This Week in American Military History
From W. Thomas Smith, Jr.’s series at Human Events:
Mar. 8, 1965: The lead elements of 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines begin coming ashore at Da Nang, South Vietnam. Within hours, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines will arrive aboard transport aircraft at the nearby airbase. The Marines of 3/9 and 1/3 – both part of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade – are the first of America’s ground-combat forces destined for offensive operations against the enemy in Southeast Asia, once again putting teeth in the Marine Corps’ claim that it is “first to fight.”
Mar. 9, 1847: Thousands of American soldiers and a company-sized force of Marines (though referred to as a battalion) under the overall command of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott and “Home Squadron” Commodore David E. Conner begin landing at Collado Beach, Mexico, just south of Vera Cruz.
In what will prove to be “a model” for future amphibious operations, the landings are unprecedented: The largest American amphibious operation to date, conducted in less than five hours without a single loss of life.
A portion of Conner’s dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy reads:
“Gen. Scott has now with him upwards of 11,000 men. At his request, I permitted the Marines of the squadron, under Capt. [Alvin] Edson, to join him, as a part of the 3rd Regiment of artillery. The general-in-chief landed this morning, and the army put itself in motion at an early hour, to form its lines around the city. There has been some distant firing of shot and shells from the town and castle upon the troops as they advanced, but without result.”
Though the landings are bloodless, grim fighting will continue in the Mexican-American War.
(more…)
In: Military History · Tagged with: American Revolution, Civil War, Flying Tigers, Mexican-American War, US Marine Corps, US Navy, Vietnam War, W. Thomas Smith Jr.
This Week in US Military History
From W. Thomas Smith, Jr.’s series at Human Events:
Mar. 2, 1943: Elements of the U.S. Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force intercept and all-but-destroy an entire Japanese troop-transport convoy in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Several enemy ships, scores of enemy aircraft, and thousands of enemy soldiers will be sent to the bottom. Gen. Douglas MacArthur will remark that Bismarck Sea “cannot fail to go down in history as one of the most complete and annihilating combats of all time.” Japanese Navy Capt. Tameichi Hara will refer to the battle as “shocking” and “unbelievable.”
Mar. 3, 1776: A force of 250 Continental Marines and sailors under the command of Marine Capt. (future major) Samuel Nicholas land on New Providence in the British-held Bahamas and quickly seize Fort Montague in the first amphibious operation in American military history. The landing – largely unopposed (the British garrison spiking their own guns and fleeing) – nets for the Americans much-needed powder, shot, nearly 50 serviceable cannon, and a few mortars.
An avid foxhunter and the highest-ranking leatherneck in the American Revolution, Nicholas will lead Marines alongside Army forces in the future battles of (second) Trenton and Princeton. He is considered to be the first commandant of the Marine Corps.
In: Military History · Tagged with: Alamo, American Revolution, Ballad of the Green Berets, Barbary Wars, Boston Massacre, John Adams, Seabees, Star Spangled Banner, Tuskegee Airmen, US Army, US Army Air Forces, US Marine Corps, US Navy, W. Thomas Smith Jr., World War II
Top Marine opposes repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
On Thursday the Commandant of the Marine Corps voiced his opposition to repealing the law that prevents gays from serving openly in the Armed Forces.
General James Conway told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) would negatively affect the military.
“At this point, I think that the current policy works,” Conway said. “My best military advice to this committee, to the secretary, and to the president would be to keep the law such as it is.”
The current law, which came into effect in 1993, states that there is “no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces,” and that Congress can “establish qualifications for and conditions of service.” It also states that persons who “engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”
Despite the military’s regulations banning homosexual behavior, homosexual members are in fact allowed to serve – just not openly. While the military will discharge that member once they are discovered to be gay, the military is not allowed to ask about their lifestyle, and the individual doesn’t have to tell. Essentially, it only becomes a problem when the member’s lifestyle interferes with the execution of their duties.
“My personal opinion is that unless we can strip away the emotion, the agendas and the politics and ask, at least in my case, do we somehow enhance the war-fighting capabilities of the United States Marine Corps by allowing homosexuals to openly serve?” asked Conway. Indeed, with the military engaged on two battlefields in a conflict that has lasted nearly nine years, now hardly seems to be the right time to put our troops in a position that has already been determined to be an ‘unacceptable risk.’”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have already expressed their support for a repeal of the policy, with Adm. Mullen even saying that it is “the right thing to do.”
Adm. Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, told the committee that he would be in opposition as well if an upcoming military study found that the repeal would harm the Navy’s readiness, according to Marine Corps Times.
The military is planning a 10-month study on military members and their families on the impact of homosexuals serving in the military and will also ask the RAND Corporation – who has received funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute – to update their 1993 study on the matter.
In: Military · Tagged with: Don't Ask Don't Tell, US Marine Corps
USMC Memorial in the snow
The U.S. Marine Corps Memorial during the blizzard. Click here for the original at MilitaryTimes.com
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Marine Corps War Memorial, US Marine Corps
Aboard USS Gunston Hall
Marines assigned to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force for Africa Partnership Station West enter the well deck of USS Gunston Hall aboard an amphibious assault vehicle. The Marines provided humanitarian and relief aid to the Haitian community. Gunston Hall, a Whidbey Island-class dock-landing ship, was originally scheduled for a deployment to Africa in support of APS West, but was diverted to help Haitian relief operations as part of Operation Unified Response. APS West is an international initiative developed by Naval Forces Europe and Naval Forces Africa that aims to improve maritime safety and security in West and Central Africa. (US Navy Photo/ Petty Officer 2nd Class John Stratton)
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Operation Unified Response, US Marine Corps, US Navy, USS Gunston Hall
Rules of Engagement killing more troops
Like the Telegraph article’s title states: US casualties in Afghanistan provoke rage, frustration
Only the “rage and frustration” seems to be directed more towards the emasculating rules of engagement (ROE) rather than the Taliban.
As First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, a Marine platoon commander stated, “rules are there for a reason.” I agree that a nation of law has to fight by the rules, but the rules that nation creates shouldn’t enhance the enemy’s capabilities and further endanger civilian populations while limiting the abilities of friendly forces to defeat them.
Lt. MacLean and his men recently fought a three-hour firefight with the Taliban who took full advantage of the ROE and managed to kill two of his men.
[MacLean], too is frustrated, accusing the Taliban of manipulating the rules of engagement by using women and children as shields and shooting from hidden positions before dropping their weapons and standing out in the open.
“They know we can’t shoot them if they don’t carry guns or without positive identification. They are fighting us at another level now,” MacLean said.
So the Taliban use women and children while killing more fellow Afghans than they do foreign troops… while our government limits our troops to the point where they are dying because of the rules? And the world views US as the bad guys?
“We were attacked treacherously. We came under fire from everywhere, but the rules of engagement prevent me from doing my job,” said Lance Corporal Mark Duzick, who was in the unit that was ambushed.
Outside a tent housing the Marines’ unit responsible for firing mortars stands an improvised cross bearing the inscription: “Here lies the 81st, death by stand down.”
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Rules of Engagement, Taliban, US Marine Corps
Generations of Valor
Pearl Harbor survivor Houston James of Dallas is overcome with emotion as he embraces Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke Jr. during the Dallas Veterans Day Commemoration at Dallas City Hall on Thursday. Sgt Graunke, who was a member of a Marine ordnance-disposal team, lost a hand, leg and eye while defusing a bomb in Iraq in July of last year. (Jim Mahoney/Dallas Morning News)
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Pearl Harbor, Staff Sergeant Mark Graunke, US Marine Corps
Thomas J. Hudner’s Medal of Honor
59 years ago during the Korean War, eight Navy F4U Corsairs from the USS Leyte‘s Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) were flying an armed reconnaissance mission near the Chosin Reservoir. Ensign Jesse Brown (the Navy’s first black aviator)’s plane was hit, and crash landed on the side of a snow-covered mountain. Brown was unable to get out of the cockpit of the smoking aircraft, and the men of VF-32 knew that the Chinese would reach Brown before the rescue helicopter could.
While the remaining aircraft circled overhead, Brown’s wingman, Lt. J.G. Thomas Hudner, decided to crash-land his own Corsair next to Brown’s. “I knew what I had to do,” said Hudner in an interview. “I was not going to leave him down there for the Chinese. Besides, it was 30 degrees below zero on that slope, and he was a fellow aviator. My association with the Marines had rubbed off on me. They don’t leave wounded Marines behind.”
After reaching Brown’s aircraft, Hudner was unable to remove his wingman from the cockpit. Brown was barely alive, and by the time a Marine helicopter arrived to assist in the rescue, Brown had died. They were unable to remove Brown’s body, and the approaching darkness forced the men to leave the fallen aviator behind.
For his actions, Thomas Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor. Jesse Brown was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the escort ship USS Jesse L. Brown was named in his honor.
You can read Hudner’s Medal of Honor citation here.
In: Military History · Tagged with: Jesse L. Brown, Korean War, Medal of Honor, Thomas J. Hudner Jr., US Marine Corps, USS Jesse L. Brown, USS Leyte, VF-32
Military Milestones from Bloody Betio to Mao’s Death Warrant
Chinese Premier Mao Tse-Tung: “The American Marine First Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces.”
Originally published at Human Events
This Week in American Military History:
Nov. 23, 1863: The battles of the Chattanooga campaign begin between newly appointed commander of the Western armies, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg (yes, Fort Bragg, N.C. is named in his honor).
Within days, Union Army forces will attack and capture Orchard Knob, Lookout Mountain, and the Confederate works on Missionary Ridge. The “Gateway to the Lower South” will open, and within a year, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman will pass through the “gateway” enroute to Atlanta.
Nov. 23, 1943: Japanese-held Tarawa — “an elongated, sharply curving chain of little islands with a heavily defended southwest tip” known to U.S. Marines as “bloody Betio” — falls to American forces despite the boast of its defending commander, Rear Adm. Keiji Shibasaki, that “a million men could not take Tarawa in a hundred years.”
In fact, it takes several thousand Marines and about 76 hours to seize Tarawa. But it is not without great cost. Marine casualties (including sailors) number over 1,020 killed and nearly 2,300 wounded. Many are lost during the first few hours of the fighting as the landing craft are unable to get ashore, and Marines (carrying all of their equipment) are forced to wade toward the beach, stumbling over jagged coral reef for several hundred yards — some falling into deep holes and drowning — all the time under withering fire.
In: Military History · Tagged with: Civil War, David M. Shoup, Doolittle Raid, Korean War, Medal of Honor, Tarawa, US Marine Corps, W. Thomas Smith Jr., World War II
Military Milestones from the King of Battle to Second Fallujah
Originally published at Human Events
This Week in American Military History:
Nov. 16, 1778: In a letter to Frenchman Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, an intermediary between King Louis XVI and American emissaries seeking support for the American Revolution (including ships), Continental Navy Capt. John Paul Jones writes, “I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
Readers will recall Jones dramatic refusal-to-surrender — “I have not yet begun to fight!” — the following year during the famous battle of the North Sea between the Continental Navy frigate Bonhomme Richard and the British frigate HMS Serapis.
Nov. 16, 2004: Nine days after launching Operation Phantom Fury — the Second Battle of Fallujah (Iraq) — U.S. Marines and soldiers (as well as a few British and Iraqi troops) begin the mopping-up phase of what has since been described as the most intense urban combat since the bloody battle for the Vietnamese city of Hué in 1968.
It is during the height of the battle for Fallujah, that a radio transmission is intercepted by U.S. forces in which a panicking al-Qaeda insurgent is heard exclaiming to his chief: “We are fighting, but the Marines keep coming! We are shooting, but the Marines won’t stop!”
In: Military History · Tagged with: Abraham Lincoln, American Revolution, Fallujah, Gettysburg Address, John Paul Jones, Medal of Honor, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Sammy L. Davis, US Army, US Marine Corps, Vietnam War, W. Thomas Smith Jr.
