much as $83-95 billion dollars, though the financial loss could never compare to the horrendous loss of nearly 3,000 lives.
2001 – The British government released a 16-page document over the Internet that presented details on Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the Sep 11 terrorist attacks.
2001 – The EU made a joint announcement with Spain that the Basque ETA would be put on the list of terrorist organizations whose assets would be frozen by the EU.
2001 – In Israel PM Sharon warned the US that it risked appeasing the Arab nations: “Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense.” A Palestinian posing as an Israeli soldier killed 3 Israelis in Afula. A Palestinian was killed during a 2nd day of fighting in Hebron.
2001 – Macedonian security forces, in opposition to external warnings, took control of 3 ethnic Albanian villages but met with resistance from others.
2001 – Pakistan announced that it sees sufficient grounds for an indictment against Osama bin Laden.
2001 – In the Philippines government forces captured 13 members of Abu Sayaaf.
2002 – Hans Blix, UN weapons inspector, endorsed a US demand that Iraq make a full declaration of its weapons program before inspections resume.
2002 – Richard C. Reid pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes and declared himself a follower of Osama bin Laden.
2002 – US federal agents arrested 4 suspected al Qaeda terrorists, 3 in Portland and 1 in Detroit. 2 other suspected cell members were overseas.
2002 – Foreign ministers from six Pacific nations arrived in Java’s ancient royal capital of Yogyakarta for a day of talks that Indonesia said would tackle the thorny issue of terrorism.
2002 – Lawmakers from rival Iraqi Kurdish factions met for the first time in 8 years, in a rare show of political unity ahead of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
2002 – North Korean officials told a visiting US delegation that the country has a second covert nuclear weapons program.
2002 – Pakistan said it successfully test-fired a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile. It was named Hatf-IV (Shaheen-1) and had a range of 700 km (430 miles).
2003 – A U.S. military source said Polish troops had discovered and destroyed French-made anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq. France swiftly denied selling any weapons to Iraq in violation of a U.N. arms embargo and had stopped making the Roland missiles 15 years ago.
2003 – In London James Forlong (44), a former Sky News television correspondent who resigned after he admitted faking parts of a report on the war in Iraq, was found dead at his home in a possible suicide.
2003 – In Haifa, Israel, Hanadi Jaradat (29), a female Palestinian lawyer, blew herself up in a crowded Mediterranean beach restaurant, killing 19 people including 4 children.
2003 – In Italy anti-globalization demonstrators set fire to an employment agency, smashed cars and windows and hurled insults at government headquarters in Rome.
2004 – Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, one of the original Mercury astronauts who pioneered human space exploration, died. He was 77. One of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Cooper piloted the final flight of the Mercury program, the United States’ first manned spaceflight program. An Oklahoman, Cooper was born March 6, 1927, in Shawnee. Cooper was a World War II veteran. He joined the Marines and transferred to the Air Force in 1949. He earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1956 and served as a test pilot in the Flight Test Division at Edwards Air Force Base. Cooper was selected as a Mercury astronaut in April 1959. On May 15, 1963, Cooper piloted the “Faith 7” spacecraft on a 22-orbit mission that lasted 34 hours and 20 minutes. In 1965 he served as command pilot of the Gemini 5 mission. He and Charles Conrad established a new space endurance record by traveling more than 3.3 million miles in an elapsed time of 190 hours, 56 minutes, and proved that humans could survive in a weightless state for the length of a trip to the moon. It also tested a new power source for future flights – fuel cells. During a 1995 reunion of surviving Mercury astronauts, Cooper was asked who was the greatest fighter pilot he ever saw, Cooper answered, “You’re looking at him!”
2004 – Insurgents unleashed a pair of powerful car bombs near the symbol of U.S. authority in Iraq, the Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and key government offices are located as well as hotels occupied by hundreds of foreigners. Two other explosions brought the day’s bombing toll to at least 26 dead and more than 100 wounded.
2004 – US and Iraqi forces conclude a 3 day fight to reclaim Samarra from Sunni insurgents.
2004 – SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.
2005 – United States President George W. Bush expresses concern for a potential avian flu outbreak. He requests Congressional legislation permitting the military to impose a quarantine in the event of a deadly flu pandemic.United States President George W. Bush expresses concern for a potential avian flu outbreak. He requests Congressional legislation permitting the military to impose a quarantine in the event of a deadly flu pandemic.
2006 – A United States Appeals Court in Cincinnati, Ohio rules that the U.S. government can continue to use its warrantless domestic wiretap program pending the Justice Department’s appeal of a federal judge’s ruling outlawing the program.
2006 – The US announces reformulation of Counterinsurgency doctrine. GEN David Petraeus will lead a joint Army-Marine team in rewriting the Counterinsurgency manual. This new doctrine is heavily influenced by the success of COL McMaster’s clear/hold/build strategy.
2013 – U.S. special forces operators captured alive Abu Anas al Libi in Tripoli, Libya. Libi, also known as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
2014 – The Kurdish city of Kobani in the Raqqa governate is besieged by ISIS fighters.
Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
ARCHER, JAMES W.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant and Adjutant, 59th Indiana Infantry. Place and date: At Corinth, Miss., 4 October 1862. Entered service at: Spencer, Ind. Birth: Edgar, Ill. Date of issue: 2 August 1897. Citation: Voluntarily took command of another regiment, with the consent of one or more of his seniors, who were present, rallied the command and led it in the assault.
SWAYNE, WAGER
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 43d Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Corinth, Miss., 4 October 1862. Entered service at: Columbus, Ohio. Born: 10 November 1834, Columbus, Ohio. Date of issue: 19 August 1893. Citation: Conspicuous gallantry in restoring order at a critical moment and leading his regiment in a charge.
KAUFMAN, BENJAMIN
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company K, 308th Infantry, 77th Division. Place and date: In the forest of Argonne, France, 4 October 1918. Entered service at: Brooklyn, N.Y. Born: 10 March 1894, Buffalo, N.Y. G.O. No.: 50, W.D., 1919. Citation: He took out a patrol for the purpose of attacking an enemy machinegun which had checked the advance of his company. Before reaching the gun he became separated from his patrol and a machinegun bullet shattered his right arm. Without hesitation he advanced on the gun alone, throwing grenades with his left hand and charging with an empty pistol, taking one prisoner and scattering the crew, bringing the gun and prisoner back to the first-aid station.
MADISON, JAMES JONAS
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve Force. Born: 20 May 1884, Jersey City, N.J. Appointed from: Mississippi. Citation: For exceptionally heroic service in a position of great responsibility as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, when, on 4 October 1918, that vessel was attacked by an enemy submarine and was sunk after a prolonged and gallant resistance. The submarine opened fire at a range of 500 yards, the first shots taking effect on the bridge and forecastle, 1 of the 2 forward guns of the Ticonderoga being disabled by the second shot. The fire was returned and the fight continued for nearly 2 hours. Lt. Comdr. Madison was severely wounded early in the fight, but caused himself to be placed in a chair on the bridge and continued to direct the fire and to maneuver the ship. When the order was finally given to abandon the sinking ship, he became unconscious from loss of blood, but was lowered into a lifeboat and was saved, with 31 others, out of a total number of 236 on board.
MORELOCK, STERLING
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, Company M, 28th Infantry, 1st Division. Place and date: Near Exermont, France, 4 October 1918. Entered service at: Oquawka, Ill. Birth: Silver Run, Md. G.O. No.: 43, W.D., 1922. Citation: While his company was being held up by heavy enemy fire, Pvt. Morelock, with 3 other men who were acting as runners at company headquarters, voluntarily led them as a patrol in advance of his company’s frontline through an intense rifle, artillery, and machinegun fire and penetrated a woods which formed the German frontline. Encountering a series of 5 hostile machinegun nests, containing from 1 to 5 machineguns each, with his patrol he cleaned them all out, gained and held complete mastery of the situation until the arrival of his company commander with reinforcements, even though his entire party had become casualties. He rendered first aid to the injured and evacuated them by using stretcher bearers 10 German prisoners whom he had captured. Soon thereafter his company commander was wounded and while dressing his wound Pvt. Morelock was very severely wounded in the hip, which forced his evacuation. His heroic action and devotion to duty were an inspiration to the entire regiment.
*ROBERTS, HAROLD W.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army Company A, 344th Battalion, Tank Corps. Place and date: In the Montrebeau Woods France 4 October 1918. Entered service at: San Francisco, Calif. Birth: San Francisco, Calif. G.O. No.: 16, W.D., 1919. Citation: Cpl. Roberts, a tank driver, was moving his tank into a clump of bushes to afford protection to another tank which had become disabled. The tank slid into a shell hole, 10 feet deep, filled with water, and was immediately submerged. Knowing that only 1 of the 2 men in the tank could escape, Cpl. Roberts said to the gunner, “Well, only one of us can get out, and out you go,” whereupon he pushed his companion through the back door of the tank and was himself drowned.
*MENDOZA, MANUEL V.
Rank and Organization: Staff Sergeant. U.S. Army. Company B, 250th Infanry. 88th Infantry Division. Place and Date: October 4, 1944, Mt. Battaglia, Italy. Born: June 15, 1922, Miami, AZ . Departed: Yes (12/12/2001). Entered Service At: Phoenix, AZ. G.O. Number: . Date of Issue: 03/18/2014. Accredited To: Arizona. Citation: Then-Staff Sgt. Manuel Mendoza is being recognized for his actions on Oct. 4, 1944, in Mt. Battaglia, Italy, where he is credited with single-handedly breaking up a German counterattack
*PHELPS, WESLEY
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 12 June 1923, Neafus, Ky. Accredited to: Kentucky. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Peleliu Island, Palau Group, during a savage hostile counterattack on the night of 4 October 1944. Stationed with another marine in an advanced position when a Japanese handgrenade landed in his foxhole Pfc. Phelps instantly shouted a warning to his comrade and rolled over on the deadly bomb, absorbing with his own body the full, shattering Impact of the exploding charge. Courageous and indomitable, Pfc. Phelps fearlessly gave his life that another might be spared serious injury, and his great valor and heroic devotion to duty in the face of certain death reflect the highest credit upon himself and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
