https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/october-6/6 October
1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his army enter the Apalachee capital of Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida) by force. The Apalachee were a Native American people who historically lived in the Florida Panhandle. The Apalachee occupied the site of Velda Mound starting about 1450 CE, but had mostly abandoned it before the Spanish started settlements in the 17th century. They first encountered Spanish explorers in the 16th century, when the Hernando de Soto expedition arrived. They lived between the Aucilla River and Ochlockonee River, at the head of Apalachee Bay, an area known to Europeans as the Apalachee Province. They spoke a Muskogean language called Apalachee now extinct.
1683 – German Quaker and Mennonite families found Germantown in the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America. Germantown is an area in Northwest Philadelphia. Founded as an independent borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area, which is about six miles northwest from the city center, now consists of two neighborhoods: ‘Germantown’ and ‘East Germantown’. Germantown has played a significant role in American history; it was the birthplace of the American antislavery movement, the site of a Revolutionary War battle, the temporary residence of George Washington, the location of the first bank of the United States, and the residence of many notable politicians, scholars, artists, and social activists.
1777 – General Sir Henry Clinton leads British forces in the capture of Continental Army Hudson River defenses in the Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery. The battle was fought in the highlands of the Hudson River valley, not far from West Point. British forces under the command of General Sir Henry Clinton captured Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery, and then dismantled the Hudson River Chain. The purpose of the attack was to create a diversion to draw American troops from the army of General Horatio Gates, whose army was opposing British General John Burgoyne’s attempt to gain control of the Hudson. The forts were garrisoned by about 600 Continental Army troops under the command of two brothers, General (and Governor of New York) George Clinton, and General James Clinton, while General Israel Putnam led additional troops at nearby Peekskill, New York. (This battle is also sometimes called the “battle of the Clintons” due to the number of participants with that name. The brothers were probably not related to Sir Henry.) Using a series of feints, Sir Henry fooled Putnam into withdrawing most of his troops to the east, and then he landed over 2,000 troops on the west side of the Hudson to assault the two forts. After several hours of hiking through the hilly terrain, Sir Henry divided his troops to stage simultaneous assaults on the two forts. Although the approach to Fort Montgomery was contested by a company armed with a small field piece, they attacked the two forts at nearly the same time and captured them after a relatively short battle. More than half the defenders were killed, wounded, or captured. The British followed up this success with raids as far north as Kingston before being recalled to New York City. The action came too late to be of any assistance to Burgoyne, who surrendered his army on October 17. The only notable consequences of the action were the casualties suffered and the British destruction of the two forts on their departure.
1781 – Americans and French began the siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the last battle of Revolutionary War. They began digging the first parallel trenches, a distance of 500 to 600 yards from the enemy’s works. A French wagon train arrived at the siege site.
1858 – US Marines conduct the Battle of Waya in the Fiji Islands.
1861 – U.S.S. Flag, Commander Louis C. Sartori, captured Confederate blockade running schooner Alert near Charleston.
1884 – Department of the Navy establishes the Naval War College at Newport, RI. Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler signed General Order 325, which began by simply stating: “A college is hereby established for an advanced course of professional study for naval officers, to be known as the Naval War College.” The order went on to assign “the principal building on Coaster’s Harbor Island, Newport, R.I.”—the Newport Asylum for the Poor, built in 1820—to its use and “Commodore Stephen B. Luce . . . to duty as president of the college.” Such were the humble beginnings of what is now the oldest continuing institution of its kind in the world.
1918 – The German chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, contacts US President Woodrow Wilson and requests and armistice based on Wilson’s 14 Points outlined the previous January. It is made clear that there will be no negotiations until the removal of the country’s military leadership.
1924 – Marines from the gunboat Asheville landed in Shanghai and withdrew on October 24th. Landings by Marines continued at ports Shanghai, Tientsin, and Chinwangtao from forces of the Asiatic Fleet of ships stationed in those waters until the arrival of the 4th Marine regiment in 1927 for permanent shore based duty.
1939 – In an address to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler denied having any intention of war against France and Britain.
1940 – Fourth group of 8 U.S. destroyers involved in Destroyers for Bases Deal are turned over to British authorities at Halifax, Canada.
1942 – An additional Lend -lease agreement is signed in Washington by representatives of the USA and the USSR. Between this date and July 1943 it is planned to deliver 4,400,000 tons of supplies to the Soviet Uniion, 75 percent by sea, the rest though Iran.
1942 – In New Guinea, the 32nd Division begins movement along the Kapa Kapa Trail.
1943 – In night Battle of Vella Lavella, 3 U.S. destroyers attack 9 Japanese destroyers to stop evacuation of Japanese troops from Vella Lavella, Solomon Islands. The Eighth Fleet assigned Rear Admiral Baron Matsuji Ijuin to this mission and gave him a force completely out of proportion to the 589 troops he was charged to rescue: a support group of six destroyers and two transport groups, one of three transport destroyers and the other of four subchasers and twenty barges. His destroyers departed Rabaul on the morning of the 6th while the barges sailed from Buin at 1653 that afternoon. The Japanese movement down the Slot was reported, but Admiral Wilkinson only had three destroyers available to intercept, Squadron 4 led by Captain Frank Walker. Admiral Wilkinson mustered these while he detached another group of three under Captain Harold Larson from convoy duty. The two squadrons were ordered to rendezvous off Marquana Bay, Vella Lavella Island. Walker’s group sailing around the north side of the island while Larson’s approached up the west coast from the south. Japanese aircraft detected Walker’s approach at around 1940 and marked his progress with flares and floatlights. Ijuin split his support group into two divisions. With four ships he pushed ahead to the waters off Marquana Bay while Captain Hara, with Shigure and Samidare and the three transport destroyers, tarried to meet the barges coming up from Buin at 9 knots. Ijuin knew the Allies had wind of his approach and hoped to confuse them as to his size and dispositions. He was also hoping to set Hara up to make a surprise flank attack. At about 2200 Ijuin received a report from one of his aircraft that he was facing four cruisers and three destroyers, according to Hara’s account of the battle. Morison has the report as one cruiser and four destroyers. Hara explains his old commander’s conduct of this battle with this sighting report and the fact he was exhausted from sustained duty. The Japanese had come to respect radar controlled gunfire, particularly as delivered by the Brooklyn class light cruisers, “a cruiser packs ten times the firepower of a destroyer and Ijuin must have been thinking of this”. Morison treats Ijuin sarcastically (he was a baron and the son of a prominent admiral during the Russo-Japanese War): “Was Ijuin following his habit of fleeing, even when lightly opposed?” At 2210 Ijuin ordered Hara to join him as quickly as possible. The three transport destroyers, Fumizuki, Matsukaze and Yunagi turned back, although the barges continued toward Horaniu. At 2229 Ijuin turned his four destroyers from a westerly heading to the northwest. At 2230 Isokaze reported the first visual sighting of the American force. Captain Walker, leading Selfridge, Chevalier and O’Bannon got radar readings on a Japanese force 10 miles north, northeast just after the Japanese made visual contact. This was apparently the retiring transport group. Larson’s group, Ralph Talbot, Taylor and LaVallette were still some twenty miles south and Walker could not raise them on TBS. Although Wilkinson had advised him the Japanese force consisted of nine destroyers, Walker elected to pile in and engage rather than wait forty minutes for reinforcements. At 2235 Ijuin turned east and then southeast. The barges were steaming southwest about 20 miles from their destination. Hara’s group was northwest of Ijuin, heading south. He could not see Ijuin’s column so he requested that Isokaze hang a blue light on her stern. There was a quarter moon low in the sky and scattered mist and squalls made visibility uncertain. At 2240 Ijuin was heading south-southwest. Hara had closed to within five miles of Ijuin. At this same time Walker was shaping a course directly toward the Japanese. Their respective courses would take the Japanese across the American T. However, Ijuin, thinking to make a torpedo attack, miscalculated the distance. When he discovered the Americans were further off then he thought, he ordered a simultaneous turn 45 degrees to port at 2245. Three minutes later, his ships executed a 90 degree turn to port to a southeastly heading, all this to close range. The Americans were less than 12,000 yards away at this point and the range was closing rapidly at 1,300 yards a minute. In response to Ijuin’s turn left, Walker turned his column right to the west. These complicated maneuvers erased Ijuin’s initial advantage and in fact placed his four ships in a difficult position. They were sailing parallel in echelon with Akigumo furthest ahead and most distant from the Americans, followed by Isokaze, Kazagumo and finally Yugumo, only 3,300 yards from Selfridge. At 2255 as they passed, the three American destroyers launched 14 torpedoes. At 2256 they opened fire. When Walker commenced fire only Yugumo could reply as she was masking her comrades from the enemy. She turned toward the Americans at 2255 and had eight torpedoes in the water a minute after the Americans launched theirs. Her movement cleared Kazagumo’s line of fire so she opened up with her guns shortly after. Ijuin swung his ships back into column and headed south, away from the action. All but Yugumo. She, being nearest to the Americans, was punished by the combined fire of eighteen 5″ guns. At least five hits left her drifting, without rudder control. But she obtained her revenge at 2301 when one of her torpedoes struck Chevalier and exploded her forward magazine, ripping off her bow all the way aft to her bridge. Two minutes latter, O’Bannon, charging through the smoke lingering from her gunnery, collided with Chevalier. The two ships were locked together until O’Bannon was able to back clear. She was fortunate that Ijuin had turned away, but the damage she sustained was enough to remove her from the action. At 2303, just as this was happening, one of the slower American torpedoes struck Yugumo and finished her off. She sank seven minutes later. While Yugumo was being picked off and Ijuin was tearing south, Shigure and Samidare continued on their southwesterly course past the Americans until 2259 when they turned sharply to the northwest. Hara was maneuvering for a good torpedo solution. He was approximately 11,000 yards west of Walker’s lead ship when Selfridge, now a one ship task force, shifted fire to Shigure. The time was 2304. However, both Shigure and Samidare had already emptied their tubes in the direction of Selfridge some three minutes before just after they made their turn. As the Japanese torpedo men struggled to reload for a second attack, Selfridge’s shells began straddling Shigure. At 2306.5, before Selfridge could damage her target, the battle effectively ended when one of the torpedoes fired six minutes before exploded against Selfridge’s port side and left her dead in the water. Larson’s group charging up from the south was still twenty minutes out. Shortly before 2313 aircraft advised Ijuin of this reinforcement. Believing he would be facing more cruisers, Ijuin turned his column away to the northwest. At 2317 his ships fired a parting torpedo salvo from 24 tubes at the two crippled American destroyers 16,000 yards to the northeast, but none found targets. Hara who had been sailing northwest since 2259 fell in behind Ijuin; they collected the destroyer transports which had been lingering off Shortlands and returned to Rabaul.
1943 – Himmler ordered the acceleration of “Final Solution.”
1945 – Gen Eisenhower was welcomed in Hague on Hitler’s train.
1945 – Major General Keller E. Rockey, Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps, accepted the surrender of 50,000 Japanese troops in North China on behalf of the Chinese Nationalist government.
1949 – Pres. Truman signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act that appropriated more than one billion dollars for military aid primarily to members of the Atlantic Pact (NATO).
1949 – American-born Iva Toguri D’Aquino, convicted of being Japanese wartime broadcaster Tokyo Rose, was sentenced in San Francisco to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000. Iva Toguri was an American stranded in Japan at the outbreak of World War II. She was forced to broadcast propaganda to the Allied troops for Japan. In these radio programs, she taunted the troops and played music from home. She took the name Orphan Ann on the program, Zero Hour. “Tokyo Rose” is a myth: Iva Toguri, like other women who also broadcast Japanese propaganda to Allied troops, was never referred to as Rose or Tokyo Rose. It was a name given by the Allies to the various female Japanese broadcasters. But it has been used since the war primarily to refer to Iva Toguri D’Aquino. After the war, she was convicted of treason and imprisoned, released early for good behavior. She maintained her innocence, asserting that she had not said the words used to convict her, and that she had remained a loyal American. Though forced to broadcast to the troops, she claimed that she, with the help of American POWs assigned to the radio broadcasts, made herself and her words purposefully ridiculous. She had refused to give up her American citizenship, despite pressure and even punishment from the Japanese who forced her into the broadcasting role. In the 1970s a public campaign brought to light the testimony of the POWs who worked with her and supported her story. The testimony of the witnesses against her was questioned. Eventually she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford. After her imprisonment she returned to Chicago where her family owned a store. She continued to work at the store into her eighties.
1951 – Stalin proclaimed Russia has an atom bomb. 1951 – In a night assault, Hill 931, the highest peak at Heartbreak Ridge, was secured by troops of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 23rd Infantry Regiment after bitter fighting.
1952 – The battle for White Horse Mountain in the Chorwon Valley took place. The defending ROK 9th Infantry Division inflicted 10,000 casualties in fierce combat with the attacking Chinese 38th Army at a cost 3,500 ROK casualties. During the battle, the ROK forces launched nine separate attacks against the communists.
1955 – Diem’s Ministry of the Interior announces that a referendum is scheduled for 23 October to decide whether Bao Dai should be deposed and Diem replace him as head of state.
1958 – The US nuclear sub USS Seawolf remained a record 60 days under pole.
1961 – JFK advised Americans to build fallout shelters from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.
1962 – Commissioning of USS Bainbridge (DLGN -25), first nuclear -powered destroyer. USS Bainbridge, was powered by two pressurized water reactors, and carried two twin Terrier missile launchers, two twin 3″ .50 caliber radar controlled gun mounts, two torpedo mounts, an ASROC launcher, and was equipped with state of the art electronics and communications suites. In April 1964, during her second Mediterranean deployment, she joined USS LONG BEACH (CGN 9) for the first time and later in May, along with USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65), formed the world’s first nuclear powered task group, Task Group 60.1. She entered dry dock at Mare Island Shipyard in August 1967 for her first refueling. In 1974 she began a 27 month shipyard modernization and overhaul in Bremerton, Wash. While in the shipyard, her 3″ .50 caliber guns were removed and replaced with 20mm cannons, she received the AN/SPS-48 radar, and the Naval Tactical Data System was installed. Additionally, the aft superstructure was constructed and an additional level was added on the forward superstructure to support the SLQ-32. On June 30, 1975, BAINBRIDGE was redesignated a cruiser during the Navy’s reorganization of ship designations; DLGN 25 became CGN 25. After deactivation, BAINBRIDGE was towed to Norfolk Naval Shipyard for defueling and preparation for the final movement of the hull to Bremerton, Washington.
1966 – Hanoi insisted the United States must end its bombings before peace talks could begin. 1969 – Special Forces Captain John McCarthy was released from Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, pending consideration of his appeal to murder charges.
1981 – Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat (1970 -1981) was killed by an assassin at the parade ground of Nasser City by Islamic fundamentalists during a ceremony commemorating the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Although authorities were warned of a death plot hours earlier, the information did not get to the president in time. He was succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak.
1987 – Destruction of 3 Iranian small boats in the “Tanker War.”
1990 – The space shuttle “Discovery” blasted off on a four -day mission. Liftoff occurred 12 minutes after two-and-a-half-hour launch window opened at 7:35 a.m. EDT. Heaviest payload to date. Launch Weight: 259,593 lbs. Primary payload, ESA-built Ulysses spacecraft to explore polar regions of Sun, deployed. Two upper stages, Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) and a mission-specific Payload Assist Module-S (PAM-S), combined together for first time to send Ulysses toward out-of- ecliptic trajectory. Other payloads and experiments: Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) experiment; INTELSAT Solar Array Coupon (ISAC); Chromosome and Plant Cell Division Experiment (CHROMEX); Voice Command System (VCS); Solid Surface Combustion Experiment (SSCE), Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP); Physiological Systems Experiment (PSE); Radiation Monitoring Experiment III (RME III); Shuttle Student involvement Program (SSIP) and Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) experiment.
1991 – Cable News Network obtained and aired a videotape made in Beirut, Lebanon, of American hostage Terry Anderson, who quoted his captors as saying they would have “very good news.”
1992 – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to establish a war crimes commission for Bosnia -Herzegovina.
1993 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat held their first official meeting in Cairo, Egypt, to begin work on realizing terms of the Israeli -PLO accord.
1993 – Mortaring of the Ranger hangar compound
1996 – Turkey’s prime minister urged Libya’s Moammar Khadafy to sign a document to denounce Kurdish rebel terrorism but instead Khadafy condemned Turkish repression of the Kurds. A trade deal hung in suspension.
1997 – The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing home American astronaut Michael Foale after more than four tumultuous months aboard Mir and Astronaut CDR Wendy B. Lawrence, USN returns from mission of STS -86: Shuttle -Mir 7 when Atlantis docked with Mir Space Station. The mission began on 25 September.
1997 – Nine Bosnian Croats surrendered to the int’l. war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Dario Kordic joined the group when the US promised a speedy trial to volunteer suspects. Kordic was the leader of the Bosnian branch of Franjo Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union political party, and was charged with commanding troops who rampaged through 14 towns in the Lasva Valley torturing and killing hundreds of Muslims and burning their homes.
1997 – In Palestine Sheik Ahmed Yassin (61), the quadriplegic spiritual leader of Hamas, returned to the Gaza Strip.
1999 – The US introduced a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the seizure of assets of the Taliban militia and grounding all international flights from Afghanistan until Osama bin Laden is turned over.
1999 – The Chechen president called for a holy war against Russia.
1999 – In East Timor Australian peacekeepers killed 2 antiindependence militiamen near the West Timor border.
1999 – Philippine government officials and Muslim separatists agreed to halt a series of deadly clashes in at least 2 southern provinces, Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, and to start formal peace talks.
2000 – Israel pulled troops from Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus in an effort to ease tensions.
2000 – In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic resigned and the opposition celebrated across the country. Milosevic conceded defeat to Vojislav Kostunica in Yugoslavia’s presidential elections, a day after protesters angry at Milosevic for clinging to power stormed parliament and ended his 13-year autocratic regime.
2001 – Pres. Bush warned Afghanistan’s rulers that time is running out. The Taliban said it would release 8 aid workers if the US “stops issuing threats” of military action.
2001 – US and British intelligence identified Mohammed Atef, a former Egyptian policeman and close aide to Osama bin Laden, as the key planner of the of the Sep 11 attacks.
2001 – In Afghanistan the Northern Alliance was building an airport outside Golbahar to allow a US-led coalition to funnel in military supplies.
2001 – In Saudi Arabia a bomb exploded in Khobar. 2 people were killed and 4 were injured. 2002 – In Colombia Jose Arroyave, a regional commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was among 7 rebels killed in a military offensive.
2003 – In southeastern Colombia FARC guerrillas assassinated two town mayors, Orlando Hoyos and Jaime Zambrano, after they met with rebels in a mountain hideout.
2003 – Roadside bombings in central Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter and wounded six other service members.
2003 – In Pakistan gunmen assassinated Maulana Azam Tariq, a hardline Sunni Muslim politician and four other people, spraying their car with automatic weapon -fire before fleeing.
2004 – Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons hunter, reported that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated into only hopes and dreams by the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year.
2004 – Followers of renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have agreed to a cease-fire with Iraq’s interim government aimed at ending weeks of fighting in the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City.
2004 – A car bomb exploded at an Iraqi military camp northwest of Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding more than 20.
2006 – President Bush declared space to be essential to US defense in a new National Space Policy document. Not only has the United States declared that it has rights in space, but, if necessary, it will deny its adversaries access to space if those adversaries seek to impede those rights.
2008 – The MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second pass of the planet Mercury.
2014 – ISIS prepares to establish itself in Libya and reports emerge that they are already in the city of Derna.
Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
POND, JAMES B.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company C, 3d Wisconsin Cavalry. Place and date: At Baxter Springs, Kans., 6 October 1863. Entered service at: Janesville, Rock County, Wis. Birth: Allegany, N.Y. Date of issue: 30 March 1898. Citation: While in command of 2 companies of Cavalry, was surprised and attacked by several times his own number of guerrillas, but gallantly rallied his men, and after a severe struggle drove the enemy outside the fortifications. 1st Lt. Pond then went outside the works and, alone and unaided, fired a howitzer 3 times, throwing the enemy into confusion and causing him to retire.
*BLECKLEY, ERWIN R. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 130th Field Artillery, observer 50th Aero Squadron, Air Service. Place and date. Near Binarville, France, 6 October 1918. Entered service at: Wichita, Kans. Birth: Wichita, Kans. G.O. No.: 56, W.D., 1922. Citation: 2d Lt. Bleckley, with his pilot, 1st Lt. Harold E. Goettler, Air Service, left the airdrome late in the afternoon on their second trip to drop supplies to a battalion of the 77th Division, which had been cut off by the enemy in the Argonne Forest. Having been subjected on the first trip to violent fire from the enemy, they attempted on the second trip to come still lower in order to get the packages even more precisely on the designated spot. In the course of his mission the plane was brought down by enemy rifle and machinegun fire from the ground, resulting in fatal wounds to 2d Lt. Bleckley, who died before he could be taken to a hospital. In attempting and performing this mission 2d Lt. Bleckley showed the highest possible contempt of personal danger, devotion to duty, courage, and valor.
*GOETTLER, HAROLD ERNEST (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, pilot, U.S. Army Air Corps, 50th Aero Squadron, Air Service. Place and date: Near Binarville, France, 6 October 1918. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 21 July 1890, Chicago, Ill. G.O. No.: 56, W.D., 1922. Citation: 1st. Lt. Goettler, with his observer, 2d Lt. Erwin R. Bleckley, 130th Field Artillery, left the airdrome late in the afternoon on their second trip to drop supplies to a battalion of the 77th Division which had been cut off by the enemy in the Argonne Forest. Having been subjected on the first trip to violent fire from the enemy, they attempted on the second trip to come still lower in order to get the packages even more precisely on the designated spot. In the course of this mission the plane was brought down by enemy rifle and machinegun fire from the ground, resulting in the instant death of 1st. Lt. Goettler. In attempting and performing this mission 1st. Lt. Goettler showed the highest possible contempt of personal danger, devotion to duty, courage and valor.
PECK, ARCHIE A.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, Company A, 307th Infantry, 77th Division. Place and date: In the Argonne Forest, France, 6 October 1918. Entered service at: Hornell, N.Y. Birth: Tyrone, N.Y. G.O. No.: 16, W.D., 1919. Citation: While engaged with 2 other soldiers on patrol duty, he and his comrades were subjected to the direct fire of an enemy machinegun, at which time both his companions were wounded. Returning to his company, he obtained another soldier to accompany him to assist in bringing in the wounded men. His assistant was killed in the exploit, but he continued on, twice returning safely bringing in both men, being under terrific machinegun fire during the entire Journey.
