This Week in American Military History
Better late than never…
Jan. 22, 1944: Allied forces, including the U.S. VI Corps under the command of Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas (of Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s Fifth Army), begin a series of landings along a stretch of western Italian coastline in the Anzio-Nettuno area. Codenamed Operation Shingle, the Allies achieve complete surprise against – and encounter little initial resistance from – the Germans. But the landings kick off what will become one of the most grueling campaigns of World War II.
Jan. 22, 1954: First Lady Mamie Eisenhower breaks a bottle of champagne across the bow of USS Nautilus in Groton, Connecticut, launching the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. The following year, Nautilus gets underway, begins breaking numerous sea-travel records, and becomes the first “ship” to cross the North Pole.
Jan. 22, 1969: Operation Dewey Canyon, the Marine Corps’ last major offensive of the Vietnam War, begins. Marines under the command of Col. Robert H. Barrow spent 56 days clearing out the North Vietnamese Army’s stronghold near the A Shau Valley.
Jan. 25, 1856: Marines and seamen from the sloop USS Decatur land at Seattle to protect settlers from an Indian attack. The Battle of Seattle lasted seven hours and the Indians suffered severe casualties, while only two settlers died.
Jan. 26, 1948: Pres. Harry S. Truman signs executive order 9981, which essentially directs the desegregation of the armed forces.
Jan. 27, 1837: U.S. soldiers and Marines under the command of Col. Archibald Henderson – a serving Marine Corps commandant – defeat a force of Seminole Indians in the running battle of Hatchee-Lustee Creek (Florida). For his actions, Henderson will receive a brevet promotion to brigadier general, becoming the Corps’ first general officer.
Jan. 27, 1862: Pres. Abraham Lincoln issues the first of two war orders. The first, General War Order No. One, directs U.S. Army and Naval forces to move “against the insurgent forces [of the Southern states].” In four days, Lincoln will issue Special War Order No. One, calling for an expeditionary force to seize and hold “a point” along the railroad southwest of Manassas Junction.
Jan. 27, 1942: The submarine USS Gudgeon sinks a Japanese submarine – becoming the first American sub to send an enemy warship to the bottom during World War II. Gudgeon also becomes the first sub to patrol Japanese waters. She will go on to rack up more than a dozen kills. She will conduct rescue missions and special operations. But in 1944, on her 12th patrol, she mysteriously disappears with all hands.
Jan. 27, 1943: American bombers – specifically B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators – of the U.S. Eighth Air Force strike German U-boat facilities at Wilhelmshaven. The bombing raid is the first U.S. Army Air Forces mission over Germany.
Jan. 28, 1915: Pres. Woodrow Wilson signs into law the congressionally approved merger of the “Life Saving” and “Revenue Cutter” services, thus establishing the U.S. Coast Guard. Still, the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard is Aug. 4, 1790, the day Congress approved Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s proposal to “build ten cutters to protect the new nation’s revenue.”
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
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In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Leadership 101: Emotion and the Three M’s
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
The first article in our series – Leadership 101 – describes the series going forward, then touches on the five elements of the foundation upon which we build the leader from the ground-up (before getting into the fundamentals of leadership). If you’ve not read Leadership 101: Body, Mind, and Soul Required, I urge you to do so now at http://www.victoryinstitute.net/blogs/utb/2012/01/leadership-101-body-mind-and-soul-required/.
Today we continue building the foundation. But we will also include some red-meat, right-now leadership tools because (despite our building) many of us are already leaders, and – as I learned years ago in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp – all of us may be thrust into leadership positions on a moments notice.
Let’s flash-review the five elements of the whole man (whole woman) that we must master as our basic building-blocks of sound leadership. My good friend, Mark Divine, a U.S. Navy SEAL Res. commander, refers to these five whole-man elements – (1) the physical body, (2) the mind or brain, (3) emotional awareness and control, (4) intuition, and (5) soul or spirit – as “the five mountains.”
(ref. SEALFIT Unbeatable Mind Academy http://www.unbeatablemind.com)
A lot has been said and written about the body-mind connection, so we won’t spend a great deal of time on the body or the mind right now except to say that a physically sound body and a physically sound mind (or brain) are critical to one’s quality of life.
This is straight out of my old Boy Scout handbook. We cannot take either the body or the mind for granted, though we all have at times in our lives. We have to eat right, exercise daily, and sleep for the body. And we must condition the mind through a mix of reading, instruction (which you are receiving right now), and problem solving. And we have to learn to embrace the connection between the body and the mind. More on this further in the series.
Today, let’s look more closely at the third element (or mountain) – emotional awareness and control.
In: Articles · Tagged with: Leadership 101, W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Leadership 101: Body, Mind, and Soul Required
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Welcome to Leadership 101, a new feature here at Unto the Breach. I call it Leadership 101, because basic leadership is exactly what we are going to address – tackling the fundamentals of good leadership – but from a unique perspective. We’ll do it in such a way as to give you the tools needed to both ramp up your leadership skills (yes, seeing results immediately) and develop your leadership capabilities for the long haul. And we will do so no matter what your leadership experience and skill level may be.
This unique version of Leadership 101 is based on my own perspective, gleaned from other leaders (many of the world’s great masters of the art of leadership) as well as my own training and experience leading people. It is a perspective based on years of serving as a military (primarily small-unit infantry) leader and yes, a follower; learning from the best military leaders and counterterrorism experts in peace and in war; being a business, committee, and team leader; and – like most of us – having been thrust into unexpected (sometimes unwanted), immediate, temporary, varied positions of leadership at various evolutions throughout my life to this point.
As I told a group of cadets and midshipmen from West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy back in 2010; “Leadership – that sometimes vague, somewhat ambiguous magic of getting people to do what needs to be done – has been discussed, written about, and mused-over since armies first marched and navies first sailed, and every leader has tried to convince others that he or she has the perfect formula for that particular kind of magic.”
But far too often we are so focused on the so-called fast-track formulas and all the great soundbites associated with those formulas that we neglect or completely ignore the pure fundamentals necessary to good leadership, whether we are talking about military leadership or business leadership (both of which are related yet different, and we’ll discuss how in a future piece).
I’m not going to waste your time (or mine) with a bunch of feel-good nonsense about leadership. Nor will I attempt – like so many so-called experts – to wax philosophic about what leadership really is by talking over readers’ heads with clinical terms and jargony formulas.
This, you will discover, is red-meat, right-now leadership.
Let’s jump into it; first with the foundation (before we get to the fundamentals) because if we don’t have a foundation upon which to build the leader, the end result – no matter how good that result might look on paper or in person – might fail at the front, in the trenches, where the leader finds himself or herself struggling to make decisions in those terrible, unforgiving, high-stakes moments when direction is critically needed.
I will refer to this all-important foundation as simply the development of the whole man or whole woman. The idea being, you will never be a good leader if your own physical body and brain (including your intellectual capability and capacity), emotional state, intuition, and soul (spirit) are not first in order, and with each of the five living components working in concert with one another. And they will never be what they need to be – for you as a leader – if you neglect any one of them by wrongly convincing yourself that you are a good person with integrity.
You have to work at it, and it has to become a daily lifestyle thing.
In: Articles · Tagged with: Leadership 101, W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Dec. 22 in US Military History
1775: The Continental Congress creates the Continental Navy. Esek Hopkins, Esq. is named commander-in-chief of the fleet, four captains are commissioned, as well as five first lieutenants (including future hero John Paul Jones), five second lieutenants, and three third lieutenants.
1864: Following his “March to the Sea” and just before his “March through the Carolinas,” Union Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman presents the captured city of Savannah (Ga.) to Pres. Lincoln as a “Christmas gift.”
The wire from Sherman to Lincoln reads; “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”
1941: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C. for the Arcadia Conference, the first summit between Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss military strategy.
1944: Having surrounded the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, Belgium, German General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz issues a surrender ultimatum to Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, the acting commander for the 101st. Clement’s one-word response: “NUTS!”
Despite being heavily outnumbered, the 101st was able to hold out until the 4th Armored Division relieved them on Dec. 26th.
Meanwhile, German commanders, including the Chief of the General Staff, recommend ending the Rundstedt Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) due to a lack of significant progress.
1950: Air Force F-86 Sabres shoot down six communist MiG-15 fighters without losing a single jet in the biggest dogfight of the Korean War.
Medal of Honor: 67 years ago near Kalterherberg, Germany, Tech. Sgt. Peter J. Dalessondro saved his unit from being completely routed by multiple overwhelming attacks.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Dec. 15 in US Military History
1791: The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States, become law.
1862: Union Army Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside ends his disastrous series of frontal attacks against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s well-entrenched Confederate forces along Marye’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg. It is during the battle that Lee – emotionally moved by the valor of the Federal Army, which, despite terrible losses, attacks his impregnable position time-and-again – says, “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.”
1864: Gen. John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee is routed in the Battle of Nashville by a Union army under command of Gen. George Thomas. After the battle, Hood’s once formidable army would no longer be an effective fighting force.
1944: A plane carrying Maj. Glenn Miller, leader of the world-famous “Glenn Miller Orchestra” prior to World War II, disappears in bad weather over the English Channel. Miller volunteered for service and led the Army Air Force Band from 1942 until his disappearance.
Meanwhile, the US Seventh Army enters Germany.
1945: Gen. Douglas MacArthur orders the end of Shintoism as the state religion of Japan, which viewed Emperor Hirohito as a divine authority.
1948: The Navy and State Department sign a memorandum establishing the Marine Security Guard program for US embassies across the world.
1950: F-86 Sabres make their combat debut in Korea. Meanwhile, UN forces withdraw south of the 38th Parallel.
1964: The AC-47, the Air Force’s first gunship, makes its combat debut in Vietnam.
1965: US bombers conduct their first major attack against North Vietnamese industrial targets, destroying a power plant north of Haiphong that supplied 15 percent of the country’s electricity.
Meanwhile, Walter M. Schirra (USN) and Thomas P. Stafford (USAF) blast off aboard Gemini VI. The crew test rendezvous procedures in space with Gemini VII, which had already been in space for several days.
1969: President Richard Nixon announces that 50,000 additional US troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam.
Medal of Honor: 44 years ago, Private Allen J. Lynch crossed a kill zone multiple times and killed numerous enemies in order to rescue three wounded comrades.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Dec. 7 in US Military History
1917: Four US battleships, USS Delaware (BB-28), USS Florida (BB-30), New York (BB-34), and USS Wyoming (BB-32) arrives in British waters and join the British Grand Fleet in service during World War I.
1941: The destroyer USS Ward spots and sinks a Japanese minisub, firing the first US shots in World War II.
Having achieved total tactical and strategic surprise, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor begins. The attack is conducted in two waves: The first wave of 183 enemy aircraft strikes just before 8:00 a.m. The second wave of 170 planes hits a little after 8:30 a.m.
Of the ships anchored at Pearl Harbor, five of the eight battleships, three destroyers, and seven other ships were either sunk or severely damaged. By day’s end, 2,718 American sailors, 582 soldiers (including Army Air Forces personnel), 178 Marines, and 103 civilians will be dead, dying or wounded. Japanese losses were minimal: 30 planes, five minisubs, 65 killed, and one Japanese sailor captured. All but two of the battleships – the Arizona and Oklahoma – are raised to fight again. Admiral Hara Tadaichi would say, “We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war.”
Meanwhile, Japanese forces bomb Guam and Wake as destroyers and planes attack Midway.
1942: The USS New Jersey, the largest battleship ever built, is launched.
1943: The Fifth Army secures the Mignano Gap in Italy.
1944: The Third Army crosses the Siegfried Line at Saarlautern.
In the Pacific, the 77th Division lands at Ormoc in the Philippines as one of the escort destroyers, USS Ward (the same ship that sunk the midget submarine three years ago at Pearl Harbor), is sunk by kamikaze attacks. Nearby, the USS Mahan is also sunk by kamikaze attacks.
1950: Air Force cargo planes drop eight treadway bridge spans in the Funchilin Pass, enabling the First Marine Division to cross the most difficult natural obstacle on their breakout of the Chosin Reservoir.
1952: US Air Force F-86 Saber pilots shoot down seven of 32 enemy aircraft for the highest tally of the Korean War.
1959: America’s first operational ballistic missile, the PGM-17 Thor, is successfully launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
1972: Apollo 17 launches for NASA’s final lunar mission. Aboard are (Navy Capt.) Eugene A. Cernan, (Navy Capt.) Ronald E. Evans, and (civilian) Harrison H. Schmitt.
Medal of Honor: 15 sailors earned the Medal of Honor during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Dec. 6 in US Military History
1790: The US Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.
1846: Army, Marine, Navy, and civilian forces under the command of Col. Stephen Watts Kearney attack Mexican “Californios” in the Battle of San Pasqual, near present-day San Diego. Both sides claimed victory and the engagement became one of the bloodiest of the Mexican-American War.
1917: A German U-boat torpedoes the destroyer USS Jacob Jones off the coast of England, which becomes the first US destroyer to be sunk by a submarine.
1941: After an Australian scout plane spots a Japanese fleet near the Malayan Coast, the Allies presume that the Japanese plan to invade Thailand. However, British intelligence intercepts a radio signal warning to the Japanese fleet to be on full alert, prompting advisers to question whether the move is a diversion.
Meanwhile, Admiral Yamamoto tells his First Air Fleet “The rise or fall of the empire depends upon this battle. Everyone will do his duty with utmost efforts.”
Also, the Japanese fleet departs Palau for an invasion of the Philippines.
1950: American forces – primarily leathernecks of the now-famous 1st Marine Division, a few American soldiers, and a handful of British commandos – begin their epic “fighting withdrawal” from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri and on to Hamnung, during the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, Korea. At Koto-ri, a few officers express concern that their vastly outnumbered, bloodied, freezing, near-starving columns might not survive the final trek to Hamnung.
As the UN orders communist forces to halt at the 38th Parallel, US and Australian planes kill an estimated 2,500 enemy troops.
1961: The US Air Force is authorized to begin combat operations in Vietnam – provided they carry a Vietnamese national for training purposes.
1968: The US Navy launches Operation Giant Slingshot to interdict the flow of men and weapons flowing through the Mekong Delta from the Cambodian border.
Medal of Honor: When his company was attacked by a battalion-sized enemy force in 1967, Chaplain Charles J. Liteky moved multiple times through heavy enemy fire to deliver last rights to dying soldiers and aid to wounded soldiers. Despite incoming small arms and rocket fire, Liteky stood up multiple times in order to direct the incoming helicopters to the landing zone. The chaplain would carry 20 wounded soldiers to the landing zone for evacuation.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Nov. 29 in US Military History
1760: Rogers’ Rangers under the command of Massachusetts-born Maj. (future Lt. Col.) Robert Rogers capture Fort Detroit from the French. U.S. Army Rangers in the 20th and 21st centuries will trace their lineage to Rogers and his British Colonial irregulars.
1804: Marine Corps 1st Lt. Presley O’Bannon, William Eaton, Navy Midshipman George Mann, and seven Marines land at Alexandria, Egypt with the intention of overthrowing the ruler of Tripoli. Five months -and 600 miles – later, the men would arrive in the port city of Derne and defeat the Bashaw’s forces.
1890: Navy beats Army, 24-0, in the first-ever Army (West Point) – Navy (Annapolis) football game.
1929: U.S. Navy Commander Richard E. Byrd Jr. makes the first-ever flight over the South Pole. Byrd – a future rear admiral and recipient of the Medal of Honor for his 1926 flight over the North Pole – is the navigator of the South Pole flight. His companions include pilot Bernt Balchen, radio operator Harold June, and photographer Ashley McKinley. The team crosses the Pole in a modified Ford tri-motor airplane.
1941: The Japanese decide that the terms issued by the United States are unacceptable and that Japan must go to war. Meanwhile, the passenger ship Lurline sends a radio signal that they have spotted Japanese fleet in the North Pacific, heading East.
1944: The submarine USS Archerfish sinks the Japanese carrier Shinano, the largest warship sunk by a submarine during World War II, off Honshu. In the Philippines, the battleship USS Maryland and two destroyers are heavily damaged by kamikaze attacks.
1952: Newly elected president – and former Gen. – Dwight Eisenhower fulfills his campaign promise of visiting Korea in hopes of ending the conflict. Upon taking office, President Eisenhower informed the Chinese that he would unleash Nationalist Chinese forces in Taiwan against Communist China unless peace negotiations progressed. An armistice was signed in July of 1953.
1968: Viet Cong High Command issues a directive to its forces to wage a new assault to “utterly destroy” US and South Vietnamese forces, specifically targeting the highly effective Phoenix counterinsurgency program.
Medal of Honor: For nearly two weeks,SSgt. Andrew Miller engaged in a “series of heroic events,” to include single-handedly silencing multiple machinegun positions; killing or wounding dozens of German soldiers, and capturing scores more. Then on Nov. 29 1944, SSgt. Miller’s platoon was pinned down by German fire. He led a charge that smothered the Germans, but the attack cost Miller his life.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Nov. 24 in U.S. military history
1863: Union forces scale the slopes of Lookout Mountain under cover of fog, capturing the objective and breaking the Confederate siege of Chattanooga, Tenn.
1944: 111 U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 bombers based in Saipan attack the Nakajima Aircraft engine plant near Tokyo in the first attack on the Japanese mainland since Doolittle’s 1942 raid.
1950: Gen. Douglas MacArthur launches the “Home by Christmas” offensive against Chinese and North Korean forces. The attack meets heavy resistance and a Chinese counterattack would drive UN forces from North Korea by December.
Medal of Honor: Three Union soldiers were awarded the Medal for actions in the Battle of Lookout Mountain: Pvt. Peter Kappesser and 1st Sgt. Norman F. Potter (for capturing Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s flag) and Sgt. John Kiggins (for waving colors to save the lives of troops being fired at by friendly artillery batteries – drawing concentrated enemy fire).
In Korea, 1951, PFC Noah O. Knight discovered enemy soldiers entering a friendly position. He had previously depleted his ammunition, stemming an enemy advance and causing heavy enemy casualties. PFC Knight rushed the soldiers, neutralizing two with his rifle butt, but was mortally wounded when the third enemy soldier detonated his explosives.
Adapted (and abridged) in part from “This Week in US Military History” by W. Thomas Smith Jr. at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Nov. 23 in US military history
A Marine from 1st Marine Division uses a flamethrower to clear a path through what was once a thick jungle in Tarawa - 1943 (USMC photo)
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.
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.
1943: Japanese-held Tarawa 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.” It takes several thousand Marines and about 76 hours to seize Tarawa.
Makin Atoll, 100 miles north of Tarawa, is also declared secure.
1944: The Seventh Army, commanded by Gen. Alexander Patch, captures Strasbourg, France.
1972: Peace talks between the US and North Vietnam secretly resume in Paris, but quickly reach an impasse.
Medal of Honor: On this date in 1944, near Moyenmoutier, France, 1st Lt. Edward A. Silk single-handedly silenced a German machine-gun position that had halted his battalion.
This series is adapted in part from W. Thomas Smith Jr.’s “This Week in US Military History” series published at Human Events.
In: Military History · Tagged with: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
